As if grocery prices weren’t bad enough, they are about to get costlier — and it’s all due to tariffs.

President Donald Trump has been on and off with imposing 25% tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, though he's doubled the tax on Chinese imports. The added costs, which domestic companies pay, are expected to be transferred to consumers in some capacity — leading to price hikes on everyday goods, from your car to food and beverages.

The tariffs on our largest trading partners are separate from the 10% duty imposed on China a month ago. Together, the duties on all three countries will impact about a quarter of the total consumer spending in the U.S by 0.81% if businesses pass along half of the costs or 1.63% if costs are fully transferred, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Mexico and Canada tariffs alone will contribute to about 45% of the total price effect, the study found. That’s not counting retaliatory measures, which are already upon us.

Here’s where you can expect prices to increase, starting with the food at your table.

Related: Check out Kiplinger's tax blog for the 2025 filing season. We're providing live updates, news, information, and commentary to help you navigate your taxes.

Mexico prepares countermove

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Tuesday that the country would respond to 25% tariffs imposed by the U.S. with targeted retaliatory duties on U.S. goods. More information will be provided in the coming days.

• As reported by Kiplinger, Sheinbaum and Trump had reached a deal to pause 25% tariffs on Mexico imports to the U.S. on Feb. 3 for a month.
• Sheinbaum agreed to send 10,000 national guards to the border to prevent the flow of migrants and illicit drugs to the U.S.

Per the New York Times, Sheinbaum said that both countries had vowed to work together to not only address drugs moving north, but illegal guns entering Mexico.

On March 3, the Trump administration shared a statement addressing its move to lift the pause on Mexico and Canada’s tariffs on imports. Saying that both countries had failed to adequately address the fentanyl crisis.

The White House called Mexico drug trafficking organizations “the world’s leading fentanyl traffickers,” it also accused Canada of having “super labs” that produce the drug.

Sheinbaum told reporters that the White House statement regarding Mexico was “offensive, defamatory, and without substance.”

The impacts of tariffs, however, will be seen on your grocery list. Mexico is the largest supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables to the U.S. According to the latest government data, the United States is the destination of 91% of its annual horticultural exports.

To grasp the numbers: In 2023, Mexico supplied 63% of U.S. vegetable imports and 47% of fruit and nut imports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Canada retaliates with tariffs on thousands of U.S. goods

Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported goods from Canada on March 4, but limited the duty to 10% on Canadian energy.

As a countermeasure to Trump’s tariffs on Tuesday, Canada imposed 25% tariffs on $155 billion worth of U.S. goods. This will affect goods from meat and poultry, to milk products, nuts, oil, pasta, sugars, and chocolate — just to name a few.

Wines, certain beverages, and tobacco also make the list. So do soap detergents, pre-shave, and shampoo. Another big one is plywood, which is primarily used by U.S. homebuilders and imported primarily from Canada.

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded with 25% tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods effective March 3, followed by the remaining $125 billion of products in the next 21 days.

“Our tariffs will remain in place until the U.S. trade action is withdrawn, and should U.S. tariffs not cease, we are in active and ongoing discussions with provinces and territories to pursue several non-tariff measures,” Trudeau said in a press statement.

Trudeau added that the United States’ tariffs were not justified and would violate the trade agreement negotiated by Trump during his first term. This refers to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Additionally, Canada’s prime minister said that Trump’s trade war meant to crack down on fentanyl trafficking was “completely bogus,” alleging the U.S. wants to collapse Canada’s economy in a bid to annex the country and make it the 51st state.

Separately, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told local reporters he is prepared to pull the plug on electricity exports to the United States. New York, Michigan, and Minnesota are Ontario’s largest customers.

“Your government has chosen to do this to you,” Trudeau said in an address to the American people in a press conference. “As of this morning, markets are down and inflation is set to rise dramatically all across the country. Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada or because of consumers in Canada or both.”

“They have chosen to raise costs for American consumers on everyday essential items like groceries and gas. On major purchases like cars and homes, and everything in between,” added Trudeau.

China slaps counter tariffs on U.S. farmers

The Trump administration doubled the tariff on Chinese products to 20% on March 4, up from 10% a month ago.

Beijing retaliated with tariffs on up to 15% of U.S. agricultural and food exports. The duties will impact about $21 billion in U.S. goods exported to China.

China was the top destination for agricultural exports from the United States in 2023, followed by Mexico and Canada. The U.S. exported $33.7 billion worth of agricultural goods to China two years ago, according to the USDA.

The U.S. tends to export more non-manufactured goods such as rice, wheat, and oilseeds such as almonds.

