On the week of March 10, 2022; the FBI issued a warning to the public about the rising amount of malicious phishing scams. Phishing scams are scams where the scammer impersonates someone else, in this case a government official or agency with the aim of getting the victims personal information. Personal information can be used to gain access to vulnerable and private areas that individuals should only keep to themselves. Certain websites that contain personal information require verification and authentication. Some examples can be banking information, medical information and government information. Personal information may range from credit card numbers to SIN numbers, this type of information in the wrong hands could cause one to lose a lot of money or something as dangerous as their entire identity because once security is infiltrated and verification has been subsided, there are no more barriers or obstacles one needs to overcome to access these areas.
The Process of the Scam
The scam usually begins with a call or text from someone who claims to be a police officer or a member of a governmental organization claiming that the victim has committed a crime, missed jury duty, or has missed some kind of payments.The scammer will then try to pressure the victim into revealing personal information and claim that it will be in their best interests to do so. If the victim then refuses to share such information, the scammer will continue to pressure them through the claim of fines, arrest, imprisonment or any number of consequences. Victims will then be offered multiple different ways to settle their dues such as prepaid cards, cash sent by mail, cheque, or wire transfer. The FBI has stated, any government agency or individuals affiliated with them would never ask for money in these forms, so this is the best method to figure out these claims are fake: “officials will never contact members of the public or medical practitioners by telephone to demand any form of payment, or to request personal or sensitive information.”
These scams happen all around the world and have been occurring for a while now, targeting people who aren’t well versed in internet privacy and security.
How can we Avoid these Phishing Attacks?
- Never pay “government officials” via wiring money, sending cash, using gift cards or cryptocurrency. They would never ask you to pay in such a manner. The ways listed make it difficult to track the money which then becomes near impossible to get back.
- Never give out any personal information. If you believe that the phone call is real: hang up and call the actual government agency at their number to talk to them.
- Don’t trust caller IDs. Caller IDs can be faked. I’ve had several scam callers call me, they would hang up (because I’m wasting their time) so when I’d call the same number back my call would go to someone else who didn’t even realize their number was being used. Once they made their caller ID to match an actual government agency and told me to check so I could confirm that the numbers matched.
- Never click on links from such messages. I usually put it through a link checker such as: www.psafe.com if I get a message that I think is somewhat dodgy, even from people I know because they might’ve gotten hacked by a scammer. (Most of the time people don’t send links out of the blue). These links are harmful to us because they can infiltrate our privacy and security.
By knowing how to avoid these scams we can ensure our privacy is protected.
Examples
In the example above we can check the following to ensure if this email is real or a scam:
- Check if the agency is real
- Check if the email address matches the actual email address
- Check to see if the link is safe
- Call the agency to ask them about the email, they will be able to verify if it is real
In what ways can we prove or disprove if this message above is legitimate?
Sources:
- https://blog.malwarebytes.com/scams/2022/03/extortion-fbi/
- https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA220307
- https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/scammers-posing-law-enforcement-extort-personal-information-fbi/story?id=83339242
- https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220308/Government-strengthens-internet-safety-laws-to-tackle-scams-and-fraud.aspx
- https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-avoid-government-impersonator-scam
This is an important and timeless piece of writing focusing on government officials impersonation. In my experience, these scams are happening quite often with international students. I, myself, even got –still get–numerous calls everyday, the person on the other side tells me that s/he’s calling from the Immigration Office of Canada and I have done something wrong illegally, or make up some stories to make me heard and get me scared, followed by convincing me providing my personal information such as SIN numbers. Being a CS student luckily, I get the sense of scams and malicious intentions, helping me to understand whether the call is real or fake. I would must say, however, that this is scary and many international students got victimized through this fraudulent activities. We all should be aware of scam calls.
I still remember encountering my first one of these as a young kid and having it scare me really bad. Something something with the RCMP arresting me and charging fines. Luckily I had the sense to go show it to my parents, and being relatively educated about that sort of thing they just laughed a little and told me what was going on. It’s good that the FBI is releasing statements about these to keep people up to date, cause just imagining if my parents hadn’t been as well versed, we might’ve lost some money, or at the very least I would’ve gotten a lot of trouble from parents that falsely thought I’d committed a crime. Good post!
