iPhone Calendar Scams Are On The Rise. How To Spot And Stop Them

You might already keep a weather eye out for phishing emails, dodgy texts, and suspicious calls. 

But it seems scammers have found an unlikely new way into your phone: your calendar app. 

Cybersecurity company Malwarebytes raised the alarm about the “fake calendar invites” back in November of last year. 

Since then, the trend seems only to have risen. 

What is the phone calendar scam?

It involves fake invites sent to your device’s calendar that you often can’t delete, or that come back no matter how many times you get rid of them. 

Apple lists “unwanted Calendar invitations and subscriptions” among possible phishing attempts to look out for.

These invites might say something really attention-grabbing, like “impending payment” or “phone security compromised”; they could ask you to call a number, and they may sometimes contain a link. 

On iPhones, “the spam alerts generally don’t require an app to be installed, so they can fill up a user’s calendar without passing through the App Store and show up directly in a user’s iOS notifications,” Newsweek said. 

That can be a sneaky way to get around Apple’s strict security rules.

Once these invites have been sent, scammers hope that their victims will panic and click the link or call the number included in the entry. 

From there, they might try to get your banking details, sell you an overpriced product, or get you to install software that’ll give them enough details to access your accounts. 

Whatever they try after you click a link or call a number, scammers almost certainly will be after money. Don’t click or call these.

How can I spot an iPhone calendar scam?

If you notice unexpected calendar invites, especially those with alarming names and/or phone numbers or links, that’s a huge red flag. 

“If you’re suspicious about an unexpected message, call or request for personal information, such as your email address, phone number, password, security code or money, it’s safer to presume that it’s a scam – contact that company directly if you need to,” Apple said.

How can I get rid of scam calendar invites? 

Apple says people with iPhone iOS 14.6 and later should: 

• Open Calendars, 
• Tap the event you want to get rid of, 
• Tap “unsubscribe from this Calendar”, which should appear at the bottom of the screen, 
• Tap “unsubscribe” to confirm. 

And if your iPhone uses an earlier iOS: 

• Open the Calendars app, 
• Tap Calendars in the bottom part of the screen, 
• Tap the More info button next to any calendar you don’t recognise or want, 
• Scroll down and tap Delete Calendar. 

If that fails, try to: 

• Open Settings, 
• Tap Calendar > Accounts, or, for iOS 13, tap Passwords & Accounts > Accounts, 
• Tap Subscribed Calendars, 
• Look for calendars you don’t recognise or want and tap them, 
• Select “delete account”.