A Healdsburg city manager office update issued by the city on March 27 offered a warning to residents on the emergence of COVID-19-related scams and fraudulent calls and emails, many offering coronavirus cures, test kits and fraudulent cleaning services.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) released a public service announcement (PSA) on March 20, saying that, “Scammers are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal money, personal information, or both.”
Both the city manager update, and the PSA advise folks to look out for several different swindling schemes: fake Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emails, phishing emails and counterfeit treatments or equipment.
Phony emails and phishing
Watch out for emails that claim to be from the CDC and other organizations claiming to have important information about the virus, and do not click on a link or an attachment that you do not recognize.
Instead, look for accurate and up-to-date information about COVID-19 on Sonoma County’s SoCo Emergency website at socoemergency.org, or to take a look at national data, check out the CDC’s website at www.cdc.gov and www.coronavirus.gov.
“Fraudulent emails that are made to look like they are coming from an official source are known as ‘phishing emails.’ They attempt to lure the recipient into a false sense of security for providing personal identifying information, such as passwords, financial information, or personal identifying information,” said Healdsburg Police Department Lt. Matt Jenkins.
Scott Schulze, founder and director of operations for Fusion Technology Services in Healdsburg, described leveraging people’s fears of coronavirus to conduct scams as “the ultimate social engineering.”
Schulze said opening a link from a phishing email could introduce your computer to malware and ransomware, a type of malicious software that can allow someone to lock down your computer until a sum of money is paid.
Phishing emails may also claim to be charitable organizations, airline carrier refunds, general financial relief and emails that offer fake cures, vaccines and testing kits.
People should also be wary about unsolicited emails asking to verify personal information in order to receive a stimulus check from the federal government.
Schulze said before you click on something that may look suspicious, stop and think about whether or not you’ve initiated a correspondence with that entity. Schulze also advises to take a closer look at the URL link itself, as well as check for misspellings or incorrect domains within a link. For instance a domain address that should end in ‘.gov’ but ends in ‘.com,’ or has a foriegn domain address could be cause for suspicion.
“(Most likely) someone is not going to be sending you an email from Germany,” Schulze said.
Jenkins emphasized, “The IRS does not call or email people to obtain information necessary for stimulus checks. All of the information they need is collected from the information that they have, and government agencies will never call you to ask for personal information or money. These scams are another attempt to collect bank account information from unsuspecting people.”
Counterfeit treatments
Folks should also be careful and think twice about purchasing products that are alleged to prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19. This also applies to sanitizer products and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as N-95 masks, gloves, gowns, goggles and face shields.
For information about PPE, visit: cdc.gov/niosh.
How to stay safe
Schulze recommended avoiding links that you do not recognize.
He added that if you are using the video conference software and website, Zoom, that it is a good idea to set up a password protected account and to take a look at the privacy setting options available.
“Make sure the privacy settings are configured to how you want,” Schulze said.
Jenkins also described a few things folks can do to stay safe.
“There are a few things that people can do to be safe: (1) Never give out personal identifying information to someone who calls you over the phone or by text message. Ask for a number where you can call them back to provide that information after you verify who they are. (2) Search online for similar scams to see if anyone else is getting the same calls. Scammers are posing as charities, the World Health Organization, companies that sell free COVID-19 test kits, and others (3) If you are making an online purchase, know who you are buying from. A lot of new retailers have popped up online in the recent weeks and claim to have high demand products. While this may be the case for some, others are completely fictitious. (4) Do not respond to text messages from numbers you do not know. (5) If you want to donate to a charity, do not do it from a link in an email. Go to the organization’s website and make the donation there,” Jenkins said. “The old adage of, ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ is true here too. Sadly, there are people out there who are using this pandemic to victimize people.”
