Fraud & Scams
Financial fraud, phishing, identity theft, scam alerts, data breaches, and how to protect yourself and your accounts.
Latest in Fraud & Scams
Medicare’s fall enrollment opens the door to scam calls, and seniors reported over $100 million in losses last year
Medicare’s Open Enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7, and every year that six-week window brings a surge of calls, texts and emails from...
Anyone caught in the Doxim data breach has until October 13 to file for up to $100
People whose personal information was exposed in the 2023 Doxim data breach have a limited window to claim money, and the clock runs out on...
Watch for IRS impersonators: the real agency mails first and never demands instant payment
IRS impersonation remains one of the most common ways scammers separate older Americans from their money, and the defense rests on a single fact: the...
A Georgia man was convicted of laundering nearly $3 million drained from elderly victims’ retirement savings
A federal jury in Georgia has convicted a Douglasville man of laundering more than $2.7 million stolen from victims of romance and online scams, money...
A free credit freeze blocks scammers from opening new accounts in your name
A credit freeze is one of the few fraud defenses that is both free and close to airtight, and federal regulators single it out as...
Debit-card fraud can empty your account, while a credit card caps your loss at $50
Two plastic cards can sit in the same wallet and carry wildly different protection when they fall into the wrong hands. Federal law caps a...
Banks must refund unauthorized electronic charges you report within 60 days of the statement
A stranger who drains a checking account through a debit card or an unauthorized transfer is not necessarily a loss the account holder has to...
Verify-first calls to a known number stop most grandparent and impostor scams
The most effective defense against a grandparent scam or an impostor call is also the cheapest: hang up and call back on a number already...
A Dominican call-center operator was extradited over an elder-fraud scheme that drained more than $5 million from 400 victims
An elder-fraud case that reached across an international border has landed a Dominican call-center operator in a U.S. courtroom, extradited to face charges tied to...
True World Holdings data-breach victims can claim a no-proof $50 before September 8
People whose personal data was caught up in the True World Holdings breach can claim a flat $50 with no documentation, and the window to...
Lands’ End data-breach victims can take a no-proof $60, or up to $5,000 documented, before October 22
People whose personal information was exposed in the Lands’ End data breach can now choose between a quick $60 cash payment that requires no documentation...
The FTC shut down a credit-repair network that took about $200 million and filed fake identity-theft reports in customers’ names
Federal regulators have moved to shut down a sprawling credit-repair operation that, they say, collected about $200 million from customers while quietly doing something that...
A Missouri woman was convicted of taking $66,000 of her mother’s Social Security while her mother lived overseas with dementia
A federal jury in Missouri has convicted a 50-year-old woman of stealing roughly $66,000 that belonged to her own mother, money drawn from the mother’s...
Port-out scammers steal your phone number to intercept the codes guarding your bank
A bank account can be drained without a password ever being guessed, because the weakest link is often a phone number rather than a login....
Bank of America customers hit by the MOVEit data breach can claim up to $100 before October 8
Roughly 200,000 Bank of America customers whose personal information was exposed in the 2023 MOVEit hack now have a way to collect a flat cash...
Chantix users can file a no-document claim from Pfizer’s $44 million settlement before September 14
Anyone who bought the prescription stop-smoking drug Chantix over a roughly six-year stretch has until September 14 to claim a slice of a $44 million...
Lock your my Social Security account to block a deposit-rerouting scammer in minutes
Social Security direct-deposit theft usually leaves no broken lock and no missing card. A thief who has gathered enough personal information can try to reroute...
Amazon Flex drivers who never cashed an FTC refund check are now being paid again by Zelle
The Federal Trade Commission is making another pass at getting money to Amazon Flex drivers, this time by depositing Zelle payments straight into the bank...
Jean Joseph got 20 years for running a $50 million Ponzi scheme from inside a federal prison
A Boca Raton man who kept a $50 million investment fraud running while sitting in a federal prison cell was sentenced this month to 20...
Kroger’s $17 million pharmacy-savings settlement repays members who overpaid, with a December 21 claim deadline
Kroger has agreed to pay $17 million to settle a class action claiming its pharmacies overcharged insured customers on prescriptions, and shoppers who qualify have...