The government and a cybersecurity expert are warning of further stimulus payment scams.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), part of the U.S. Treasury Department that fights financial crimes, listed some of the most common Economic Impact Payment (EIP) frauds in a recent statement.
Stimulus payments are the third and largest Coronavirus aid package in the past 12 months.
The government and a cybersecurity expert are warning of further stimulus payment scams.
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Fraudulent checks: Fraudsters send fraudulent checks with instructions to call a number or check information online. Then, the crooks ask for personal or banking information “under the pretext that the information is necessary to receive or speed up your EIP,” said the FinCEN adviser. The information is then used to commit crimes such as identity theft and unauthorized access to bank accounts.
Payment theft: such thefts may include stealing an EIP from US mail or requesting payment from an ineligible person or requesting payment from another person without the recipient’s knowledge, according to FinCEN.
Inappropriate seizure of payments: A private company that controls a person’s finances seizes that person’s EIP and does not return the seized payments.
Phishing: fraudsters engage in phishing – apparently authentic communications from banks and other trusted entities – using emails, letters, phone calls and text messages containing keywords such as “COVID-19” and “Stimulus”. The goal is to obtain confidential personal and financial account information, such as account numbers and passwords.
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“We’ve seen these attacks happen before,” Evan Reiser, CEO of cybersecurity company Abnormal Security, told Fox News, referring to the phishing attacks.
“When the first stimulus payments were launched in April 2020, scammers launched a phishing campaign that impersonated the IRS, claiming that stimulus checks would be withheld unless the recipient updated their address information,” said Reiser. .
The victims were directed to a fake IRS login page that asked for credentials to update the requested information and receive a check.
“Those who were victims of the attack effectively gave their usernames, passwords … which could allow attackers to steal the stimulus check and / or inflict additional financial damage,” said Reiser.
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The schemes target the most vulnerable Americans who have been laid off or reduced their hours, according to Reiser.
Some of the most common scams are so-called “out-of-domain impersonation” techniques, in which scammers run fraudulent websites that appear to be legitimate.
Small adjustments to domain names – for example, adding an “s” to the end of a domain name – make them look legitimate.