Federal Trade Commission warns against latest scam
RABUN COUNTY — There are many scammers who pretend to be government officials – from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to Social Security Administration and even the Federal Trade Commision (FTC). But the latest twist is an email from supposedly the Secretary of State.
In the email, someone pretending to be Secretary Tillerson says a payment is owed which the imposter claims to know about due to an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The email goes on to say that you’ll get an ATM card with $1.85 million on it and it even gives you the PIN code. But to get the ATM card, you have to send in $320 and information about yourself.
Except you don’t have to send either the money or the information. Because it’s not the Secretary of State emailing. No government agency will ever tell you to pay a fee to collect funds owed to you.
Here’s what you can do the next time you get an email or call from someone claiming to be from the government. Ask yourself these two questions:
- Did they say you’ve won a prize, owe money, or might go to jail?
- Did they say that you can get a prize or get out of trouble if you pay them money right away?
If the answer to these is yes, that’s a scam. You don’t need to send money and you don’t need to give up your information by phone or email. What you should do in that situation is report the fraud to the FTC.