The FBI on Friday issued a public service announcement warning senior citizens of “a recent nationwide increase in ‘Phantom Hacker’ scams” that are wiping out victims’ life savings.
“Between January and June 2023, 19,000 complaints related to tech support scams were submitted to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), with estimated victim losses of over $542 million,” according to the FBI. “Almost 50% of the victims reported to IC3 were over 60 years old, comprising 66% of the total losses.”
“As of August 2023,” the bureau added, “losses have already exceeded those in 2022 by 40%.”
“The Phantom Hacker scam shares many similarities with other online scams,” reports Tom’s Guide, “but its complexity is how this particular scam has managed to trick so many victims in such a short time.”
It begins with a phony customer service rep.
“A scammer posing as a tech or customer support representative from a legitimate company contacts the victim through a phone call, text, email, or a pop-up window on the victim’s computer and instructs the victim to call a number for ‘assistance,’” the FBI explains. “Once the victim calls the number, a scammer directs the victim to download a software program, allowing the scammer remote access to the victim’s computer. The scammer pretends to run a virus scan on the victim’s computer and falsely claims the computer has been or is at risk of being hacked.”
From there, the scammer “requests the victim open their financial accounts to determine whether there have been any unauthorized charges – a tactic the scammer uses to determine which financial account is most lucrative for targeting.”
Once a victim is identified, the scammer instructs its mark to wait for a phone call from “the fraud department of the respective financial institution hosting that account,” during which they will receive further instructions.
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