‘Tariffs are really going to hurt our economy’

As an example of the ripple effect of Trump’s tariffs on the U.S. economy, even local producers will feel the impact.

Vermont, known for its maple syrup, is the leading producer of the good in the country. Some 54% of all maple in the U.S. comes from the state’s 8.4 million taps. That’s followed by New York, which produces 846,000 gallons and Maine, which offers just 701,000 gallons.

In 2024, Vermont produced 3.1 million gallons of maple syrup. But its success is not on its own.

Sugar makers are bracing for the fallout of Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada, because most of the equipment needed to produce syrup is manufactured primarily from our northern trade ally. With new 25% tariffs, the tax could trickle down to higher prices for sugar at the grocery store for you.

“These tariffs are really going to hurt our economy in Vermont, and the impacts will be far-reaching,” said Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt) in a statement. “President Trump is singlehandedly raising costs for Vermonters—from the food on our table, to our energy bills, to the materials and equipment our home construction companies and manufacturers need.”

Welch is one of the co-sponsors of the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act, which aims to limit the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which allows the President to enact immediate tariffs after declaring a state of national emergency.

What’s next

The United States is in the throes of a trade war, ignited by President Donald Trump. As China, Canada, and Mexico retaliate with counter tariffs or potential sanctions on the U.S., consumers can expect to feel some financial strain in upcoming weeks.

As reported by Kiplinger, tariffs on imported goods are taxes paid by domestic companies. These added costs are generally passed down to consumers, like you, so the company can still make a profit.

Economists warn that tariffs could make your shopping pricier from the cost of clothes and food, to suitcases and furniture.

Stay tuned to our coverage as we explore how the new tax can impact local businesses and producers, and consumers.

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Trump’s latest sweeping tariffs on certain metals may broadly impact everyday goods, from certain foods in the grocery aisle to the price of your child’s bike.

On June 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive proclamation doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50%, effective immediately. This sharp escalation is designed to further protect U.S. metal producers and comes amid ongoing global trade tensions.

The new 50% tariff applies to nearly all trading partners, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which has secured a temporary exemption through ongoing negotiations.

This latest move comes just months after, on February 10, Trump signed proclamations raising steel and aluminum tariffs to 25% and eliminating most country exemptions.

Those tariffs, which took effect March 12, 2025, had already impacted major suppliers, including Canada and Mexico. The June 4 action now doubles those rates, intensifying the effect across the U.S. economy.

Here’s what the latest tariffs on key metals mean for you.

Trump's steel tariffs

The initial 25% measures are an expansion of Trump’s 2018 Section 232 duties, which had set steel tariffs at 25% and taxes on aluminum imports at 10%. The Trump administration previously said the tax was in place to counter trade practices that “undermine national security.”

• Such tariffs, however, can have broad impacts across different industries.
• For homebuyers in the U.S., tariffs on essential building materials usually translate to higher home prices.
• Meanwhile, homebuilders worry the tariffs will impact construction costs and hinder their ability to deliver new projects.

Experts say you can expect higher prices from canned foods, beer, and soda in the grocery aisle, as many rely on imports from Canada and Mexico. Even domestic car prices may be slightly impacted.

With the tariff rate now at 50%, some industry analysts warn that the price impacts will be even more pronounced. The cost of steel and aluminum-intensive goods — from vehicles to beverage cans — is expected to rise further as manufacturers pass on the higher input costs to consumers.

Canada and Mexico push back

In response to President Trump’s June 4 announcement doubling steel and aluminum tariffs, Canadian officials have issued objections.

Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, called the move “unideal,” warning that it will drive up costs for American consumers and disrupt supply chains.

Catherine Cobden, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, described the tariff hike as “another painful blow,” urging Ottawa to “restore mirror duties on U.S. steel” and take further action to protect the Canadian industry.

• According to the Canadian Steel Association, about $20 billion in steel is traded between Canada and the U.S. each year.
• Additionally, 40% of Canada’s steel imports come from the United States.

Mexico also responded to the June 4 steel tariff hike by announcing it will formally seek an exemption.

Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said, “It’s not equitable and it’s not sustainable. We will present our case on Friday to have Mexico excluded from this measure.”

He also reportedly noted that Mexico has a contingency plan if the tariffs remain, cautioning that the new rules would negatively affect the country’s automotive, construction, and electronics sectors.

• Ebrard has previously said the U.S. had a $6.9 billion surplus with Mexico on steel and aluminum trade in 2024.
• The government argues that retaliatory tariffs on United States imports of those metals would have a harsher economic impact.

