A record-breaking increase in Social Security benefits has caused a surge in related online scams, authorities said.
and combine those parts to form a 'newer' scam," the agency wrote in a statement."Take the Social Security email scam for example. Scammers use the email method from tech support scams, such as the fake subscription/service emails, and pair it with threats to arrest the victim which is a characteristic of some government impersonation scams.
"The tactics are not necessarily new but the combination is. The scammers are simply taking what has worked in the past and modifying it for new use, adapting to a potential vulnerability or an angle they attempt to exploit," it said. These scams can be financially crippling for people who fall victim to them. Monaco said that what angers him is that older people in their 70s and 80s"don't have the capability to make that up, so you basically have made someone destitute for the rest of their lives."that compared to other agencies it has reported fewer Social Security scams in the past two years, with fewer consequences for those individuals targeted by scammers.
"While the IC3 received several complaints reporting emails impersonating Social Security in recent months, most victims did not sustain a loss to the scam," the agency said. But 2023 seems ready to outpace the previous years, it added. "There are a wide variety of scams reported to the IC3 which based on the characteristics we attempt to classify them in a crime type," IC3 told."In 2022, the IC3 received over 11,000 reports of government impersonation with losses over $240 million. IC3 2023 reporting already appears to be outpacing the 2022 numbers."
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