One thing to note is that these scammers are also able to spoof phone numbers as well, so it’s good to be weary of any authentication messages that you may receive from familiar looking numbers. If you’re not attempting to login into a service and you randomly receive a authentication message, it’s good practice to avoid clicking on any URL’s and to quickly see which devices are logged onto which platforms that you’re using (social media, email etc).
This is a very informative post. Scams happen every day around us and I think that everyone has gotten at least one scam call. I myself get scam calls occasionally but I never knew that these scammers used someone else’s number in order to contact you. Great post!
Great post, I get fishy calls quite frequently- I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but when I don’t answer the call I frequently receive a voicemail consisting of 30 seconds of silence or so, which I then have to back and delete so my voicemail storage doesn’t get filled up. When I do answer I usually get some generic story about my identity being used for legal activity that I will be charged for…
I also get a surprising number of calls from numbers that aren’t real phone numbers, for example “M22548576300017”. I’m not quite sure what to make of these, but I’m careful to never answer them.
A good article, and thanks for posting the link for URL verification. Will definitely keep that handy in case something comes up. It is unfortunate that things like this are happening very frequently. The elderly have been one of the primary victims of this as well as other people are seen to be easy to exploit by these malicious scammers. I have seen a video on YouTube where an ethical hacker was able to hack these kinds of scammers and was able to find several phone recordings and did his best to stop these packages of money before they arrived (by calling local authorities). This ‘good’ hacker managed to stop one of these packages from reaching these scammers, saving an elderly couple several thousand dollars.
Hi!
First, thanks for the interesting topic! Impersonation on government official really sounds like a dangerous thing. Since many horrible crimes could be committed when impersonaitng other people, I think stronger punishment and reinforcement is needed against these crimes, because who wouldn’t fall for these scams if the scammers impersonate as government officials? It is really scary to think that I could be the next victim of these crimes.
Great Post!
I personally get a government impersonation scam calls every now and then. I now know what calls are fake and legit, but I remember the very first time I received a scam call, I remember myself being very scared and confused. Therefore, I believe that this post is very beneficial for people who have not gone through a scam experience!
It’s a good skill to have to know when calls are fake or legit! When I know a call is fake I just try to waste the scammers time by pretending not to know what is happening and see how far I can take it with them, it usually ends off with them cursing me out but I think that’s funny. Scamming is a very scummy thing to do.
Thank you for include the URL verification link in your article. That is something I will absolutely keep in mind if the need arises. It’s sad that incidents like these occur so frequently. The elderly have been one of the most common victims, as well as those who are seen to be easy prey for these unscrupulous con artists. I saw a video on YouTube where an ethical hacker was able to hack these types of scammers and was able to find multiple phone recordings as well as do his best to prevent these money parcels from arriving (by calling local authorities). This ‘good’ hacker was successful in preventing one of these parcels from reaching the scammer. I periodically receive scam calls, but I had no idea that the scammers were using someone else’s phone number to approach you. This is an excellent article!
This is an interesting Blog post! Phishing scams are quite widespread, and virtually everyone has been a victim of one. These scammers are completely unconcerned about the consequences of their actions, especially when it comes to impersonating government officials. It’s mind-boggling to see that individuals are still falling for phishing schemes. These fraudsters frequently use time-sensitive remarks and official logos in their emails to provoke an emotional response, and as a result, the reader fails to examine the message and look for any red flags.
I have heard time and time again about these scammers asking for gift cards. I find it fascinating that some of these people (who, let’s say, are personating a government officials), would try to convince someone to pay some fine or fee through gift cards of all things. Like, I get trying to get some untraceable amount of money, but if I had a “police officer” demand that I pay some “ticket” with a gift card, I would legitimately laugh and hang up. Some of these scammers are quite convincing though. I’ve certainly have had some emails come my way that looked really legitimate, but I’ve gotten into the habit of checking out where the emails are coming from, and 100% of the time it’s a suspicious email address. The unfortunate thing though, is I don’t think a lot of people have these habits or “suspicions” when it comes to checking for any kind of impersonations or phishing scams. I always try to advocate for having a healthy amount of skepticism when receiving some sort of communication out of the blue.
I agree! I think it is outrageous that government officials would get people to pay through gift cards but some people just don’t know any better and I think because we have that education we should try to inform others. I’m glad you check those sort of emails thoroughly!
