FBI warns scammers now impersonate refund payment portals

guest · Nov 10, 2022

By Eduard Kovacs @EduardKovacs - November 10, 2022

The FBI warns that tech support scammers are now impersonating financial institutions' refund payment portals to harvest victims' sensitive information and add legitimacy.
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In today's public service announcement, the federal law enforcement agency said that the fraudsters trick victims (generally someone from within the elderly population) via email or phone calls into giving them access to their computers by impersonating representatives of technical or computer repair services.

"Within the body of the email, the scammers will indicate the specific service to be renewed with a price commonly in the range of $300 to $500 USD, provoking a sense of urgency in the victims to contact them and provide information for a refund," the FBI said.
"In this case, the scammers claim to aid in securing a refund through remote access to the victim's computer."
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While tech support scams have been around for years, the FBI added that since as recently as October 2022, the scammers are using scripts (Windows batch files) designed to display what looks like the user interface of refund payment portals in a command prompt window.

However, these scripts are used to collect the targets' personal and banking info (i.e., full name, bank name, ZIP code, refund amount) that will help the crooks make unauthorized wire transfers of funds from the victim's bank accounts.

"The executable will generally run a command prompt made to look like a service screen," the FBI added.
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FBI: Scammers Using Computer-Technical Support Impersonation Scams to Target Victims and Conduct Wire Transfers

As recently as October 2022, the FBI observed several instances nationwide of scammers conducting computer-technical support scams, where criminals pose as service representatives of a company's technical or computer repair service and contact victims through email or by telephone about a highly priced, soon-to-renew subscription. Scammers request victims contact the scammers at a provided telephone number or email to cancel the renewal and receive a varying refund amount.

After the victims contact the scammers, they attempt to obtain personal and banking information that is then used to conduct unauthorized wire transfers of funds held within the targeted victim's accounts. Targeted victims generally fall within the elderly population.
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