What about retaliation? Following the March 12 implementation of the 25% tariffs, Canada responded with 25% tariffs on more than $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, and the European Union imposed reciprocal tariffs on $28 billion of U.S. goods imported to Europe.

With the June 4 escalation to 50%, Canada and the EU are reportedly considering expanding their lists of retaliatory tariffs. U.S. trading partners are warning of further disruptions if the higher tariffs remain in place.

Tariffs raise prices on canned goods, vehicles, and housing

Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum will impact several industries. Some prices will be visible on your grocery list. And with the tariff now at 50%, these price increases will likely accelerate.

1. Canned goods and beverages

Nearly 70% of tin plate steel used to make cans for fruits, vegetables, essential foods, and pet food is imported to the U.S., according to the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI).

Many industries use aluminum and steel to manufacture their products, which can include beverages and sodas.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the company imports aluminum for its cans from Canada. In response to tariff hikes, the company may increase production of its beverage in plastic bottles.

It may also source aluminum domestically, which would likewise increase consumer prices.

2. Newly built homes or renovations

Aluminum and steel are used as raw materials in home construction, which may lead to higher home prices as builders pass on tariff costs to consumers.

Homebuilders are also worried about supply-chain disruptions, which may impact their ability to deliver new projects.

3. Automobiles and car parts

Canada’s steel and aluminum imports to the United States benefit the automotive, aerospace, and construction industries. Canada, Brazil, and Mexico were the largest suppliers of steel to the U.S. in January, with Canada firmly in the lead.

How can this hit domestic companies? Ford sources 90% of their steel from local manufacturers, and 10% from Canada.

However, Ford CEO Jim Farley reportedly said the company still has suppliers with international sources for aluminum and steel, so tariffs may impact prices.

If you want a European car model, you may also expect higher prices. The European Union announced it would respond with reciprocal tariffs if it comes to it.

Bottom line on aluminum and steel tariffs

Tariffs on imported goods from other countries and allies are taxes paid by domestic companies. These companies, like Coca-Cola, then pass on some of that additional cost to consumers like you to make a profit.

With the tariff now doubled to 50% as of June 4, the economic impact is expected to deepen.

U.S. steel and aluminum producers may benefit, but manufacturers and consumers will likely face higher costs and greater uncertainty.

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President Donald Trump was on the brink of igniting a trade war with Colombia within his first week in office and it all ended in ten hours.

Trump threatened 25% tariffs on Colombian goods imported to the U.S. on Jan. 26, which would increase to 50% within a week after Colombia’s president denied the arrival of deportation flights from the United States.

That spat occurred as President Gustavo Petro of Colombia blocked two U.S. military planes carrying Colombian migrants from entering the country, calling for the dignified treatment of the people of Colombia.

The diplomatic dispute came as Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded explanations from the U.S. government for the “degrading treatment” of deportees after they arrived handcuffed. Petro requested that Colombian migrants be treated respectfully, adding that his government would welcome them on civilian planes.

Trump’s tariff threat soon escalated beyond a simple tax dispute.

The Trump administration issued a series of harsh retaliatory sanctions and penalties, including visa sanctions, a travel ban, and enhanced inspection methods for Colombian citizens entering the U.S.

Petro retaliated with 25% tariffs on U.S. goods entering Colombia, followed by a 50% hike within a week. However, the Colombian government soon yielded and came to an agreement with the U.S. to avert a devastating trade war.

Here’s a summary of what happened, and how it could have impacted your wallet. This story still developing.

What were Trump’s threats to Colombia?

President Trump narrowly avoided slipping into a trade war with Colombia, but will his blunt use of tariff threats cause trouble during his second term?

As the diplomatic dispute over the treatment of Colombian migrants unfolded on Sunday, Trump announced bold measures against Colombia on his platform Truth Social. These included:

• Emergency tariffs: Trump threatened emergency 25% tariffs on all Colombian imports to the U.S., which would escalate to 50% within a week.
• Travel ban: The U.S. State Department immediately banned travel to the United States and ordered the cancellation of visas for Colombian government officials, allies, or supporters.
• Visa sanctions were ordered on all party members, family members, and supporters of the Colombian government.
• Enhanced inspections from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection were ordered on all Colombian nationals and cargo.
• Financial penalties: The U.S. Treasury would carry out banking and financial sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

As mentioned, Colombian President Petro retaliated by threatening a 25% tariff on all U.S. goods imported to Colombia, followed by a 50% tariff after a week. Soon after, both parties reached an agreement.

What was the agreement?

