During this past year, the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have reminded us how important it is to help each other through difficult times. In May, as we celebrate Older Americans Month, remember that one of the best ways to help your friends and family is to pass on what you know about how to spot and avoid Coronavirus-related scams.
Here are some things to share:
- COVID-19 vaccines are free. If anyone charges you for help signing up or the shot itself, it’s a scam.
- Scammers may pose as the government and contact you to ask for payment — in cash, gift cards, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency. The government will never ask you to pay in any of those ways, but scammers will.
- FEMA’s not reaching out to register you for the new U.S. government program to help with funeral costs of family members who died due to COVID-19. FEMA will not contact you before you register with them. Only scammers will.
- Shopping online is less of an adventure than it was early in the pandemic, but it still pays to do some checking before you buy. If you find yourself shopping on a site you don’t usually do business with, search online for their name plus “complaint,” “review,” and “scam.” See what others think of them before you hand over your credit card number.
- Think critically about your sources of information. When you’re looking for pandemic-related help, start with sites like coronavirus.gov and usa.gov/coronavirus to get the latest information directly from the government.
For more tips to share with your community, visit Pass It On and subscribe to Consumer Alerts. And if you spot a scam, report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Search Terms
Topics
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
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.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.