FTC Consumer Response Center 1-877-382-4357
We love social media these days. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many others can lead to lots of sharing and fun, but also carry significant risks.
It’s easy to think of our mobile banking apps as another gift from technology, helping make our lives more convenient. Banking apps provide customer-convenient access to our funds, 24/7/365.
Scammers have been calling, pretending to be people from the FTC. While the names they use might be real, they’re actually scammers — some of them hoping to trick you into thinking they’re an FTC Commissioner.
A money mule scam is when someone sends money to you and asks you to send a portion of it to someone else. They often ask you to use gift cards or wire transfers. The money they are providing you is likely stolen.
If you receive a WhatsApp message from a loved one asking for financial help, it’s a very good idea to become a bit of a private investigator before turning over any funds.
Immediately following weather-related disasters — like the devastating fires in California and the deadly flooding in Kentucky and surrounding states — scammers come out of the woodwork. As usual, they’re after your money and personal information.
When you go to your Facebook login page, you’re likely to see a pop-up window asking if you’d rather sign-in using your Google account credentials. It’s hard to resist…it’s easy, convenient, and you don’t have those pesky password problems.
Sorry to burst your bubble. That unexpected text from the Postal Service (USPS), Costco, or The Home Depot telling you about an unclaimed package or a survey you can complete to claim a freebie is NOT from them. It’s a scam.
Scammers are using invoices sent through PayPal.com to trick recipients into calling a number to dispute a pending charge. The missives — which come from Paypal.com and include a link at Paypal.com that displays an invoice for the supposed transaction — state that the user’s account is about to be charged hundreds of dollars. Recipients who call the supplied toll-free number to contest the transaction are soon asked to download software that lets the scammers assume remote control over their computer.
The FTC has been getting reports of people getting letters in the mail from a law firm. They are, they say, looking for the heir of a multi-million-dollar inheritance. And they think it might be you. (Spoiler alert: it’s not.)
A money mule scam is when someone sends money to you and asks you to send a portion of it to someone else. They often ask you to use gift cards or wire transfers. The money they are providing you is likely stolen.
Lately, it seems the Google Play Store is overrun with fake, malicious apps. It seems that way because lately, it’s true. Although the Store claims they’re vigilant about scanning apps for malware before making them publicly available, the Android app giant can’t seem to catch-up with bogus app scammers.
By now, most of us have at least one or two EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) cards. These are the payment cards that were touted as far more secure than the ones with the magnetic strips on the backs.
With email phishing, deciphering what’s real from what’s fake can be a challenge. Our inboxes are stuffed with emails fighting to get our attention and get us to take some action. But how to ferret-out what’s legitimate takes some cyber-smarts.
It seems every webpage you land on these days has an “Accept Cookies” pop-up. After all, what’s the big deal about a few cookies, so we click “Accept” and move on. Well, turns out it’s a bigger deal to accept cookies than most users realize.
Cybercrime opportunists quickly took advantage of a way of working that blew-up during the coronavirus pandemic. Working remotely from home was the answer and for many, still is. But, in no time, cyber-scammers saw the prospect of ripping-off remote job hunters.