Social engineering is a very common way for scammers to reach out to students with attractive deals on goods or services. They may use phone calls, texts, emails, social media or online or print ads to make demands for payment. Innocently, students tend to post about their personal lives online, making themselves vulnerable to criminals who use details like name, age, and the school they attend to ramp up their social engineering tactics. Students can help protect themselves from scams by staying vigilant about what they share online about themselves and the people they know.
Beware of a new bank imposter scam using digital wallets with the potential to affect you even if you’ve never used digital wallets on your mobile device.
Talk with your trusted Financial Advisor about ways to protect yourself, and your money before sending a wire or transferring funds. Carefully review wire transfer requests and verify your instructions by speaking directly with your recipient. Once you send money, we may not be able to recover it.
Think cautiously before sending money to someone you don’t know, or providing payment to businesses you haven’t worked with before
Scammers are now combining multiple scam types and are taking a phased approach to try build trust and make requests more convincing.
When you use an online search engine, do you ever question if the website results are legitimate? Cybercriminals know we use and trust search engine and AI chatbot results — they ‘poison’ the list of options to appear legitimate but instead can lead you to somewhere unsafe.
Slow down and use caution whenever you use an online search engine. Report any suspicious bank communications or website pages to abuse@bofa.com.
You don’t have to work in the finance department of a big company to become the target of business email scams. Personal email compromise is when a cybercriminal takes over your personal email account and impersonates you by sending emails to request account updates, wire transfers or re-route your emails without your knowledge. The requests appear legitimate because the clients, advisor or companies have engaged with the now compromised email account in the past.
Merchants and third-party companies you do business with regularly are also at risk of business email compromise scams. Often, the cybercriminal gains access to a business email account and domain through phishing or malware, making the email they send you appear legitimate. Frequently, these requests convey a sense of urgency, asking you to wire money to satisfy a bill or change wire instructions for a receiving account unexpectedly. Other times, because you might be expecting an email with transactional instructions, there might not be a sense of urgency. Be mindful of these red flags. It is important to always verify email transaction requests or account changes through a trusted secondary channel with the merchant before taking any action.
While anyone who socializes, conducts business or communicates digitally can be targeted by cybercriminals, investors are now one of the number one targets for internet crime.
Online investment scams are schemes to defraud people by convincing them to buy stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate or cryptocurrencies. The pitch, which usually comes after building a relationship via social media, is typically centered around sizable returns with minimal risk. The reality is often that there are no returns at all — and the "once in a lifetime opportunity" is not what it promises.
Be alert to criminals targeting the mail to steal checks and other personal identifiable information with the intent to commit fraud and identity theft. Check fraud occurs when a criminal obtains money illegally using paper or digital checks. For example, criminals steal or intercept checks sent in the mail and then make changes to the recipient’s name, payment amount and other parts of the check using chemicals or other means. It often takes several weeks before you realize your check never reached its intended recipient.
Timely insights to stay ahead of the curve