This post is extremely justified because I faced this similar situation multiple times now. Also couple of months before there was this exact same scenario involving involving a woman who had to clear her bank account claiming that she was contacted by border services agent. Furthermore, frequency of such calls and text messages have increased a lot and this needs to be taken under consideration of immediate act as quickly as possible. Identity of people, even the credentials could be under risk due to such incidents.
That was a great post to read. we can expect that kind of impersonating looking around to what is happening in the world and how people are trying to do any method to impersonate others or try to acess their personal and private information by any means. but one can’t imagine how people got the courage to impersonate “goverment officials”. I would agree to the point that one can protect themselves by not responding to spam call and call to ” no caller id” as they really became alot and popular these days. .Overall it was a well explained and interesting post to read. Thanks!
Hey, this was a very good post to read! I haven’t personally encountered scammers impersonating government officials, but I know some people close to me have encountered these situations. I was too young to really understand was going on, but I remember a lot of panicking and confusion occurred, while other people were trying to calm everyone down. Luckily, everyone realized that it was fake and nothing bad happened however, we were almost victims which was scary. Hopefully, this post helps more people become aware of these scam calls.
This post does a good job of showing the reality of how anyone can be affected by phishing scams. There are some weeks where I get 10-20 calls from scammers, and I have begun to ignore any number that I don’t recognize simply because it is getting annoying to deal with. Thankfully I usually am able to tell when something is a scam, however not everyone is. A good way to tell if you are being scammed is if you receive a text or call from the government. The government will almost never call or text you, and usually only use the post system, or sometimes, email. So you can tell right away that it is a scam if you receive a call or text from someone claiming to be the government.
This is a great and very important post! This really brings an important topic to light. Most of us get calls like these every now and then. Some of us dont realise its a scam call. I have never personally received one and I can usually tell if the call is from a scammer or not but it really is concerning to learn that the caller ids can be faked too. It shows how vigilant and careful you need to be with personal information.
Thank you for sharing such an informative post! This really shines light on a topic that many people may be unaware. These scams have been really on the upward trend recently as I have been getting calls and emails almost daily. Posts like these go a long way in warning people of the malicious intentions of these scammers. This shows the importance of being vigilant and careful with personal information and sheds light to people who may be unaware of these scams.
This is an interesting topic. It’s becoming more and more common to text us posing as all kinds of people. Such as the government, courts, police, relatives. So many times I can’t tell which one is real. Not opening unfamiliar links, not answering unfamiliar calls, and not revealing unfamiliar information is probably the best way.
Reet, you’ve written a insightful post!
This informative article demonstrates how phishing attempts can affect anyone, especially those who are not familiar with internet privacy and security. Such as seniors, in the United States alone in 2020, Cyber crimes against adults aged 60 and more resulted in nearly $1 billion in losses [1].
Every week, I receive several potential scam calls; fortunately, I can tell whether certain calls are scams or fraud because my device has a caller ID and spam protection feature that alerts me when incoming calls are potential scams, telemarketers, or fraud. I could then block and ignore them. However, this isn’t available for everyone, therefore it is good practice to be watchful and cautious with your personal information and learn how to avoid phishing attacks as described in this article!
1. https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/the-ultimate-internet-safety-guide-for-seniors/
This is a very good post. I had received some scam phone calls during my freshman year of college. Most of these calls consisted of saying that I had mailed drugs to someone and that I needed to contact them if I hadn’t mailed the box. Then at the beginning the scammer posing as a postal worker would not ask for all your personal information in a hurry, they would just ask for your name and say that you need to contact the police to resolve the matter and ask you to contact them yourself. Then the scammer’s accomplice will call disguised as a police officer and say that a person named XXX mailed drugs today and ask if you mailed them. At this point most people will think that someone is really impersonating themselves mailing drugs because this police officer can say their name. But they don’t think about the fact that their name was provided to the fraudster by themselves personally. This experience above is to show you that many times scam artists will not let you give them the information all at once. They will only take information from you step by step and then use that information to obtain your information to facilitate access to more private information such as bank passwords.
