The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about scammers pretending to be from the FTC. They may send a badge as 'verification'
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about scammers pretending to be from the FTC. The con is so convincing, people are emptying their bank accounts thinking they are protecting their money.
Here’s how it works: You get a phone call or text message that appears to be coming from the Federal Trade Commission’s actual phone number in Washington, D.C. They tell you there’s a problem with one of your accounts, and they offer to help you protect your funds. The caller or texter may use the name of a real FTC employee, according to Emma Fletcher, a senior data researcher at the FTC.
“You may be able to search around and find references to those people, and that again makes it more convincing that you really are dealing with who they say they are,” said Fletcher. “But that's all part of the lie. ” Fletcher said the scam is very convincing because they’re spoofing, or faking, the real FTC phone number.
“Many people think of caller ID as something that you check to make sure that it's not a scammer, but unfortunately, scammers have ways of spoofing that,” said Fletcher. The FTC says when people think something is wrong with one of their accounts, they immediately want to fix it.
“They're trying to create this sense of alarm using a completely fake story,” said Fletcher. “We all get these sorts of alerts, so it can seem very real. And then once they have your attention, they will convince you that you need help. ” Instead of protecting their money, victims are unknowingly sending it directly to the scammers.
In some cases, the bad actors may text you a picture of an FTC badge as “verification,” something the real FTC says they will never do.
“I can't say the FTC will never call someone, but we're not generally going to call people out of the blue, and we are never ever going to tell you to move money to protect it,” said Fletcher. TIPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF:
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