The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a warning about courier services being used to collect money and valuables from victims of technical support and impersonation** scams.
The FBI warns the public that recently, there have been many cases of victims, especially the elderly, being tempted to cash out their assets and buy, or other, to protect their funds. The criminals will then arrange for a courier to meet the victim in person to pick up the cash or ***
These ** pretend to be technical support personnel of a technology company, an employee of a financial institution or the United States**, the United States***, etc., and claim that the victim's financial account has been compromised or is under imminent threat, so that the victim can liquidate the assets as soon as possible. Victims are often coerced into exchanging assets for cash or *** or instructed to remit funds to a metal dealer who then has their purchased metal shipped directly to the victim's residence.
* Couriers will be arranged to go to the victim's home or various public places to retrieve the money or *** To further legitimize the scam, the criminals may also provide the victim with a password to verify the transaction with the courier.
At the same time, ** will also promise to deposit the victim's assets into a safe account, and then there will be no more news, completing the closed loop of **. This well-planned targeting of vulnerable groups has caused significant economic losses to countless victims.
The FBI warns that the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has seen a spike in the number of such activities from May to December, resulting in more than $55 million in damages.
To prevent such scams, the FBI advises that you do not send or send to legitimate businesses or U.S. ** agencies ** or other *** and urges everyone not to give your home address information to strangers immediately after receiving such **, and do not meet them to send cash and other valuables.
The FBI also shared the following tips to greatly reduce the risk of falling victim to a similar fraud attempt:
Don't click on unsolicited pop-ups, text message links, or email links and attachments on your computer.
Do not contact unfamiliar** numbers provided in pop-ups, text messages, or emails.
Do not respond to requests from unknown persons contacting you** Software.
Do not allow unknown people to access your computer.
At the same time, the FBI urges victims of such cases to immediately report to the FBI and provide as much information as possible about the criminals, such as their names, communication methods, bank accounts used, the names of the metal dealers used to purchase the metal sent to them through the courier service, and so on.
Last October, the FBI warned that affecting the elderly"Ghost hacking"Scams have skyrocketed, with victims losing more than 5$4.2 billion.
The FBI warned back last year that there were refund payment portals impersonating financial institutions that used the credibility of financial institutions to deceive victims, especially the elderly.