This is a very great post. I think phishing has been on the rise worldwide and affecting many individuals. The fact that scammers are now impersonating government officials inadvertently ruins the trust between the citizenry and the government. For instance, if people keep falling for CRA or IRS scams, eventually people will stop paying heed to actual messages from the government. Therefore, I believe that there should be more awareness of phishing scams as well as an active effort in reducing these scam calls. I think your post has highlighted many ways in which individuals can protect themselves from phishing attacks but I believe this information needs to be transmitted to more people
Great post! This post is so relateable as I get so many phising calls impersonating CRA department or justice department. I am aware of those pishing technique. However, there are still a lot of innocent people who are not aware of these scam calls. Just hearing a word of “CRA” or “Justice Department ” can make people nervous. These scammers always try to get people in panic giving them scary threats or rushing them. Most important part is that we need to calm down and think again before we give any information.
This is an informative post. There are many criminals today posing as government officials to phish on the Internet and attempt to obtain personal information of others. They may use the stolen information to enter the victim’s private account to obtain more information, or they may sell the victim’s information to others for direct benefit. Once our personal information is leaked, our property and privacy will no longer be guaranteed. Also I’d like to add that we can block more harassment by blacklisting known scam calls.
Great choice of the topic , so interesting . Lately , scam attacks has grown bigger , since everything right now goes through technology , it is our responsibility to protect ourselves from these attacks .
Good Job !
This is a great read and good to raise awareness on this topic. I have received many of these government impersonation phone calls. I can totally see how someone can actually fall for them. I have even received emails that look pretty similar to an email from a government institution. The scammers are getting pretty creative! It’s great to raise awareness about these scams so that as many people as possible are aware of all the different variations of them.
I had no idea that caller IDs could be faked! Its scary to think that someone could either be impersonated or that a scammer can simply become untrackable to the average person using a few techniques, which may be very commonly known among them. Overall the post was very informative though and I appreciated not only the example provided as to how to protect oneself, but also your personal takes and bits of your own experience being included!
Very important article to raise awareness on what seems to be one of the most common types of scams, I also didn’t know about the ability to fake caller ids. Although I just ignore messages that seem sketchy I’ve never used or looked into a link checker other than some just safe browser addons, It is definitely something I will look into
This is an interesting post. Government impersonating calls are very common nowadays, specially with new international students coming in. This is an old school method but still a lot of people become the victim of these kind of scams. Its really good how you have included instructions to avoid these scams, as well as provided examples.
This was a great post! Im an international student who came to Calgary just a year ago and I never actually that many scam calls before coming here. Unfortunately, I have noticed that a lot of innocent citizens in this country keep getting scam calls where someone acts as if he or she is someone from the government and starts to ask for personal information while intimidating the person. I have dealt with this a lot of times and the second I get the idea that it’s a scam call, I cut the call in seconds. Also, I have faced the “Caller-ID” issue too. I once called back because I couldn’t receive the scam call, and then the person said that he never called. Later I noticed a voice mail from the same number where I was an automated message was telling me to give up some of my personal information. All of this was scary to me initially, but I guess people get used to these over time and just learn to ignore them in seconds.
That was a very informative article Reet! These phishing scams have affected so many people and the fact that scammers are still getting away with these is truly sad. In this day and age, people should know better but there is no use in blaming them as there are not enough awareness campaigns that teach people about phishing scams, especially older generations.
My own grandfather had been a target of this once. A scammer had called him and informed him that apparently he had committed some sort of fraud and had asked him for his social insurance number. The disappointing part is, even my grandfather knew he had done nothing wrong but these scammers are very manipulative and convincing. Even I myself get such calls where a robotic voice keeps on telling me how my social insurance number has been suspended. Phishing scams are one of the easiest ways to get people’s personal information and if we are not smart enough, we can easily be tricked. So it’s best if we educate ourselves about common internet scams and this post does a great job at teaching us good practice
Thanks for the informative post!
Its actually kind of funny because the other day, I unknowingly got a phone call from a scammer and when I picked up the phone, I said “hello” and there was no response after that, so I hung up. Immediately after I hung up, I got nonstop calls from the same caller ID and from other Unknown callers. I think they kept calling me because when I said “hello” they knew I was a legitimate person and not a bot. Pretty annoying getting scammed by them.
