Coronavirus triggered panic and lockdown has unleased a pandemic of scams

While the coronavirus pandemic has sent most legitimate businesses into lockdown, scammers seem to be taking unfair advantage of the hysteria surrounding the crisis. With promises of a coronavirus vaccine and ways to access your stimulus check beforehand, criminals online know just the right keywords to use in order to catch people's attention.
 
“There’s been a 667% increase in phishing emails just since the beginning of March,” Tego Cyber CEO Shannon Wilkinson told Fox 5 Vegas.

“They’ll send out information pretending to be trusted sources like the World Health Organization or the CDC,” the Las Vegas-based cybersecurity expert said of the scammers.

Unsuspecting victims are being baited by email to click on bogus links to download malware or to purchase counterfeit versions of popular products. “One of my favorites that I received during this whole toilet paper craze, I got an email that my order from Charmin had been processed,” Wilkinson recalled. “If I could just click on this link and verify some information … of course I haven't ordered toilet paper.”

According to her, online predators are ready to pounce anytime there's a health emergency or a natural disaster. “They’re taking the interest, the curiosity and public panic around coronavirus and using that to scam people,” she said.

This is further accentuated by the fact that millions of Americans are working from home, thereby accessing sensitive company data and using their credit cards to shop online.

“A lot of companies were probably set up for allowing a certain percentage of their workforce to work remotely,” Wilkinson added. “But now 100% of their workforce or 99% is working remote and that's put a strain on a lot of companies infrastructure as well.”

But there are some scammers who care about their health, she said. “Two cybercriminal groups have come out and said they will not target health care organizations during this crisis,” Wilkinson revealed.

However, this does not mean one can afford to be careless online.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of phishing,” she explained. “Everybody is at home, everybody is online everybody is at their email now.”

Having said that, scammers are not just online. Several groups are targeting unsuspecting folks via phone, through text messages, as well as in person.

Recently, Danita Sienknecht was with her husband on a car ride when a stranger called her with a rather strange offer -- for a sum of $4,000 (which she would have to wire overnight), someone would have two doses of a supposed coronavirus vaccine delivered at her doorstep.

The 84-year-old revealed that the caller knew her name and said he was at a Holiday Inn close to her southwest Missouri address. “I knew I had to report it,” Sienknecht told The Wall Street Journal, adding that the scammer called 29 times after she refused to call him back.

Authorities are being inundated with complaints of scammers peddling fake cures, selling essential items at jacked-up prices, as well as soliciting donations to fake charities.

At least 7,283 complaints of coronavirus-related scams were registered with the Federal Trade Commission, with combined reported losses to the tune of $4.6 million in the first three months of the year, the organization revealed Monday.

Colleen Tressler, a consumer education specialist with the FTC, has been urging people to think twice before opening their wallets or clicking unusual links that offer help or promises of treatment amid the crisis. “I don’t think I have ever been as busy as I have been since early February,” she told the WSJ.

The FTC has so far sent warning letters to at least seven businesses that are reportedly hawking fake coronavirus treatments in the guise of teas, essential oils, and colloidal silver.

In Georgia, 49-year-old Erik Santos was arrested by FBI agents after he allegedly drew kickbacks from testing companies in exchange for referring people for COVID-19 testing they didn't need and those Medicare would cover.

“[W]hile there are people going through what they are going through, you can either go bankrupt or you can prosper,” he reportedly said during a tapped phone call.

Meanwhile, New York's attorney general has warned consumers of scammers seeking their bank information claiming to provide early access to federal stimulus payments -- even before President Trump signed the massive $2 trillion economic relief package.

“Scammers are just opportunistic people,” Tressler of the FTC noted. ”They are going to cast as wide of a net as possible and see who gets caught.”

There is a sea of email campaigns attempting to lure recipients into donating to phony charities with convincing names such as the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, according to Kathy Stokes, AARP's director of fraud prevention programs. Of course, there are more primitive schemes as well, Stokes added, like the young woman who preys on elderly victims posing as a granddaughter while asking for money to pay for coronavirus-related medical bills.