Federal Agency Issues Warning on Rise of Phone Impersonation Scams

FBI headquarters in Washington on March 25, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Phone scammers are impersonating employees from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to defraud U.S. citizens, the agency warned Wednesday.

“Impersonation scams are on the rise and often use the names and titles of government employees,” CISA said in a June 12 press release. CISA “is aware of recent impersonation scammers claiming to represent the agency. As a reminder, CISA staff will never contact you with a request to wire money, cash, cryptocurrency, or use gift cards and will never instruct you to keep the discussion secret.”

CISA advised citizens who suspect they are being targeted by an impersonation scammer posing as a government employee to be aware and not make payments. When in doubt, hang up immediately, advised the agency.

Furthermore, people can take note of the phone number and share the details with the agency at (844) SAY-CISA (844-729-2472) or report it to law enforcement.

The federal agency warning comes after the FBI Portland Division issued a similar alert on June 5, asking citizens to be aware of scammers impersonating FBI agents and other government officials. The agency has seen “an increase in reports” of these cases where scammers send couriers to collect gold or cash payments from victims.

The FBI pointed out that impersonation scammers typically use an urgent, aggressive tone, refusing to speak or leave a message with anyone other than the target victim. The scammer urges victims not to divulge conversation details with others.

In addition to cash and gold payments, scammers may also demand money through wire transfers and cryptocurrency ATMs. Victims are asked to read prepaid card numbers over the phone or text a picture of the card, the FBI noted.

“Be advised, federal agencies do not call or e-mail individuals threatening arrest or demanding money. Scammers often spoof caller ID information, and these phone calls are fraudulent even if they appear to be coming from an agency’s legitimate phone number,” the agency said.

“Recipients should hang up immediately and report the call.”

The FBI cited data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to point out that there were 14,190 reported victims of government impersonation scams in 2023. The losses from these scams totaled over $394 million.

Targets of impersonation scams tend to be older adults. Last year, 40 percent of complaints related to these scams were from people over 60.

Victims from this demographic had to empty their retirement accounts, remortgage or foreclose on their homes, and borrow money from family and friends to cover losses incurred from scams, the FBI said.

Billion Dollar Losses

On April 1, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that scams impersonating businesses and government agencies were among the top frauds reported with the agency.

Last year, FTC received over 330,000 reports of business impersonation scams and almost 160,000 reports of government impersonation.

These scams amounted to almost half of all frauds reported to the agency. Combined, the impersonation scams registered losses topping $1.1 billion in 2023, which was triple the number reported in 2020.

The FTC pointed out that scammers have “switched things up” in terms of how they operate. Between 2020 and 2023, reports of scams starting with a phone call plummeted. Instead, reports of scams beginning with an email or text have risen, it noted.

“Reports show an increasingly blurred line between business and government impersonation scams: many scammers impersonate more than one organization in a single scam—for example, a fake Amazon employee might transfer you to a fake bank or even a fake FBI or FTC employee for fake help.”

In February, the FTC proposed expanding a rule that prohibits the impersonation of government and businesses to also include individuals.

FTC Chair Lina Khan said the rule would strengthen the agency’s ability to address scams impersonating people using artificial intelligence (AI).

Scammers are using AI tools to impersonate individuals with “eerie precision and at a much wider scale,” she warned.