With the holiday season upon us, many Americans will be anxious to travel and visit loved ones, possibly for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Unfortunately, with scams linked to the pandemic continuing to affect millions of Americans, the holidays are no time to let your guard down. Here are scams that holiday travelers and shoppers should be on the lookout for. 

Travel scams 

Air travel has been a nightmare the past six months. With hours on hold for customer service alongside vast cancellations and delays, consumers should be cautious when considering offers for accommodations, alternate travel arrangements, or other reimbursements—especially ones not coming from the original airline. Common scams, such as fake booking sites that take your money without providing the promised plane tickets or free vacations that suspiciously ask for your credit card information, will be prevalent this season. Even in a rush to make alternate accommodations following a last-minute cancellations, it is important to remain wary of any suspicious offers, websites, or reimbursements. 

Money-making scams 

Although COVID-19 has supercharged the growth of work-from-home employment, remote work scams have been around for decades. The combination of these factors has created what appears to be a distressing rise in work-from-home scams. That’s why it’s important to fully vet any remote business opportunity before investing. Be especially careful when receiving offers from entities that you have not previously worked for, individuals who are unable to provide evidence for their earnings claims, and arrangements that seem too good to be true. These are common signs that the company making the offer is not acting in good faith.  

Gift card resale scams 

Gift cards are historically one of the more popular holiday gifts. Scammers know this and are eager to take advantage through gift card resale scams. Consumers should beware if they come across unsolicited offers of payment in exchange for the numbers on the back of your gift cards. To reduce your risk of this scam, only accept payments for gift cards from trusted friends or family members. If you must sell the gift card to a stranger, using a known gift card exchange (such as Cardcash.com) can increase your chances of receiving legitimate offers. Anyone offering full dollar value (or higher) for a gift card is likely to be a fraudster. 

While we have covered a few different types of scams, they share common defenses:

• Be suspicious of offers from strangers. The old adage that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is a great rule of thumb. It is best to stick with the companies and individuals you have either already done business with or can otherwise verify their legitimacy. For example, compensation for a cancelled flight is likely to come from the original airline rather than an unknown user via Facebook direct message. 

• Protect your information. Sensitive information should never be given out before verifying the identity and legitimacy of the recipient. Vetting an unsolicited work-from-home offer before sending your social security number or ensuring that gift card codes are being sent to a reputable exchange market are a couple preventive measures consumers can take. 

• Do your research. Typically, legitimate offers can be easily verifiable. Contacting an airline directly to check the validity of compensatory travel or conducting a Google search of a company offering remote work are simple ways to prevent identity theft or monetary loss. Trust your instincts! If a site looks unusual or suspicious, if the URL contains a misspelled word, or if there are no outside references to this entity besides its own website, it’s probably best to stay away.

Be an ally in the fight against fraud! If you suspect that you or someone you know has become a victim of one of these scams or any other fraud, report it at once. You can file a complaint at Fraud.org via our online complaint form. We’ll share your complaint with our network of law enforcement and consumer protection agency partners who can investigate and help put fraudsters behind bars.

For the past 18 month, nurses have been on the front lines of helping ease the suffering of millions of Americans infected by COVID-19. Tragic stories of nurses holding cell phones and iPads up so that family members can say goodbye to dying loved ones have been among the most heart-wrenching anecdotes to come out of the pandemic. While most Americans have celebrated the heroism of these frontline healthcare workers, scammer have seen something else: a vulnerable target. 

A string of reports from state attorneys general and other enforcement agencies detail how impersonation scams have sought to prey on nurses and other health care practitioners. The set-up in these scams tend to be similar: A nurse is contacted via email, phone, postal mail, or text message by someone claiming to be with the nurse’s state Board or Medicine. The scammer informs the victims that their medical licenses have been suspended and demands immediate payment to prevent this from happening. 

In other cases, the scammer claims to be an FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration agent and claims that the victim is under investigation for “money laundering,” “opioid distribution,” “drug trafficking,” or another crime. The impersonator then demands immediate payment as a “bond” pending further investigation. 

For nurses and other healthcare professionals, their license and reputation in the medical community is critical to allowing them to do their jobs. And at a time when healthcare workers are already facing immense stress dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, scammers’ threats can be especially difficult to ignore. Scammers are also known to advise victims not to inform anyone else of the “investigation,” so as to avoid additional unpleasant consequences. 

Fraud.org is urging all nurses and healthcare workers to be aware of this scam and use the following tips to avoid falling victim: 

• If you are concerned about the status of your medical license, contact your state’s Board of Nursing or other professional licensure agency independently to verify your status; 
• Scammers are experts at making their communications appear to be credible, coming from a regulatory agency, law enforcement, state licensing board, or other official source. Caller ID information and email addresses are often “spoofed” to appear to be from such agencies. Some scammers have even used official watermarks on postal mail to make their claims look more convincing. 
• Do not provide personal information (Social Security number, date of birth, etc.) or professional information (medical license number, DEA license number, etc.) in response to a phone call, email, or other unsolicited communication; 
• If you receive a suspicious solicitation or other communication, make your healthcare colleagues aware. Scammers often target multiple victims in the same area or workplace. 
• Any request for urgent payment, by someone claiming to be a law enforcement or regulatory agency is almost certainly a scam. Be especially wary of requests for payment via wire transfer, bank-to-bank transfer, P2P payment apps, or gift cards. 