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump’s tariff orders and sanctions would be “held in reserve and not signed” on Jan. 26, as long as Colombian migrants returned to their country. However, visa restrictions on Colombian officials and enhanced inspections would remain in place until Colombian deportees were returned.

Colombia's government asked that migrants be treated with dignity and respect.

Trump’s tariff threat sparked fears of higher gas, coffee prices

One of the largest category of imports from Colombia include crude oil, followed by coffee, and cut flowers, according to the latest data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

1. Crude petroleum imports accounted for $6.05 billion
2. Coffee imports totaled $1.78 billion
3. Cut flowers comprised of $1.64 billion

Colombia is the second largest supplier of coffee after Brazil, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported, responsible for 20% of all imports in 2024. The Associated Press reported that Colombia is the sixth-largest exporter of crude oil to the U.S.

The prices of said products would have been on the rise if Trump hadn’t gotten his way, worsening what may soon come.

Separately, the Trump administration is also considering levying 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico as soon as Feb. 1, 2025. China would also be hit with a 10% tariff. As reported by Kiplinger, the measure will have a broad impact on your wallet.

The price of imported goods from those countries will affect the prices of cars, food, and vegetables, as well as gasoline.

Migrant flights land in Colombia

As part of the resolution between the Trump administration and the Colombian government, the migrants who had been blocked from entering Colombia on U.S. military planes were transported to two Colombian Air Force planes and delivered to Bogotá.

The two aircraft landed on January 28 and reportedly included a total of 201 Colombian citizens, 110 sent from California and 90 from Texas.

Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said that the country would continue to welcome Colombian deportees in “dignified conditions,” the BBC reported.

U.S. officials said that visa restrictions would not be lifted until the migrants who had been turned back on Sunday landed in Colombia. However, the temporary visa restrictions appear to be still in place to date per the U.S. Embassy in Colombia website.

Bottom line: defining the role of tariffs under Trump

Tariffs along with other extraordinary restrictions may have yielded results for the Trump administration this time, but the president’s reliance on tariffs may have negative implications for the U.S. economy in the long-term.

Trump is currently considering a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada imports to the U.S. As mentioned, tariffs are paid by domestic businesses in the United States, and the additional cost is generally passed on to U.S. consumers.

That means prices of everyday goods such as groceries, electronics, clothes, and gas can be on the rise. Though potential tariffs on Colombia are apparently on hold for now, other sanctions are still in place.

Stay tuned as any changes may impact you directly.

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President Donald Trump is using tariffs as a bargaining chip with the United States' top trading partners. It’s likely to hurt your wallet.

After initially planning to levy 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada last month, the Trump administration pulled that plan back after reaching a deal with the leaders of the neighboring countries in early February. However, that 30-day pause is over and Trump's latest proposal, levying the tariffs on March 4, has gone into effect.

Mexico and Canada are two of the United States’ top trading partners. Aside from the European Union, which is comprised of 27 sovereign nations, Mexico is the largest source of all U.S. imports.

Economists warn that tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada can impact the cost of everyday essentials like food, gas, and clothing. It'll also put upward pressure on inflation.

Here’s where you could see prices rise sooner than you think if Trump imposes the tariffs, beginning with a quick recap of where things stand with the trade war.

Key Points

• Trump reached a deal in early February with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and Canada's outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, agreeing to a 30-day delay on tariffs as long as they reinforce border security.
• The Trump administration had planned steep tariffs in retaliation for allowing illicit drugs and migrants to cross the border, the White House said.
• The U.S. also hit China with a unilateral 10% tariff on all imported goods on Feb. 1, 2025. China retaliated with 10% and 15% tariffs on targeted U.S. imports and a lawsuit. China's duties were planned for as soon as Feb. 10.
• Trump floated a March 4 date to impose the 25% tariffs and has just followed through with that threat.
• Canada's response was immediate, with outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau imposing a 25% tariff on $20 billion of U.S. goods and planning more tariffs.
• China, facing its own tariff increase, also reportedly plans to impose duties on U.S. agricultural products. Mexico is expected to announce its response soon.

Food prices could spike across the board

Meanwhile, prices in the grocery aisle can already leave you with a bad taste, and a potential full-blown trade war will likely worsen it. The cost of food is currently 25% higher than pre-COVID levels, the Food Industry Association said, and it doesn’t seem to be easing anytime this year.

Mexico and Canada are two of the United States’ top trading partners. Mexico is the largest supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables to the U.S., responsible for 92% of all agricultural imports, according to the latest government data. It’s also a major supplier of distilled spirits, per the International Food Policy Research Institute.

