Fraud & Scams
Financial fraud, phishing, identity theft, scam alerts, data breaches, and how to protect yourself and your accounts.
Latest in Fraud & Scams
Fake unpaid-toll texts are spreading nationwide, and forwarding them to 7726 helps report the sender
A text claiming that a small unpaid toll will trigger a large late fee can turn a few dollars of invented debt into a stolen...
A Wisconsin woman lost about $400,000 to a gold-courier scam; national losses top $262 million
A Wisconsin resident lost approximately $400,000 after criminals persuaded her that her money was unsafe, pushed her to liquidate a brokerage account and sent couriers...
Government-impersonation complaints topped 330,000 last year, up 25%, and the real agency never suspends your Social Security number
Government impersonation has become a mass-market theft system built around a false administrative crisis. Federal data recorded more than 330,000 complaints in 2025, a 25%...
No court or government agency will ever tell you to pay a bill or fine through a Bitcoin ATM
No legitimate court, tax agency, utility company, or police department accepts payment through a Bitcoin ATM. That single fact is worth more to a retiree’s...
Port-out scammers steal your phone number to intercept the codes guarding your bank
The money at stake in a phone-number takeover is roughly everything a bank account will let a thief move in a single afternoon. Criminals who...
Scammers now pose as the agents who can recover your stolen money, and any upfront fee is the tell
The cruelest fraud aimed at retirees no longer targets people with money to lose. It targets people who have already lost it. Federal investigators are...
Comcast customers can claim $50 with no proof from a $117.5 million data-breach settlement before September 14
A $117.5 million settlement over a 2023 cyberattack on Xfinity is paying former and current Comcast customers a flat sum of about $50 with no...
Medicare warns of a “new card” scam demanding your number before benefits switch
A caller says a new Medicare card is on the way, then explains that benefits cannot switch over until the recipient reads back the number...
Locking your my Social Security account blocks a deposit-hijack scammer in about two minutes
The Social Security Administration lets account holders freeze the electronic side of their record in about the time it takes to read a benefit letter,...
Social Security will no longer switch your direct deposit over the phone, a fraud block you clear online or in person
The Social Security Administration has closed one of the oldest routes that thieves used to steal retirement checks: a beneficiary can no longer redirect a...
Splitting cash deposits to avoid the $10,000 report can trigger a suspicious-activity filing
The legal problem with a series of cash deposits is not that each falls below $10,000. It is the purpose behind dividing them. When transactions...
Report a stolen debit card within two business days and federal law caps liability at $50
A stolen debit card creates a deadline measured from discovery, not from the day a monthly statement arrives. Federal electronic-transfer rules limit a consumer’s liability...
Four scammers admitted stealing over $5 million from 400 seniors through fake family emergencies
Four men have pleaded guilty in a transnational grandparent-scam operation that federal prosecutors say stripped more than $5 million from more than 400 older Americans....
AI voice-cloning “grandchild in trouble” calls are rising, and a family code word can stop them
A phone rings, and on the line is the unmistakable voice of a grandchild, panicked and crying, saying they have been in an accident or...
A new Georgia law lets banks freeze a suspected scam transfer for up to 15 days to protect people over 65
When an older customer walks into a bank insisting on wiring their life savings to a stranger, a teller who senses a scam has long...
Medicare warns of a “new card” scam and says it isn’t issuing new cards this year
The pitch sounds official and even helpful: a caller says Medicare is sending out a new card, and all the recipient needs to do is...
Crypto-ATM and QR-code scams drained $333 million last year, and people over 60 lost most of it
Bitcoin ATMs were pitched as a convenience for buying digital currency at a gas station or grocery store, but they have become the collection plate...
The FTC is mailing more than 1 million refund checks to customers of the Brigit cash-advance app
More than a million former customers of the Brigit cash-advance app are receiving refund checks this summer, the latest payout from a Federal Trade Commission...
Freeze your credit for free to block identity thieves from opening accounts in your name
A credit freeze is the strongest free tool an American has to stop identity thieves from opening new accounts, and federal law has made it...
Scammers can hijack your phone number in a “port-out” fraud to intercept your bank codes
A stolen phone number has quietly become one of the fastest routes into an older American’s bank account. In a port-out scam, a criminal poses...