There are talks of a second round of stimulus checks being distributed to the nation. With the second round of stimulus checks comes a chance for more fraud. First, we will talk about the most common ways scammers obtain your money.
Probably the most frequent way they try to scam you out of your money is by online scams. Just this year alone, there have been over 120,000 online scams reported. The two main ways they attempt to scam you online is through texts and email. They will pretend to be part of the IRS or other government entities. They will ask you to confirm your personal information like your social security number, date of birth, address, and banking information. The IRS will only contact you by mail. They have been known to call, but not before sending you a notice through the mail. If you get asked to update your information through text or email, do not do so. Beware of any links in these text messages or emails. Check out our “How to spot bad emails” to help you look for these bad links.
Another way we are all very familiar is scam phone calls. It seems like we cannot go through our day without receiving one scam phone call. If you receive one of these scam phone calls, they will again pretend to be the IRS or other government agency. They will ask you to confirm your personal information so they can file a false tax return with your information and their bank information. Again, do not give out such information. Always double-check the source and if you are ever in doubt, go to the actual source yourself.
What happens when you give your information away in one of the listed scenarios, is you get your Identity Stolen. Once they have your identity, they pretend to be you and collect your check. There have been 3.2 million identity theft and fraud reports received in 2019. We don’t want you to become another statistic and lose your money.
You will always have to stay vigilant in the fight against scams. They are constantly changing and getting more complex every day. Just remember when in doubt DON’T CLICK!