A 25% tariff on Mexico will cause the cost of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and berries, baked cereals, and avocados to rise.

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously said U.S. consumers will pay more if Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian goods. For Trudeau, nothing was going to be “off the table” as the country considers retaliatory tariffs on beverages like Florida orange juice and other goods due to Trump's 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports. The list may go on.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Canada is a major supplier of essentials on your grocery list. Just to name a few: baked goods, cereals, pasta, vegetable oils, beef products, live animals, chocolate, and other grain products are imported from Canada.

The price of vehicles could rise significantly

Purchasing a car or auto parts will become even more expensive if tariffs are levied on Canada and Mexico.

The steep tariffs would interrupt supply chains from the auto industry causing the spike in prices, Wells Fargo analysts warned. Canada and Mexico are considered top exporters of automotive parts and vehicles to the U.S.

Prices for U.S.-made automobiles could rise as much as $2,100 once tariffs are imposed, Fortune first reported. Additionally, vehicles manufactured completely in Canada and Mexico may cost as much as $8,000 to $10,000 more.

Hardest hit companies include some of the biggest U.S carmakers — General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis. All three have manufacturing plants in Mexico and Canada and could stand to lose between $5 to $9 billion.

Some GM vehicles manufactured in Mexico include the Chevrolet Blazer, Chevy Equinox, and Cadillac Optiq, all made in the Ramos Arizpe plant. There’s also the Chevy Equinox EV.

As Kiplinger reported, electric vehicles may also be hit by a separate Trump policy that aims to eliminate up to $7,500 federal tax credit for EV purchases.

Gas prices to rise in the U.S.

Prices as the gas pump would rise more than expected under Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian imports.

Canada is a main source of crude oil imports and industrial supplies like steel for the United States. More than 71% of U.S. crude oil imports were supplied by Canada and Mexico in 2023, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Of that share, 60% of oil came from Canada.

The steep 25% tariffs could impact consumer prices for gasoline, diesel fuel, and other petroleum products across the country. Some states will be more affected than others by tariffs, mainly the Midwest.

That’s bad news, given that gas prices are already on the rise due to seasonal patterns, and are slated to reach $3.50 per gallon by spring.

The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford has been more forthcoming about the implications of Trump’s tariffs, noting that Canada won’t remain complacent.

“We will cut off energy down to Michigan, over to New York State, and over to Wisconsin,” Ford said in a report by the Associated Press. “I don’t want this to happen.”

Tariffs would lead to higher inflation

If you were expecting inflation to go down, tariffs won’t be the solution.

A new Wells Fargo report found that imposing 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada on February 1, would lead to retaliation and result in slower domestic growth for the U.S. and higher consumer prices.

Model simulations show that the annual rate of consumer price inflation would be half a percentage point higher by the year-end if Trump’s tariffs were enacted. By comparison, GDP growth would fall by a full percentage point relative to the expected baseline this year.

Trump tariffs Bottom line

Tariffs are an overarching theme during the Trump administration’s second term, and economists warn it may have collateral damage on your wallet.

As reported by Kiplinger, prices of everyday goods will spike if steep tariffs are enacted. The U.S. imported nearly $500 billion worth of merchandise from Mexico, and $410 billion from Canada in the twelve months leading up to November 2024.

While Canada and Mexico account for just under 30% of all U.S. goods imports, its categories are crucial for the United States. Auto parts and manufactured vehicles, crude oil, and fresh foods and vegetables are some areas that may be hard hit by Trump's 25% tariffs.

Economists say Trump’s tariffs will ignite a trade war, which will increase U.S. consumer prices and impact Canada and Mexico’s economies. So far, Canada and Mexico's leaders have responded with retaliatory measures.

As reported, tariffs levied on foreign nations are paid by U.S. importers. That means a 25% tariff on Canadian goods will be paid by the U.S.-based importer, and that cost is generally passed to consumers like you so businesses can make a profit.

The U.S. Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is set to be reviewed next year; these tariff discussions may speed up that timeline.

Stay informed, as these looming changes can impact your wallet.

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Did you happen to see a new TurboTax advertisement showing a fictional connoisseur of free products named Marcus learning about the TurboTax free edition? In the ad, Marcus, who loves "anything that's free," reads a disclaimer to confirm whether he can file his taxes 100% free using TurboTax software. This ad comes as Intuit, maker of TurboTax, has been accused of deceptive advertising practices by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In an opinion and final order issued Monday, the FTC found that Intuit misled consumers with "free" tax products and services that many people were not eligible for. The Commission found this to violate the FTC Act, which prohibits deceptive acts and practices. The final order requires Intuit to stop making deceptive claims.

