Remember when the two biggest “frauds” in your lives were the dreaded chain letter and the 12-cassettes-for-a-penny club from Columbia House? That innocent penny hooked us into buying recorded music for the rest of our lives if we didn’t frantically run to the post office and mail back the month’s music choice that was sooo not your style.
Don’t lie, your first penny order included at least one of these: Meat Loaf, The Police, Toto or Fleetwood Mac, right? Can you still hear your mother’s voice in your head when you ask her for an envelope and stamp to mail in your order form from the newspaper ad? “If it’s too good to be true, it ain’t, honey.”
Anyone born after 1990 right now is wondering what we’re talking about and what the heck is a stamp and a newspaper ad?
The stakes have certainly gotten higher in the fraud department, haven’t they? Just this week, I’ve noted a fake email from my bank, the Internal Revenue Service and a bogus DocuSign that looked so incredibly like the system used at work that it nearly fooled me. What’s a person to do and who can they trust? Sometimes it takes the deductive reasoning skills of a detective just to read the day’s emails.
The Federal Trade Commission reports that consumers lost more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023 alone. This was an increase of 21% over the previous year. While the 2024 statistics have yet to be released, an increase wouldn’t be a surprise. The scams are getting more sophisticated every year. Even FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has recently been the victim of scammers trying to impersonate him. It’s safe to say that no one is immune to this deceptive and dishonest shadow industry.
Here are some helpful tips:
- Freeze your credit at the big three credit bureaus. This prevents anyone from trying to apply for credit in your name. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion all have websites you can visit, and selecting a credit freeze is as simple as choosing a setting on your phone. Just remember to unlock the freeze if you need to apply for credit yourself. It really is as simple as sliding a button.
- Utilize the preview function on your email. If it looks fishy, don’t open it. If it comes from your bank, financial institution or other place you do business, visit their app or website directly and don’t follow any hyperlinks from an unsolicited email. Go directly to the app or website and log in. If you have any legitimate correspondence from your bank or lenders, a copy will be stored there, too. Look for an icon that looks like an envelope or a bell for any notifications.
- Don’t answer any solicitation from the Internal Revenue Service or Social Security without the .gov domain in the email address. Email addresses using .com, .org. .net are not from the legitimate government agency. Dot-gov domains are only available to United States-based government organizations and are verified by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
It’s tax season, so we should all be on our toes for fraudsters working to help us part with our hard-earned money. Caution and a bit of detective skills will suit us well going forward. It really can be “elementary, my dear Watson” with a few careful steps added before clicking that next email or text link.