Online fraud

As part of my occasional series on government websites you should know, I wrote about scam alertsa few years ago. At that time, I highlighted the sheer number of sites where federal agencies offer information about scams and how to avoid them. It seems useful to revisit the subject. This time I want to concentrate on the resources on a single page: Common Scams and Frauds.

The page’s first topic concerns the Equifax data breach of 2017. Hackers have become bolder and more successful since I first addressed this topic. USA.gov links to Equifax’s own page devoted to the breach. It also links to federal information about how to report suspicious activity on your credit report and how to protect yourself after a breach.

It then continues with

• Telephone scams
• Banking scams
• IRS imposter scams
• Charity scams
• Ticket scams
• Lottery and sweepstakes scams
• Pyramid schemes
• Tax ID theft
• Investment scams
• Census related fraud
• Ponzi schemes
• Government grant scams

That’s a long list of different kinds of scams, but not comprehensive. Aside from telephone scams, many of the ones on the list can come through email, direct mail, or personal contact.

Page organization

Each section briefly explains how the various scams work. It provides links you can use to report them to the appropriate federal agencies. It also provides tips and links for how to protect yourself. For example, under “telephone fraud,” it warns that scammers can change what displays on your caller ID. This tactic is called spoofing, and the page links to a fuller explanation of it.

The tips for how to protect yourself include bullet points for things to do and things not to do. For example, you can investigate a charity before deciding to donate. You should avoid sending money, even if—or especially if—the scammer threatens dire consequences if you fail to act.

The federal government maintains USA.gov as a portal to find all the various government web information. That’s important. Federal agencies change the content of their web pages all the time. Some links you might find in a four-year-old page might not work anymore. An agency may have reorganized the page and given everything a new URL Or another agency may have ceased to exist. Assuming my link to this page on USA.gov still works in another four years, its links will have been updated.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Don Hankins.