INDIANAPOLIS – Officials at the Federal Trade Commission are warning consumers about an increase in fake invoices being used in recent scams.
Imposter scammers have gotten very good over the years at using fake communications from big companies like Netflix, Apple, and even companies that provide online security services like Norton. Lately, the FTC reports consumers have been getting emailed invoices from big names like Amazon, Apple and others.
The bogus invoices appear to confirm an order that never really happened. If it works, the potential victim freaks out and calls the fake customer service number on the email.
In some cases, the person on the other line simply tries to get the victim to pay the fraudulent bill. In others, the person says the bill was already deducted from the victim’s account and then refunded. However, the person claims the refunded amount was too much and asks the victim to pay back the remainder. It is common practice in schemes like this for the crooks to make the matter seem urgent in order to get the victim to react impulsively.
As always, experts say the best way to handle one of these situations is to not trust any link or phone number sent to you in an unsolicited email, especially if it’s from a company you don’t even do business with.
If you do have a Netflix account and you receive an email from what appears to be Netflix, you can still avoid the link or number they give you. Just go to your account on their website and start looking into it there. You’re probably going to find no problem with your account and you can delete the bogus email and report it to the FTC.
Reporting these cases is important because that helps the FTC track trends and send out warnings about emerging threats. You can report scams and fraud to the FTC on their website.
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