Some scams are just so outrageous that it is puzzling that people fall for them, however, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, scammers are contacting people and telling them that they can pay their bills through “secret accounts” or “Social Security trust accounts” using routing numbers from Federal Reserve Banks. The victims of the scam are told that in return for supplying their personal information including their Social Security number they will be given a bank account number at a Federal Reserve Bank that can be used to pay bills without having to pay anything into these accounts.
The truth is that individual people do not have accounts at the Federal Reserve Banks. These banks are only used by other banks for business purposes. Using the secret account number and routing number supplied by the scammers will not only result in a bounced check, but also identity theft.
TIPS
This is a good example of “if it sounds too good to be true, it is.” The victims of this scam will not gain access to a secret bank account, but will have supplied all of the information a criminal needs for purposes of identity theft. Never provide personal information to anyone unless you have confirmed that the transaction and the people with whom you are dealing are legitimate. In this case, neither are legitimate.