A very interesting article from Physician Practice discusses scams that have resulted from the pandemic and provides several good sources of additional information. In a nutshell, identify theft happens every two seconds, has affected 30% of the US population and over 14 million people in 2019. And… it’s on the rise due to chaos from COVID. Some areas that scammers have targeted include:
- Fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits, receiving PPP loans, hijacking bank accounts and opening new accounts in your name;
- Fraudulent websites offering PPE and medical supplies with too-good-to-be-true pricing. They either don’t deliver after you pay, deliver counterfeit or expired goods or steal your credit card info.
- Remote work scams of entities using email to obtain sensitive information or embedding links or attachments to trick the receiver.
- Impersonating medical or health orgs selling COVID-related products or offering fake services such as contract tracing.
Among the author’s suggestions if you are a victim of any of these scams are:
- Placing fraud alert on credit cards or freezing your credit report
- Reporting identity theft to the FTC and police
- Reviewing your credit reports with all agencies and correcting mistakes
- Changing your passwords