Intuit has said it will appeal the order, stating in a release that it has “always been clear, fair, and transparent with its customers and is committed to free tax preparation.”  The current TurboTax ad states that about 37% of taxpayers qualify for the free edition.

Last year, the company sent TurboTax settlement checks to millions of taxpayers after settling a multi-state lawsuit involving similar claims. Here’s what else you should know.

FTC TurboTax lawsuit

In its complaint against Intuit, the creator of TurboTax, the FTC accused the company of misleading consumers with false "free" tax filing ads. The FTC argued that Intuit's marketing led users to believe they could file taxes for free. (Most taxpayers weren't eligible for the free TurboTax option.)

In a statement about the lawsuit, Samuel Levine, Director of the Federal Bureau of Consumer Protection, condemned the "bait-and-switch" tactics that imposed unexpected charges on consumers.

What does this mean? Intuit is banned under the order from advertising anything free unless the product or service is genuinely available for all consumers or clearly discloses the percentage of eligible consumers. The FTC order also requires Intuit to disclose all terms, conditions, and obligations for obtaining the "free" product or service.  

• FTC says Intuit also cannot misrepresent material facts about its products, including price, refund policies, and consumers' ability to claim tax credits or deductions. 
• The Commission's vote was unanimous, 3-0. However, Intuit plans to appeal.

TurboTax settlement

This FTC order comes after a $141 million settlement involving Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. The settlement resulted in millions of people — many with lower incomes — receiving checks in the mail last year.

Intuit settled a multi-state legal dispute over how the company marketed its tax preparation software from 2016 to 2018. About 4.4 million people who believed they were getting TurboTax for free ended up paying for the product, some reportedly as much as $100.

IRS Free File

As filing season officially begins next week, the IRS Free File program has expanded this tax season and is now open. Free federal income tax filing options are available for taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less in 2023. However, some IRS Free File trusted partners charge a fee for state tax preparation. 

Additionally, for this 2024 tax season, the IRS is piloting a tax prep program in 13 states that will allow a select group of taxpayers to file their tax returns online, directly with the IRS, for free. The Direct File program limited pilot will help the agency determine the feasibility of implementing a larger-scale filing option. 

As Kiplinger has reported, Intuit TurboTax and H&R Block have opposed the IRS getting into the business of tax return prep and direct filing.

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Scams continued to break records for separating consumers from their hard-earned money in 2022. New data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reveals that last year, consumers reported a huge increase in losses from fraudsters compared to the previous year. See the top five scams and find out what you can do to safeguard your assets and not fall victim to a fraudster.

2022 scams shatter previous records

2.4 million consumers contacted the FTC to report scams last year. Their reported $8.8 billion lost from fraud represent an alarming 30% jump from 2021's total —$6.1B lost from scams. 

Despite a decrease in scam reports (from 2.9M to 2.4M year over year) the average consumer loss increased by nearly 75%. The average loss per consumer in 2022 was $3,666, as compared to $2,103 in 2021.

Investment scams accounted for $3.8B in losses in the U.S., more than double the $1.8B 2022 total. This corresponds to a record year for cryptocurrency hacking, which cost crypto owners worldwide an oddly identical $3.8B. 

Social media was the most lucrative medium for scammers, accounting for $1.2B of total losses. Phone calls resulted in the highest median loss at $1,400 per person. Average consumer losses to scams have increased steadily each year since 2018. FTC data on the top fraud category, imposter scams, illustrates the yearly upward trend:

• 2018: $492.0M in total consumer losses reported
• 2019: $900.2M
• 2020: $1.229.4M
• 2021: $2,400.6M
• 2022: $2,666.7M

Top frauds by category

The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network tracks all consumer fraud complaints by category. Below, we break down the top five fraud categories of 2022 by total complaints and percentage of overall reports filed:

The FTC breaks down the concerning data in the following graphic: 

How to protect yourself

Consider these tips to guard against the most common types of scams:

• Never trust caller ID on your phone, especially when the caller asks for private information. Banks will never call and ask you for that info over the phone, to avoid this exact scenario. Reach out to your bank or credit card company via their mobile app or via their official phone number.
• Be skeptical of online shopping sites and email offers with suspiciously low prices, no return policy, or missing/negative online reviews.
• Never share passwords or numbers for Social Security, credit cards, or bank accounts.
• Don't send money to someone you don’t know, even if you've been chatting online through a dating platform or social media. If you've never met in person, and they ask for funds, there's a high likelihood they're trying to scam you.
• Watch out for scam job listings that guarantee you a job or demand money for training, certification or supplies.
• Designate a trusted contact on your financial accounts that the bank can contact if they detect potential scams or financial exploitation.
• Put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry to avoid robocalls from scammers. Go to www.donotcall.gov or call (888) 382-1222.
• Submit complaints about scammers and fraudulent activities to www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint.

