Yahoo Finance How To Protect Your Cash From These Common Scams in 2024
No matter the time period, there are always scammers trying to steal your money and your personal information. With new tools emerging every day, such as AI, scams are getting harder to detect.
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Most of the latest scams making their rounds in 2024 have roots in previous swindles, but the fraudsters have changed them up enough to catch unsuspecting consumers off guard. Learn more about these increasingly common tricks and how to protect yourself from being scammed.
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AI Scams
AI tools are not only being used for good, but to improve the ways criminals engage in fraud. Aaron Engel, the chief information officer for ExpressVPN, told GOBankingRates, “AI-powered tools, like voice cloning and deepfakes, enable fraudsters to produce realistic audio and video content, making their scams more believable and harder to detect.”
A few common ones going around now are:
Voice Cloning Scams: These scams will clone the voice of you or someone you know using AI and leave messages asking for money or personal information. Be sure to verify identities before you give away any personal information or money.
Job Scams: Scammers use AI to create false job postings and even conduct fake interviews to obtain your personal information. Always verify that you’re dealing with real people at a real company.
Phishing Scams: These scams utilize AI to create fake emails that look real, claiming to be from places like from your bank, the government, digital payment services you use, like PayPal or Venmo, and so on.
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Check Cooking
In this digital age, it makes sense that scammers would figure out how to use technology to digitally alter checks, which the FBI calls “check cooking.”
Using sophisticated technology, scammers will take photos of your checks and then digitally change key details, so they can use them to write checks from your account. They may start with small amounts that are easy to miss, but eventually, you may find yourself out thousands of dollars.
The FBI suggests that if you must use paper checks, don’t mail them from home, check your mail daily to be sure it isn’t stolen and monitor your accounts for suspicious activity. Otherwise, they suggest you consider alternate forms of payment.
Debt Relief Scams
If you get an offer that looks too good to be true from a company offering to get debt forgiven, lower your credit card interest rate or improve your credit score for a small upfront fee, it’s likely a scam.
Never give out your personal information to anyone making such an offer until you can verify whether they are legitimate. Better yet, contact your own bank, credit union or well known debt relief agency to pursue help.
Fake Package Delivery Problems
If you’ve ever received a text from a delivery service, be it the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS or another, saying there’s been a problem with your delivery and you’re not expecting one — it’s a scam. The link will likely take you to a realistic looking site where you’ll be asked for some kind of “redelivery fee” to get your credit card info.
Even if you do have a package out with the company, don’t click the link or call any number they’ve provided. Go look at the confirmation emails or your online account history for any orders you’ve placed, and call numbers or track progress from those only.
Gift Card Scams
Gift cards are popular with scammers, because they’re easy for people to find and buy — and they have fewer protections for buyers, compared to some other payment options. They’re like cash: Once the card is used, the money on it is gone.
There are two main gift card theft scenarios. The first is a gift card payment scam, where a criminal convinces a consumer to pay a fake financial obligation by purchasing gift cards and sharing the numbers off the backs with the scammer. Another involves zero-value gift cards, where the scammer pays a consumer with a gift card that has no funds on it.
Cryptocurrency Scams
As cryptocurrencies continue to grow in popularity, so do crypto scams. These can take different forms but often involve fake prizes, contests, giveaways or early investment opportunities. The scammers may impersonate celebrities or popular cryptocurrency websites to lure victims into sending them money, sharing login information or “investing” in a project.
Other times, fraudsters pretending to be government officials or sweepstakes agents request cryptocurrency ATM payments for fake fees or bills. The cryptocurrency bought at the ATMs gets sent to untraceable digital wallets, leaving you with no recourse to get your money back.
Employment Scams
Employment scams use enticing, hard-to-detect approaches to target people who’ve been out of work. Some scammers take a slow approach, offering job interviews for a seemingly legitimate business. They then collect personal information from your application and onboarding forms or from resumes on job websites like Indeed or ZipRecruiter.
Other scams promise guaranteed or easy income — if you purchase their program or buy equipment or training.
Fake Amazon Employee Scams
Swindlers will impersonate any type of retail employee but, according to AARP, the Federal Trade Commission reports that one-third of business imposter fraud is committed by people claiming to be Amazon employees. Because Amazon is the biggest retail entity, people trust these “Amazon” fraudsters.
Aside from common scams in the form of emails and text messages that contain links to websites that look like they may be from Amazon.com but aren’t, recent consumer alerts have detailed rampant scams involving a fake Amazon employee phishing for consumers’ credit card or bank account information to commit identity theft.
The caller will say there’s a problem with your account, a failed credit card payment or a lost package. They will then ask you for your credit card and account details to access your personal information. They may also request remote access to your computer to help solve the problem.
P2P Payment Scams
P2P, or peer-to-peer, payment scams use apps like Zelle, Venmo and Apple Pay. Because these platforms are fast and convenient, they have gained a loyal following among consumers and fraudsters alike.
These money thefts can take several forms, including requests for payment via a P2P payment service for a product, the promise of a check — which will turn out to be fake, if it arrives at all — or as part of a dating site/romance scam.
Victims of these types of scams mistakenly think that P2P systems have similar protections as a debit or credit card, since many are affiliated with banks. However, P2P transactions take seconds and often cannot be canceled, so it is extremely difficult to get money refunded.
Google Voice Scams
Scammers target people who post things for sale on sites like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. They also prey on people who post looking for help finding their lost pet, according to AARP. This scam works like this: The scammers contact you and say they want to buy the item you’re selling or that they found your pet.
But before they commit to buying your item, or returning your pet, they feign hesitation. They might say they’ve heard about fake online listings and want to verify that you’re a real person or the pet’s true owner. They tell you that you are about to get a verification code from Google Voice sent to you and ask you to read it back. Then they use that information to set up a Google Voice account in your name — and go on to scam other people using your information.
When it comes to criminals trying to get your personal information and money, use common sense and continue to monitor your identity.
Romance Scams
Romance scammers will steal more than your heart. Dating apps pride themselves on being private, which works in the favor of a scammer who wants to remain relatively undetected while gaining your trust.
This increasingly popular scam among cyber criminals involves people contacting victims online, lavishing them with attention — and then asking them for money. A lot of money. According to the Federal Trade Commission, people have lost $1.14 billion in romance scams.
Some scammers will attempt to steal an individual’s identity to build multiple profiles throughout dating sites and use them to lure victims. One tip specific to this scam is to do a reverse image search on Google for association with alternate names/identities.
Protecting Yourself
Again, fraudsters will try anything to get your money. But they can’t get it if you follow a few basic security measures to protect yourself from the latest and most common scams.
Always be skeptical when a stranger calls you.
Enable multifactor authentication for all your accounts.
Don’t give any personal or financial information upon an unexpected request.
Research companies before making a purchase or donation or applying for a job.
Resist the pressure to act immediately.
Be careful with your phone and block all unwanted calls and messages.
Don’t pay someone you don’t know personally with a gift card or money transfer, and don’t refund or overpay anyone using these payment methods.
David Nadelle contributed to the reporting for this article.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How To Protect Your Cash From These Common Scams in 2024