If you suspect that you or someone you know has become a victim of this scam or any other fraud, report it at once. You can file a complaint at Fraud.org via our online complaint form. We’ll share your complaint with our network of law enforcement and consumer protection agency partners who can investigate and help put fraudsters behind bars. 

 

If you’ve listened to the radio, watched TV, or checked the mail recently, chances are that you’ve seen at least one ad for back-to-school shopping. With the start of classes right around the corner, students and parents will soon be hitting the stores (both in person and virtually) to prepare for the new school year. Unfortunately, fraudsters know that young people are always on the lookout for discounts, particularly during the frenetic back-to-school season, and they’re all too eager to give you a “good deal.”

A student in Texas, “Mary” (we’ve changed her name to respect her privacy), wrote to Fraud.org recently with a story that is typical of this type of scam. Mary needed a new laptop for school. She believed that she would receive a MacBook Pro 2020 after sending a merchant a $950 payment through CashApp. However, after she sent the money, the seller blocked her and erased all history of their communications. Now, Mary is short nearly a thousand dollars and still needs a laptop for school.  

Mary is just one of the many young adults impacted by fraud. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), younger people aged 20 to 30 lose money to fraud more frequently than older consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this problem as consumers have turned in greater numbers to online shopping, creating more opportunities for fraudulent sellers. Adults aged 18 to 24 reported the highest median losses and the highest likelihood of loss over the past year to such scams, according to the Better Business Bureau’s annual Scam Tracker Risk Report.  

As the 2021-2022 school year approaches, students should be alert to ways scammers are targeting them. Here are some of the most common types of fraud impacting college students and tips on how to avoid falling victim:  

• Credit card scams. College students often fall for scams involving credit cards, from otherwise legitimate credit cards that hit card holders with unfavorable terms, fees, or interest fees to completely bogus credit card solicitations. Consumer can reduce their risk of these scams by applying for a card through their bank if possible and avoid filling out unsolicited credit card offers. 
• Property rental scams. College students are often the target of property rental scams where thieves pose as an individual selling or renting a property. The scammers solicit potential renters with promises that the homes will be rented to them once the payment is received. Once the potential renters pay the deposit, the scammer disappears. A student in Kentucky searching for close-to-campus housing reported to Fraud.org he was misled and scammed out of thousands of dollars by a fraudulent landlord. Protect yourself by never paying a deposit without seeing the property in person and evaluating a lease agreement. 
• Laptop and cell phone scams. Misleading and false advertisements for free and discounted merchandise often lead young adults to predatory websites offering free is deeply discounted electronics like iPhones, iPads, and other high-dollar hardware. Protect yourself by ordering through official sites instead of clicking on ads on social media.  
• Online textbook scams. These occur when fraudulent fraudsters create fake websites to offering attractive discounts on expensive textbooks. The consumer often never receives the textbook and suffers from being ill-prepared for class and out of the money they spent on the textbook. Protect yourself by purchasing or renting textbooks through your university bookstore or publishing companies and utilizing buy-back programs.  
• Scholarship scams. Scholarship scams lure in students looking for help paying for school tuition. These scams ask students to provide personal information or pay upfront fees for non-existent scholarships or for scholarship information that is already available for free. Protect yourself by visiting the Department of Education’s StudentAid.gov website to obtain free resources about scholarships and other financial assistance. 

If you or a student you know has been a victim of one of these scams or any other type of fraud, we urge you to file a complaint at Fraud.org via our online complaint form.

During the pandemic, more consumers than ever have turned to peer-to-peer payment apps to send money to friends and family, with usage expected to increase by 37 percent in 2021. With the rise of these services, there has also been an uptick in fraud, as scammers have embraced these nearly instant and often irreversible payments to defraud consumers.

One app in particular, Square Inc’s Cash App has become a particularly popular payment method among scammers. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), complaints involving payment via Cash App increased by 472 percent year-over-year in 2020. So far this year, the FTC received more complaints against Cash App (2,431) than other peer-to-peer services like Zelle (191) or Venmo (845).

These worrying trends are also reflected in the complaints we have received at Fraud.org. Complaints involving Cash App more than tripled during the second half of 2020, a trend that has continued 2021 as well.

The median loss reported in the complaints involving Cash App is about $500, though many consumers have reported losses in the thousands and some even in the tens of thousands of dollars.

In one particularly egregious case, a consumer from Texas reported losing $15,000. A consumer in Pennsylvania reported losing $5,000 after his wife fell victim while trying to activate her Cash App debit card. The PA couple was unable to get their money back because their bank pointed to the wife as having authorized the transaction.

