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Over the past year, the Coronavirus created financial problems for many people. Maybe you’re one of them. As you work to regain your financial footing, scammers will continue to try to steer you off course. Here are a few ways to spot, stop, and report payment scams.

  • Asked to pay with gift cards? Don’t do it. Gift cards are the most common form of payment people use when losing money to scammers. Scammers often pose as legitimate companies, the government, or someone you know. They tell you to pay with a gift card — but only scammers do that. If you share a photo of the back of a gift card or read the numbers to anyone, your money will be gone. If anyone asks for payment by gift card, it’s a scam.
  • Asked to pay with digital money or cryptocurrency? Think twice. Payments by cryptocurrency are hard to trace and typically can’t be reversed. Once you pay with cryptocurrency, you likely can only get your money back if the person you paid sends it back. If that person is a scammer, you’ll be out of luck.
  • Asked to pay by money transfer? Don’t. Scammers often tell people to send money through money transfer companies like Western Union and MoneyGram, knowing it’s a lot like sending cash. Once you send it, it’s gone. Typically, there’s no way to reverse the transaction or trace the money. Don’t use money transfer payments with people and companies you don’t know.

Learn more about the financial impact of the Coronavirus. If you or someone you know lost money to a scammer, check out some quick steps to try and recover it. And if you’ve spotted a scam, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.  

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The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

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  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

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Judybg62
April 07, 2021
Thank you for the update.
728899
April 07, 2021
If you get a billing in your e-mail for something you did not purchase ignore it. It is a scam. Getting billings from Chase Bank, McAfee, and others saying they need my information to complete transaction. I send these e-mails to my spam box and watch my credit card statements and banking information daily
Maverick
April 07, 2021
I was contacted by letter from a company that said I need to send them $602.00 .They said that I owe on a HSBC card, but they wouldn't give me the account number, they said that I had to send them a payment before they could release any additional information about the card. I contacted the original card company, which told me that I don't owe any past credit cards.