COVID-19 scam seeks your bank info, with false promise of cash deposit

The US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday warned about scammers pretending to be government officials in order to get victims’ bank account information. If people share that information, the scammers claim in an email, they’ll get money from a COVID-19 “Global Empowerment Fund.”

The FTC says it’s all a scam, and that there’s no money or fund. The agency urges recipients of messages like this not to respond, and to instead report them to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. The FTC says it’ll never contact anyone by phone, email, text or social media to ask for financial information or your Social Security number. 

“Anyone who does is a scammer, phishing for your information,” the agency said in a release. 

People getting an economic stimulus payment will get that money from the Internal Revenue Service, the FTC notes.

Anyone who thinks they gave their financial information to a scammer should go to IdentityTheft.gov to learn steps to protect themselves. You can also sign up for the FTC’s consumer alerts to stay up to date on the latest scams.