fraudwatch

  • Spot the Scam: Debit Card Scams

    Debit card and bank information—they’re a lot more vulnerable than you might think.

  • Spot the Scam: Public Wi-Fi Scams

    Public Wi-Fi gives scammers plenty of opportunities to steal your information.

  • Spot the Scam: Smishing Scams

    We send a lot of text messages, but so do scammers. Anyone with a smartphone can be a victim. You think you’re resetting you password, but you’ve given them your account information.

  • Meet Sid Kirchheimer, AARP’s Scam Fighter

    Kirchheimer, 59, is the son of German-born Holocaust survivors who are understandably distrustful of authority figures and people they don’t know. Kirchheimer honed his skepticism while working as a reporter for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Florida and Colorado. “It really does bother me when hard-working folks lose money to the dishonest and deceitful,’’ Kirchheimer said.

  • 2 New Twists in IRS Impostor Scams

    In one ploy scammers posing as IRS agents are phoning citizens about a supposed tax debt, but are now claiming that the agency has already mailed them two certified letters about overdue taxes and that those letters were returned as “undeliverable.” In these phone calls, fraudsters threaten immediate arrest unless immediate payment is made—with a prepaid debt card only. Swindlers falsely claim that prepaid debit cards are required to be linked to the government’s Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), an automated system for paying federal taxes electronically using the internet or by phone using the EFTPS voice response system. EFTPS is offered free by the U.S. Treasury Department and does not require the purchase of a prepaid debit card.

  • Phony ‘IRS’ Threatens Fines

    An alert AARP member recently got a call from an “IRS agent” and right away sensed something was phony. The agent left a voice mail message saying back taxes were owed and told the man to call back right away. The AARP member contacted me instead, and I returned the call, posing as him.

  • New Social Security Scam Making the Rounds

    Financial scams involving people pretending to be government employees aren’t restricted only to those Internal Revenue Service phone schemes so prevalent in recent years. Now there’s a new scam making the rounds, one in which criminals try to defraud people out of their Social Security checks. Gale Stallworth Stone, the acting inspector general of Social Security, is warning citizens about a scheme that goes like this: Someone posing as a Social Security Administration (SSA) employee calls from a phone number with a 323 area code.

  • Don’t Fall Prey to These Amazon Phishing Scams

    Beware of these convincing phishing scams that threaten Amazon shoppers. After entering that sensitive data and hitting the Save & Continue tab, consumers are stealthily redirected to the actual Amazon website, none the wiser that they just gave cybercrooks carte blanche to their plastic. Rather than ever clicking on an embedded link from Amazon (or any other online retailer), go to Your Orders to determine if there is an order that matches the details in an email.

  • 8 Military-Themed Impostor Scams

    The latest con campaign against veterans: an impostor phone number that mimics that of the Veterans Choice Program (VCP), which allows certain vets to use approved health care providers outside of the VA system. When callers inadvertently misdial the area code, say, dialing 800 instead of 866 or 877, they are told they won a prize or are eligible for complimentary or low-cost products and services. In one recent example, an 800-606-8198 impostor line differed only in the toll-free code from the actual VCP’s phone number (866-606-8198), used to verify eligibility or get information.

  • The Hidden Dangers of Free Public Wi-Fi

    Free public wireless networks may come at a steep price—the theft of your finances and identity. Many of these public Wi-Fi networks lack strong security protections, making it easy for hackers to capture passwords and gain access to your credit card and bank account information as you shop or conduct other financial transactions online. To educate consumers about the risks and ways to protect themselves, the AARP Fraud Watch Network launched the “Watch Your Wi-Fi” campaign.

  • “Smishing” Self-Defense: How to Prevent Trouble That Comes in Text Messages

    Each day about 20 billion text messages are sent to two billion smartphone users worldwide. The massive number of text messages and their rapid-fire response rate (by comparison, only one in four email messages are opened within 10 minutes of arrival) amount to an unbridled opportunity for fraudsters exploiting the du jour device for deception: the handheld computer that also happens to make phone calls, which many of us carry or have nearby 24/7. Called smishing (named after short messaging service technology that sends text messages), it’s an attempt to trick you into revealing private information via SMS or text message.