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Scammers are using fake Disney Plus emails to access users' personal data — especially their banking information. According to our colleagues at The Money Edit, scammers send emails that tell victims they need to act immediately to prevent their accounts from being disabled. It's a close cousin of the banking scams, where seemingly-official email messages impersonate Bank of America and others which can easily lead to empty customer bank accounts. 

Learn some of the things to watch out for, to avoid becoming the next Disney Plus scam victim. 

Fake Disney Plus email basics

Scammers create lookalike email addresses and messages, which mirror official Disney Plus emails to confuse subscribers. A typical scam email tells the recipient that Disney Plus has been unable to renew their subscription due to a "technical incident".

The goal of this tactic is to panic the victim into updating their billing information —using the link provided in the email — before their account gets canceled. 

Of course, rather than going to the Disney Plus website, the link takes users to a website that requests sensitive personal information, including bank login details. And, instead of resolving their non-existent subscription issue, scam victims grant unknown criminals unrestricted access to their bank accounts. 

Classic phishing scams

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says this is all typical behavior from phishing scammers, who impersonate a variety of trusted businesses and organizations with lookalike emails to steal personal data and funds from victims.

Phishing emails and text messages often tell a story to trick you into clicking on a link or opening an attachment. This can include out of the blue email or text messages supposedly from familiar companies, including banks, telecoms, or online payment services. Don't buy it. The scammer could try one of several lines to obtain your personal info:

• "We've noticed some suspicious activity or log-in attempts;"
• "There's a problem with your account or your payment information;"
• "Can you confirm some personal or financial information;"
• "This is your latest invoice;"
• "Click this link to make a payment;"
• "You’re eligible to register for a government refund;" and
• "Claim your coupon for a free gift."

How to spot the fake Disney Plus emails

If you receive an unexpected email with similar messaging telling you to act immediately, don't panic. Take a moment to read the email all the way through. 

Check the sender's email address, and hover over the URL they ask you to click. If the email address looks odd, or the link doesn’t look like the official Disney Plus URL, (https://www.disneyplus.com/) proceed with caution.

Before clicking, try to log into your Disney Plus account in a separate browser tab and check around to see if your payment details are in order. If you're still concerned, reach out to Disney Plus on its support channels directly. 

Disney states that it will never contact you via social media, email, text or phone asking for payment or your private accounts information such as a password or payment details.

Stop the scam after it's started

If you think you've fallen prey to a phishing scam and you've shared info with a fake Disney Plus website, immediately alert your bank and share details. 

Your bank will be well-versed in handling scams. They should work with you to block any fraudulent transactions or transfers, cancel cards, and refund any lost funds from the scams.

Be wary of follow-up scams. Now that criminals have your private details, they're likely to try to scam you again from totally different angles, using a variety of channels including phone, email, and even snail mail.

Protect yourself from the next scam

A spokesperson for Disney Plus said: “We encourage people to remain vigilant online, and to refer to our Disney Plus Help Center for more information on phishing and ways to keep your account secure.” 

Use your email service's "spam" button to add the scammer's email address to a potential threat database. This will protect you and other potential phishing targets from future messages from this address.

Report fake emails and phishing websites to the FTC at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/,  so they can take action to remove these websites.

Warn friends and family about a scam — but make sure to send them a screenshot instead of forwarding suspicious emails directly.

The FTC provides the following tips to protect your data across all your devices:

• Protect your computer by using security software. Set the software to update automatically so it will deal with any new security threats.
• Protect your cell phone by setting software to update automatically. These updates could give you critical protection against security threats.
• Protect your accounts by using multi-factor authentication. Some accounts offer extra security by requiring two or more credentials to log in to your account. This is called multi-factor authentication. The extra credentials you need to log in to your account fall into three categories:
  • something you know — like a passcode, a PIN, or the answer to a security question. 
  • something you have — like a one-time verification passcode you get by text, email, or from an authenticator app; or a security key
  • something you are — like a scan of your fingerprint, your retina, or your face
• Protect your data by backing it up. Back up the data on your computer to an external hard drive or in the cloud. Back up the data on your phone, too.

