If the federal government decides to send every U.S. resident a check, they won’t call you ahead of time to ask for your social security number or bank information.
Lawmakers have to mitigate economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. But that doesn’t stop scammers from trying to trick people into handing over their personal information by pretending to be a government worker processing the checks, the Denver District Attorney’s Office warned Thursday. The scammers say that they need the information to expedite the check.
“We’re very concerned that at a time where people need that support and relief that they might be victim of that check scam,” said Carolyn Tyler, spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney.
The Federal Trade Commission to help people avoid the check scams:
- The government will not ask you to pay money to receive your check.
- The government will not call and ask for personal or banking information.
- The final decision on whether to send checks has not been made. Anybody who says they can get you the money now is a scammer.
The commission has seen a number of reports on scammers taking advantage of fear over the public health crisis. Common schemes include selling in-demand products that the seller doesn’t deliver, fake charities soliciting donations, sellers hawking coronavirus treatments and emails with attachments that will give your computer a virus when opened.
