First Cell Phone SMS Vishing

Just received my first SMS “Vishing.” Vishing is where you receive a text message on your cell phone which tells you to call a number for some reason – your credit card was blocked, or something similar. The message I received was:

8665379776@suneast.org()SunEast F.C.U (Card Blocked) Alert. For more information please call 1-866-537-9776. Thank you./

The first tipoff for me was that I do not have a SunEast account. I called the number (which also appears to be associated with another business) and it just rang endlessly, so I am not sure if their system is working quite right; but I believe what is supposed to happen is that a voicemail picks up indicating that you should leave a message with some personal information – your banking password, credit card number, SSN, etc – which then the criminals can use to their advantage.

Is this becoming more popular? This is the first one I received. I would imagine that the cost to send SMSes, which is pennies from services such as Clickatell, would be much more expensive than e-mail. However I would also think that it would get a higher return than an email phishing scam, since a cell phone message is generally trusted more than an email.