Grifters cash in on stimulus aid
As posted on November 17, 2009 on www.usatoday.com
By Brad Heath
State and federal officials say they are fielding thousands of reports of scam artists, many operating from overseas, using the promise of money from the Obama administration's $787 billion economic recovery plan to entice people to hand over bank account numbers. The scams are so numerous, and the criminals hard to identify, that authorities say it's all but impossible to catch them.
"People are being tricked out of their money," according to Federal Trade Commission lawyer Monica Vaca.
Rip-offs based on current events are nothing new. In the past few months alone, scams have tried to cash in on Michael Jackson's death, the swine flu and foreclosure prevention. "These are true predators," says Tony Green, a spokesman for the attorney general's office in Oregon. When it comes to stimulus scams, he says, that usually means "appealing to people's desperation."
Oregon officials warned consumers in August that con men were sending out thousands of e-mails telling people they were entitled to stimulus money from the IRS. All people had to do, the e-mails advised, was provide a bank account number. In another scheme, reported in
Exactly how many people have been conned is impossible to measure, but the numbers are likely substantial. FTC lawyers filed four civil cases this year accusing companies of using misleading promises of stimulus aid to persuade people to buy products or provide personal information. They estimate that about 270,000 Americans were victimized in those schemes alone, Vaca says.
Detectives in
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