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Written By:
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Joe Johnson spent hours on websites trying to set an appointment to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Then he received a text saying that the county health department was offering shots for a small fee. Johnson clicked on the message, was redirected to a website, set a date and entered his credit card number. He waited several days for a confirmation that never came. Johnson contacted the health department, where officials told him they didn’t have a record of his appointment and that they didn’t charge for vaccines. He then found the fraudsters had billed his online credit card statement. Johnson was conned. And he still wasn’t vaccinated.
This case is fictional, but it represents a typical COVID-19 vaccine scam.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reminding the public that COVID-19 vaccines are free. Fraudsters are often loading malware onto victims’ computers and stealing personally identifiable information (PII) by selling supposed shots online. (See Covid Vaccines are FREE! by Colleen Tressler, FTC, April 20, 2021.)
“Ignore online ads, social media posts, or phone calls from people offering to sell you the COVID-19 vaccine,” Tressler writes. “You can’t buy it [in the U.S.] — anywhere. The vaccine is only available at federal- and state-approved locations.”
The FTC recommends:
Fraudsters are stealing money, often loading malware onto victims’ computers and stealing personally identifiable information by selling supposed shots online.
Grandparent scams have been around for years. Fraudsters continually come up with new versions to promote their revenue streams. The FTC is reporting a new twist. (See Don’t open your door to grandparent scams, by Emily Wu, FTC, April 13, 2021.)
In the common grandparent scam, a fraudster — who masquerades as a grandson or granddaughter in distress — calls a grandparent for help in resolving a problem. For example, the “grandkid” might say that he or she is in a different country on vacation, has been arrested for some minor crime and needs money for bail. The fraudster avoids parents’ involvement by telling the grandparent to keep the conversation a secret.
The fraudster normally asks the grandparent to buy gift cards or to wire money to resolve the problem. But in this new version, the fraudster asks for cash and then tells the grandparent that someone will pick it up.
But wait a minute. The scam might not be over yet. Sometimes, the fraudster — pretending to be a lawyer — will call the victim grandparent a second time to demand wired money to represent the “grandkid” in court. Success breeds success!
Fraudsters frequently grab information about families from grandparents’ oversharing on social media websites.
To avoid these scams and protect your PII, the FTC advises:
The pandemic has left many Americans unemployed. Of course, fraudsters are posting online ads for work-at-home jobs and other fake positions. Sometimes, they trick victims into thinking jobs are associated with government agencies and well-known companies. (See Don’t let job scams block your path forward, by Lisa Lake, FTC, April 9,2021.)
The FTC offers advice to help protect consumers:
Include these scams in your outreach programs and with your family, friends, business associates and ACFE chapter meetings. Please contact me if you have any questions or identity theft or cyber-related issues that you would like me to research and possibly include in future columns or as feature articles. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ll do my best to help. I might not get back to you immediately, but I’ll reply. Stay tuned!
Robert E. Holtfreter, Ph.D., CFE, is a distinguished professor of accounting and research at a university in the Pacific Northwest. He’s a member of the Accounting Council for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a research consulting organization, and is a member of the White-Collar Crime Research Consortium Advisory Council. He’s also on the ACFE Advisory Council and the Editorial Advisory Committee. Holtfreter was the recipient of the Hubbard Award for the best Fraud Magazine feature article in 2016. Contact him at doctorh007@gmail.com.
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