The Scams
The United States’ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has received more than 17,000 complaints from U.S. consumers who reported total losses in excess of $13 million from Coronavirus scams.
Most crimes reported fall under a rather broad category of fraud with 9,634 complaints with 46.4% of them reporting a loss. It’s safe to say that the official figures don’t paint the whole picture, however, as many scams go unreported. Scams have included impersonation of local and international health authorities such as the World Health Organization, as well as creating bogus online shops to sell non-existent face masks.
What You Can Do
It’s more important than ever to remain vigilant and verify everything, even if it appears to be on the up and up at first glance. Here are some tips that we hope can help you:
- A quick keyword search in your favorite browser can reveal if a company is legitimate or if a sender is a known fraud.
- Call local organizations directly (do not use contact information that you receive in an email) to verify that they are asking for any information from you.
- Familiarize yourself with what the FTC is flagging and advising.
Sometimes thieves are just after money, sometimes it’s data. If you think you’re at risk in any way, please give us a call at 360-930-6991 or email our Help Team at [email protected]. We want to help keep you, your company, and your fellow employees stay as safe as possible.