BY JAMEY TUCKER, Consumer Technology Reporter

These days, it’s best to treat every unexpected message about money as a scam. Especially if it tells you to ‘click here’ to claim your payment.

That includes the Facebook, or Meta, settlement. Some of those messages are real, but scammers are piggybacking on them.

A friend sent me this text message that looked suspicious. He was right to question it. In this case, the text message was legitimate. Here’s how you can tell.

The official sender is “donotreply@facebookuserprivacysettlement.com. If it’s from another address, it’s fake, so ignore it.

The official message won’t request your banking logins, social security numbers, or debit card

information.

It’ll be a link only and will arrive to you as a pre-paid Visa, Mastercard, Venmo, or Pa

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