Fraud & Scams
Financial fraud, phishing, identity theft, scam alerts, data breaches, and how to protect yourself and your accounts.
Latest in Fraud & Scams
A bank stopped $158,000 in checks in a romance scam on a 77-year-old; a Georgia man got 33 months and owes $196,500
A 77-year-old woman in western New York was told to mail two checks totaling $158,000 to pay a fine in a romance scam, and her...
Utah prosecutors say a Taylorsville market gave a $315 check for $374 in SNAP charges; its co-owner faces a second-degree felony
A personal check for $315 sits at the center of a felony case against the co-owner of a Taylorsville grocery. Prosecutors say an informant ran...
FTC sent 9,419 refund checks to Trend Deploy PPE buyers that must be cashed within 90 days
The Federal Trade Commission has mailed 9,419 refund checks to people who bought masks and other protective equipment from Trend Deploy during the pandemic, and...
The consumer bureau backed a national financial literacy strategy on October 2 that names scams and fraud education one of four federal priorities
On October 2 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its support for the 2026 update of the National Strategy for Financial Literacy, a federal plan...
The SEC says a California adviser kept winning trades and gave clients the losers
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued an Encinitas, California, investment adviser on October 6, saying he kept the winning trades from his clients’ block orders...
A cyberattack on bank auditor Mercadien exposed data on 402,741 people, and nine banks and credit unions including Orrstown Bank have confirmed customers were hit
Mercadien, a Hamilton, New Jersey firm that audits banks and credit unions, told the Indiana attorney general in February that an intruder took personal data...
A court appointed a receiver on October 8 to liquidate four funds run by New York adviser SQN Capital and ordered its chief executive to pay a $200,000 SEC penalty over what the agency says were inflated valuations
A federal court in New York appointed a receiver on October 8 to liquidate four investment funds run by SQN Capital Management, and ordered the...
A $750,000 settlement with retirement-plan administrator PARS would pay about 23,337 data breach victims around $19 each, automatically, with opt-outs due December 1
About 23,337 people whose names and Social Security numbers may have been taken in a March 2024 cyberattack on Public Agency Retirement Services, known as...
Americold employees and job applicants notified of two data breaches have until October 22 to claim, with up to $25,000 for documented losses
People notified of either of two Americold data breaches have until October 22, ten days from now, to file a claim in a $5,250,000 class-action...
AT&T’s breach settlement cleared about 3.92 million claims on October 2 and rejected 1,099,732, including 804,381 flagged as fraudulent, with no money moving until the November 2 appeal window closes
A federal judge in Texas approved AT&T’s $177 million data breach settlement on October 2, and the claims count that came with the order shows...
CBIZ’s data breach settlement for a 19,990-person class is taking claims until Dec. 24
A mailed postcard carrying a LoginID and a PIN is the only key to a $485,000 settlement over a 2024 data breach at CBIZ, the...
Carter Federal Credit Union breach settlement claims are due Nov. 19
People whose Social Security, account or card numbers sat in files taken from Carter Federal Credit Union in June 2025 have until Nov. 19, 2026...
Bank customers notified of the Finastra file-transfer data breach have until Nov. 27 to file a settlement claim, with a final hearing set for Dec. 14
A bank software vendor that most of its affected customers never chose has agreed to a $3,125,000 settlement over a 2024 cyberattack, and the deadline...
A Florida accounting and operations manager admitted diverting more than $3.9 million in customer payments to pay for clothing, travel and electronics
Colleen Kieran, 57, of Clermont, Florida, has pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud for moving more than $3.9 million in customer payments out...
Ohio investigators recovered all $15,300 a 63-year-old lost to a crypto ATM scam
Ohio investigators recovered every dollar, $15,300, that a 63-year-old Allen County woman lost to a crypto ATM scam, Attorney General Andy Wilson’s office announced October...
A Ukrainian-Russian man admitted laundering money for hackers who raided over 750 U.S. bank accounts using more than 15,000 unwitting money mules
Oleg Korniev, a 42-year-old dual citizen of Ukraine and Russia, pleaded guilty on October 8 to running a laundering network that moved money stolen by...
A Canadian man got 33 months and must repay $256,000 for recruiting fake bail bondsmen in a grandparent scam aimed at about 20 elderly Americans
A federal judge in Vermont sentenced Paul Conneh, 39, of Moncton, New Brunswick, to 33 months in prison on October 6 and ordered him to...
Fake federal agents talked 24 California and Nevada victims out of $597,100 in cash, and the courier who collected it pleaded guilty October 5
Binghui Liu, 33, a Chinese citizen formerly of San Jose, pleaded guilty on October 5 to laundering about $597,100 in cash that he collected from...
A former Santander bank employee got 30 months for stealing more than $125,000 from a 78-year-old customer with dementia, wiring some of it to Portugal
A former Santander Bank employee in Rhode Island was sentenced on Oct. 8 to 30 months in federal prison for draining more than $125,000 from...
Pennsylvania to mail free chip SNAP cards to over 1.7 million recipients in late spring 2027
Pennsylvania plans to start mailing chip-enabled benefit cards to the more than 1.7 million people on SNAP, the program once known as food stamps, in...