You list an old couch on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. Within minutes, you get a text. The buyer is eager, polite, and ready to pay cash. There is just one catch: they want to “verify” that you are a real person and not a scammer. It sounds reasonable, right? We are all wary of bots these days.
They tell you they are going to send you a 6-digit code from Google, and they just need you to read it back to them to prove you are human. You see the code pop up on your screen. You send it. And just like that, you have handed them the keys to a new fraudulent identity created in your name. This is the Google Voice scam, and it is rampant because it exploits your desire to be helpful.
