Imposter scams have long been among the most lucrative for scammers. While there are many variations of this scam, the most common variations have involved scammers emailing their victims posing as a popular company with which we all do business or calling their intended victims on the telephone posing as some governmental agency such as the IRS or the Social Security Administration. The scammer then, under a wide variety of pretenses, demands an immediate payment by cryptocurrencies, gift cards, credit card or wired funds. Being asked to pay by gift cards or cryptocurrencies is a definite indication that the call is a scam since no company or governmental agency requests or accepts payments by gift cards or cryptocurrencies.
Recently the FBI field Office for South Carolina isued a warning about scammers posing as FBI agents calling their intended victims on the phone and telling them that they have missed federal jury duty or have an outstanding arrest warrant against them. The victim of the scam is told to expect a second phone call from another purported federal agent. In the second call, the vicitm is told to withdraw large sums of money and convert it to cryptocurrency at a cryptocurrency ATM and to send it through the ATM to the supposed account of the FBI. In another variation of this scam, the victims receive phony text messages purportedly from the FBI with links to documents that appear to come from the FBI, the federal district court or even the United States Supreme Court making the demands for payment.
TIPS
As I have often reminded you, whenever you are contacted by phone call, email or a text message you can never be sure who is actually contacting you. B.S. Be skeptical. Through the simple technique of “spoofing” it is very easy for a scammer to manipulate your Caller ID to make a call coming to you appear legitimate when it is not. Therefore you can never truly trust your Caller ID. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Email addresses can also be made to appear legitimate as can text messages when they are actually coming from a scammer.
Never click on a link, download an attachment, provide personal information or make a payment in response to an email, text message or phone call unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate.
As for this particular scam, it is important to remember that the FBI will never demand payment through gift cards, cryptocurrencies, wire transfers or cash deposits at cryptocurrency ATMs.
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