Financial Scams

Financial crimes have surged with the rise of digital transactions. Scammers are constantly evolving their tactics to exploit vulnerabilities in online and mobile payment systems. Here's a brief list of some of the most common financial scams causing monetary losses today:

Text Messages. The use of fraudulent text messages to initiate scams has become one of the most frequently reported methods of initial contact with victims. The fraudulent text messages claim to originate from several legitimate businesses reporting a problem and they provide a hyperlink to a customer service portal, a tracking service, or a "secure" payment portal that will help to resolve the issue. Commonly spoofed companies are the US Postal Service (USPS), PayPal, EZ-Pass and FEDEX. They use hyperlinks that redirects the victims to a website or downloads malware, compromising their device.

Computer Pop-ups. In a computer-based scam, the victim may receive a warning pop-up on their computer directing them to call a customer service hotline, to download a program, or to allow the scammer remote access to the victim's computer. The scammer may pretend to run a virus scan on the victim's computer or falsely claim the computer has been or is at risk of being hacked. Once a scammer gains access to a victim's computer and financial accounts, they can create the appearance of unauthorized charges or overpayments on reimbursements to initiate their scam.

Fund Transfer. Scammers typically direct the victim to transfer money via a wire transfer or by purchasing cryptocurrency. Victims may be directed to take their cash directly to a Bitcoin ATM to make the purchase. The scammer may instruct the victim to send multiple transactions over a span of days or months to obfuscate the movement of significant funds over $10K (USD). Victims have also been directed to purchase large quantities of gift cards, and then to furnish the card numbers over the phone, or via email or text.

Couriers. More than half of the reported cases in NYS involved the use of couriers who arrive at the victim's residence or at a prearranged drop site to secure large sums of cash, gold bars, or gift cards.

If you or anyone you know has fallen victim to a crime, please contact your local Police Department, and depending on the crime contact IC3.gov, to report the incident.