The U.S. attorney general has vowed an “all-out attack” on elderly internet fraud, but experts say the crackdown is more like a game of whack-a-mole.
The phone rings, and the person on the line claims to be calling from a trustworthy tech company like Microsoft or Apple. There’s a problem with your computer, he says–perhaps it’s infected with viruses or infiltrated by hackers–but he’s happy to work with you to clean things up for a fee.
If you ever get such a call, it’s a scam, and experts say you should simply hang up. Tech companies simply won’t call you to offer services to fix your computer, nor will they pop up messages in your web browser offering help eradicating malware or a digital tune-up.
But in 2018 alone, people reported losing $55 million to tech support scams, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and people age 60 and older were about five times more likely to report losing money to such fraudsters. Such scams are now considered among the fastest growing internet-based frauds, according to the FBI, which reported a 161% increase in victims’ monetary losses over 2017.
And those are just the victims who reported the fraud to the FTC, the FBI, and partner organizations: It’s likely many targeted by scams didn’t report out of embarrassment, quietly reversed fraudulent charges with their credit card companies, or have yet to realize they’ve been defrauded.
read more..
The phone rings, and the person on the line claims to be calling from a trustworthy tech company like Microsoft or Apple. There’s a problem with your computer, he says–perhaps it’s infected with viruses or infiltrated by hackers–but he’s happy to work with you to clean things up for a fee.
If you ever get such a call, it’s a scam, and experts say you should simply hang up. Tech companies simply won’t call you to offer services to fix your computer, nor will they pop up messages in your web browser offering help eradicating malware or a digital tune-up.
But in 2018 alone, people reported losing $55 million to tech support scams, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and people age 60 and older were about five times more likely to report losing money to such fraudsters. Such scams are now considered among the fastest growing internet-based frauds, according to the FBI, which reported a 161% increase in victims’ monetary losses over 2017.
And those are just the victims who reported the fraud to the FTC, the FBI, and partner organizations: It’s likely many targeted by scams didn’t report out of embarrassment, quietly reversed fraudulent charges with their credit card companies, or have yet to realize they’ve been defrauded.
read more..
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