If you’re a
digital native and consider yourself immune to all
scams, the thieves have you right where they want you.
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For years now, the Better Business Bureau’s survey research has
shown that younger adults lose money to swindlers much more often than the
older people you may think of as the stereotypical victims. The Federal Trade
Commission reports similar figures, with 44 percent of people ages 20 to 29
losing money to fraud, more than double the 20 percent of people ages 70 to 79.
The Better Business Bureau’s latest report revealed a new twist:
When criminals redoubled their efforts as homebound people spent more time
online last year, they succeeded in bringing the median loss per scam for
adults ages 18 to 24 to the same level — $150 — it was for the much more flush
65-plus crowd.
When we look at the kinds of scams that work on young people,
there’s nary a Nigerian prince in sight. The targeted activities vary widely,
from the online shopping that these victims may do nearly every day to their
once-in-a-blue-moon handling of paper checks. Illegal schemes also target the
student debt payments they must make and the jobs they seek to afford them.
So let’s lay out what these scams look like — and remind
ourselves how we might best reach young people who think they are invincible.
Online Retail Scams
The false promise of a rare or surprisingly cheap product isn’t a
new form of flimflam, but the internet sure makes it easier — especially if
you’re accustomed to frequently buying online.
Online purchase scams accounted for 64 percent of the reports of
lost money to the Better Business Bureau last year, up from just 13percent in 2015.
And according to the bureau’s data, 83 percent of young adults who were exposed
to such scams fell for them, more than any other age group.
There are two trends to be aware of here.
First, don’t be blinded by puppy love. Pet and pet-supply scams
have historically made up 25 percent of the online purchase scams reported to
the Better Business Bureau — and that ramped up to one-third this past year as
pandemic pet purchases boomed. The American Kennel Club and the Humane Society
of the United States offer tip sheets online to try to keep you from being both
dogless and out the median dollar loss of $660 that the bureau reports.
Second,
Amazon is everywhere — including as a vector for fraud.
Given its size, con artists try to impersonate Amazon more often than any other
company’s brand.
The company offers some geeked-out advice for spotting trouble
in an unsolicited “Amazon” offer:
— Real Amazon sites have a dot before amazon.com in the URL.
— If you get a message saying you need to update your payment
method, always go directly to the Amazon site on your own to see if it’s true —
not through a link in the message.
— The company doesn’t send links that have strings of jumbled
numbers in them.
Also of note: Scammers sometimes thumb their nose at the Better
Business Bureau itself by pretending to be the organization when initiating
Amazon scams.
Employment Scams
Millions of people were left jobless through no fault of their
own during the pandemic, so it’s no surprise that these scams proliferated. And
grifters took to offering bogus jobs that are particularly attractive to young
adults.
Postings for foot-in-the-door, exposure-to-creative-industries
gigs like assistants and receptionists are common ploys for people with bad
intentions. The same goes for postings for warehouse and shipping work, an area
that boomed during the pandemic and offers jobs for which many people are
qualified.
The scams frequently request dates of birth and Social Security
numbers, which can be used to commit the worst forms of identity theft. Another
form of fraud asks for a few hundred dollars to cover supplies or training for
positions that turn out not to exist.
Of survey respondents who encountered employment scams, 32
percent said theirs had originated on the job listing site Indeed, far
surpassing other popular platforms, the Better Business Bureau noted in a
report from last year.
Indeed seems well aware of this and posts tips to avoid this
form of fraud. (The company probably ought to force you to read the warnings
before letting you look at a single listing.) Among them is a kind of self-own:
“Never agree to a job that involves opening multiple accounts and/or posting
ads on Indeed or on other sites.”
In short, Indeed wants you to watch out for Indeed scammers
getting you to use Indeed to run Indeed scams.
Fake-Check Scams
These often involve a very real piece of paper, which appears to
be drawing on a business or personal bank account, or rendered as a money order
or a cashier’s check. It looks so authentic that the recipient doesn’t catch on
and the bank doesn’t immediately reject it.
Then comes the con, which is a follow-up message asking for some
of the money back: “Sorry, this is an accidental overpayment” or “Please use
some of the money to perform mystery shopping of online money transfer
services.”
These checks can arrive in the mail, appearing to be a prize or
a rebate — just the kind of payment that your banking app can quickly digest
through your phone’s camera. Often, they’re a twist on an employment scam: A
hustler overpays the applicant the hustler just hired, supposedly by accident —
and then wants some of the money back.
People in their 20s are more than twice as likely as older
adults to fall prey to this sort of thing, according to the Federal Trade
Commission. Many of them haven’t used checks much, and they may not be aware
that while federal rules require banks to make funds from checks available
quickly, those same banks may take many more days to root out a fake one. Once
they do, they usually want the money back from the victim for having introduced
the bad check into the system.
Student Loan Scams
This is already a problem, but it could get a lot worse very
soon.
Tens of millions of borrowers have their federal student loan
payments on pause right now, thanks to governmental efforts to keep them out of
financial trouble during the pandemic. But as soon as October 1, a switch will
flip and most of those people will need to start the repayment process.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Education
offer tips for scam avoidance. And when the Pennsylvania attorney general shut
down an entity called Unified Holding Group, it revealed some eye-opening
details about just how elaborate these cons can be.
Among other things, the company told borrowers to ignore
outreach from their legitimate loan servicers and had
just-stilted-enough-to-be-legit language on its website saying things like “We
find integrity fosters a positive reputation and a sense of security in all our
business interactions.”
So What Can We Do?
It is deeply unsatisfactory to default to “more awareness” as a
partial solution to scams that prey on systemic complexity and inequity that
shouldn’t exist in the first place. But here we are. Again.
Young adults out on their own could stand to slow down a bit.
Perhaps Instagram instabuying isn’t necessary, for instance. And remember that
scammers succeed more often with the stressed and the lonely. If you are
either, stay wary.
Early education is crucial. If there’s a personal finance class
in your kid’s school, ask the teacher whether there’s a section devoted to
fraud and thievery. Studying the techniques of the crooked with wonder, awe and
begrudging respect as opposed to scolding didacticism might improve things.
Even better would be your own educational campaign — a kind of
true-crime drama. Chances are you’ve seen a scam in action, even if you weren’t
taken in. So unspool tales of your own near-victimization — or worse. Sure, you
might become the subject of temporary mockery. But the story is likely to
stick.
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