Victims of fraud involving Cash App have been vocal about the lack of customer support they receive from the company.

Cash App’s customer service number leads to a recording encouraging callers to contact customer service through the app, saying “live phone support is not generally available at this time.” The recording goes on to advise listeners on scams, saying, “Please be aware that Cash App employees are often impersonated by scammers circulating fake phone numbers online.” This leaves frustrated victims of fraud to leave a message in the app and hope someone gets back to them.

Scammers have rushed in to fill the hole in Cash App’s customer support framework. The Central Virginia Better Business Bureau has reported it receives complaints about Cash App daily, mostly from users who have fallen victim to bogus Cash App support services. Fraudsters have pushed fake Cash App customer service numbers to rise to the top of Google Search results in an effort called “search poisoning.”

Fraudsters have also taken advantage of #CashAppFriday, a promotion on Twitter the company runs that offers giveaways to users who engage with the hashtag.

The scammers start their own threads or infiltrate legitimate ones, asking those that respond to send them a small amount of money with promises of sending back more. Any posting promising to “flip” your money is a scam, as Cash App does not engage in that practice.

You can reduce your risk of falling victim to Cash App scams. Here’s how:

1. Increase security measures. Enable the Security Lock setting that requires your passcode when making a Cash App payment. Turning on notifications that alert you by text message or email will also help keep track of payments. Adding two-factor authentication to your email associated with your Cash App account will also help secure your account.
2. Only send money to people you know and trust. Beware of scammers who ask for a small payment in exchange for free money. This is a scam. Do not send money via Cash App (or any other P2P payment app) to anyone you do not know personally.
3. Don’t share sensitive information. Real Cash App support representatives will not ask you to provide your sign-in code, PIN, or social security number. Also, be sure not to share personal information like your bank account or credit card information with anyone you do not know.
4. Only keep as much money in your account as you need. Remember that Cash App is not a bank and does not have the same regulations or protections for customers. Only put as much in your Cash App account as you need at the moment and keep the rest of your money in a more secure environment.
5. Ensure you are contacting Cash App customer service using the right channels. Cash App recommends speaking to a representative through the app or on the web at app/help. If you are unable to get through to someone using the app which many people have pointed out is common, call 1-800-969-1940. Beware of fake Cash App customer support phone numbers that may appear in online search results or advertisements.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of a Cash App scam or any other type of fraud, we urge you to file a complaint at Fraud.org via our online complaint form.

The hottest fraud of 2020, according to the FTC, was imposter scams — when criminals impersonate a government official, a law enforcement officer, a business, or a trusted friend or family member to trick victims into sending money. A new form of the scam we’re seeing is con artists posing as court representatives, telling people they have missed a court date or failed to show up for jury duty and intimidating victims into paying bogus fines by threats of arrest.

Libby, a consumer living in Washington, DC, recently became one such victim and agreed to share her story with us. Libby was contacted by someone posing as a police sergeant who claimed to be reaching out because she had missed a court summons. The scammers impressed upon her that she could be arrested and held for 72 hours if she failed to cooperate. Horrified, and thinking of her young son, Libby urgently needed to take care of the matter to ensure she was able to continue to care for him.

Still, Libby made sure to do her due diligence by trying to verify what the scammers were telling her. In addition to providing personal information about Libby, like her address and profession, the scammers used legitimate names of local law enforcement and court officials. When the information they provided checked out, Libby thought it was plausible she had missed a mailing alerting her to appear in court during such a chaotic year. The scammers then transferred Libby to what they claimed was their billing department and instructed her to transfer money to a Treasury Department account. They warned Libby against taking pictures of the transactions, threatening her with retaliation if she “broke the law.” In the end, Libby lost $2,500 to the imposter scam, not to mention the emotional distress she endured from the encounter.

Stories like Libby’s are, unfortunately, not uncommon. The United State Courts have warned people for years of these long-running imposter scams. According to the Federal Trade Commission government imposter scams more than doubled between Q2 and Q4 of 2020 after steadily declining for a year. Localities all over the country are reporting an uptick in jury duty scams.

The best way for consumers to avoid falling victim to this type of imposter scam is to understand the following red flags:

1. Scammers may use aggressive tactics like urging you to act quickly and threatening you with jail time. Slow the conversation down. Give yourself time to verify the information they provide and contact your local law enforcement.
2. Our personal information, as well as contact details for local law enforcement and court officers, is readily available online. Scammers use these details to add legitimacy to their claims. Just because the person on the phone has some accurate information about you doesn’t mean what they are telling you is legit.
3. Fraudsters may demand money through wire transfer or gift cards. Money sent via these hard-to-track methods cannot be easily recovered. If someone calls you asking for payment via one of these methods, it is almost certainly a scam.
4. Court officials and local law enforcement will never tell you that you cannot have a receipt for proof of payment. If someone is insisting that’s the case, it is probably a scam.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of a stimulus check scam or any other type of fraud, we urge you to file a complaint at Fraud.org via our online complaint form.