This is a disturbing trend. Since it is difficult to catch people who do this, it may become increasingly important to educate people about the powers of government officials and police, and, more importantly, the limits of those powers. If this can be done, the benefit will go beyond just cybersecurity. It is important that people know all of their civil rights.
This is a very interesting blog post. I think your post is a perfect example of why digital security should be a mandatory course in our education system. These sorts of scams have existed for a while, long before the internet, yet the attacks seem to become more and more clever as well, and will only get smarter with time. Several times, I’ve received emails from companies that claim to be Amazon/FedEx/etc that essentially have almost the exact same styling as emails from the actual companies, but are of course phishing attempts. It’s gotten to the point where the first thing I do when looking at an email is look at the address it came from. Stopping phishing attempts as a whole is probably impossible; educating everybody on how to detect and deal with them is probably the best approach.
This is a very informative post. Oftentimes, when we hear about phishing, it’s easy to just scoff and think “that can’t happen to me”. But hackers and scammers have been refining their phishing for decades, incorporating psychological tricks to manipulate people to click on their links. It’s very easy for them to arouse feelings of fear and anxiety, and to take advantage of that to make people click on their links. And as we’ve seen in the lectures, no amount of encryption or perfect secrecy can save you from this kind of attack.
Good Post! Many years ago I was the victim of a phishing scam myself, I had signed up for a free-to-play game that had optional paid cosmetic upgrades (as many games now have), being a dumb 14-year-old, I thought that I could scam the system and get points toward these upgrades for free, I clicked a link to a website offering free points and entered in my login information. To no one’s surprise, I had my account broken into and my password promptly changed. I eventually got my account back but I’ve been wary of phishing scams ever since. You make good points regarding how caller ID and email addresses can be faked. We all have to be more careful regarding these scams, I was lucky to have learned my lesson in temporarily losing a free-to-play game account, others have not been so fortunate.
Some people think that they are smart enough to detect phishing scams however, this is not always the case. Sometimes it is very difficult to verify the authenticity of a phone call, email or text message. It is important for people to be aware of this and I really liked reading the examples mentioned above and the process used to prevent falling for these scams.
I’ve actually received these types of texts (they seem to occur much more frequently nowadays) but I’m quite a skeptic so it’s easier for me to avoid these types of phishing scams. However, there are people don’t always have a good sense of these types of things and I think it is important that people learn to properly evaluate any message/call they get. Even if there is a slight possibility that it may be from a legitimate business/official, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Great post!
Phishing scams are a classic method malicious agents use to try and get money from vulnerable people. I feel like at this point, most youth in North America should be aware of these kinds of scams and are familiar with them. I get scam calls on my phone almost daily. That being said, it’s important to inform people about this stuff so that we can continue to avoid falling for these tricks (as well as watching out for any new ones that may start being used).
Very interesting post. Fraud goes on all the time in our lives. I also got three scam calls yesterday. I remember when I first came to Canada, I received a fraudulent phone call, saying that I had a parcel detained at the customs, and I was very afraid at that time. I had just signed up for my local mobile phone number when I received a fraudulent call. I was very curious about how my number got out. This article is very beneficial to me!
This is a great way to bring up an important issue. Every now and again, most of us will receive calls like this. Some of us are unaware that the call is a hoax. we can generally determine whether a call is from a fraudster or not, but learning that caller ids may also be spoofed is frightening.
It seems as more and more technology begins to be released it is becoming harder to distinguish phishers and scammers like this, I remember a blog post detailing how some malicious adversaries mailed victims USBs with a letter pretending to be a government service or a large company and wanted them to plug it in (some actually did). These USB then had ransomware that the victim had to deal with. I wish the government would do something about scammers impersonating them since I feel that in the past scammers did not impersonate government officials as much as today. I liked how you gave a link checker psafe, I personally use the URL scanner from virustotal.
Interesting post. This is definitely an important issue because scam calls like these are very popular. In just the past year, I’ve gotten at least 10 of these scam calls. It’s very important to know about something like this because people can easily fall prey to it. I remember the first time I ever got a scam call, I almost fell for it but luckily I had a friend there who stopped me.
Awesome post, I enjoyed reading! It seems like after the pandemic has begun, there has been a steep spike in the number of scams, sextortion, etc. I believe there needs to be more education towards these matters for the general public as they cause a lot of damage to our finances, privacy, and more.