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Valentine’s Day is gearing up to be big this year. The National Retail Federation projects that consumer spending will reach nearly $26 billion. The romance scams that inevitably accompany the Valentine’s celebrations are, as usual, ramping up too — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) have warned lovestruck consumers against being scammed out of their money. And, whether f you’re celebrating your love or looking for a new spark tomorrow, you should be aware of several all-too-common romance scams that exploit people at their most hopeful and vulnerable.

Common romance scams

Impostor websites

The BBB reports a spike in impostor website activity around Valentine’s Day. Jewelry scammers borrow official photos, logos and sale graphics directly from legitimate jewelry websites and then offer seemingly unbeatable prices. The impostor websites look and perform eerily similar to the real thing, right until they take your money and send nothing back.

Scammers also use similar tricks to build fake online dating sites. These are lookalikes to major websites, such as like Match.com that steal personal data and credit card information from idealistic love-seekers. 

The BBB lists the following red flags of impostor sites: 

• Customer service is nonexistent and unreachable. 
• The prices are literally too good to be true.
• The seller requests customers pay with cryptocurrency or a cash-based phone app.

Fake florists

If you’re trying to order last-minute flowers for a loved one, beware the fake florist grift. The BBB has a deep catalog of scammed consumers who thought they ordered from a legitimate retailer and then received extremely subpar flowers - or nothing at all. The scammers use the same tricks as jewelry scammers - attractive websites with prices that are so good you can’t ignore them. Do your research before sharing your personal information.

Watch for these red flags:

• The prices are much, much lower than any other flower site.
• You can't find a return policy or satisfaction guarantee.
• There are no reviews or all bad reviews for the business.

Romance scams on social media

The FBI, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other federal agencies have issued alerts warning of various types of schemes carried under the guise of love. In 2020 alone, U.S. victims lost a record $304 million to romance scams, an increase of 50% from 2019, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel data. The median dollar loss per individual was $2,500, a nearly fourfold increase from 2016.

Older people are particularly at risk for romance scams, with an average of $9,500 in losses each. The CFPB states that victims of all ages can be vulnerable to these schemes. Indeed, online, where scammers are increasingly using fake social media profiles to connect, victims aged 18 to 39 were twice as likely as older adults to be targeted.

According to the FTC, more than a quarter of people who reported losing money to fraud in 2021 said it started on social media. Altogether, more than 95,000 people lost $770 million to fraud initiated on social media platforms last year, an eighteen-fold increase over 2017.

“For scammers, there’s a lot to like about social media,” according to the FTC. “It’s a low-cost way to reach billions of people from anywhere in the world. It’s easy to manufacture a fake persona, or scammers can hack into an existing profile to get ‘friends’ to con. There’s the ability to fine-tune their approach by studying the personal details people share on social media.”

Romance scams are the second most profitable fraud on social media behind investment scams, according to the FTC. And more than a third of people who lost money to an online romance scam said it started on Facebook or Instagram.

Signs of a romance scam

To spot red flags, it’s a good idea to talk to people you know about anyone you meet online and listen to their input about whether something doesn’t seem right. 

One way to detect a scammer is to use Google to do a reverse image search of any photos online connections may share. This includes photos of the person and even of such mundane things as pictures of their meals. Scammers often reuse the same photos.

According to the FTC, these scammers typically say they’re living or traveling outside the U.S. They’ll say they’re working on an oil rig or in the military or are a doctor with an international organization to help cover difficulties in communication or making in-person arrangements. 

Common requests include asking for money to pay for travel or medical expenses or for customs fees to retrieve something or to pay a gambling debt. They also say they need money to pay for a visa or travel documents, possibly even to make a long-awaited personal encounter happen. And they’ll often ask the victims to use gift cards or wire transfers to send funds. These methods make money virtually impossible to recover once sent.

The FBI has its own list of romance scam red flags:

• The scammer makes promises to meet in person but gives excuses as to why they can’t.
• The scammer will ask for money once they gain your trust. Typically, they explain they have an owed debt, need financial assistance, or they ask for travel funds.
• The scammer will request money through methods that make it hard to be traced and hard to get back.
• The scammer may ask to leave a dating service or social media site to communicate directly.

How to outsmart a romance scammer

Whatever you do, don’t send money or gifts to anyone you’ve never met in person, authorities say. Don’t sign legal documents or give account numbers to these people or open joint accounts with them either.

The FBI has some advice on what you can do to limit your risk:

• Be careful what you post and make public online.
• If you suspect a scam, stop communicating with the person immediately.
• Conduct a reverse image search of the person’s photo(s). If it is associated with another name or profile, it is likely a scam.
• Take things slow and ask a lot of questions.
• Never send money to someone you have only communicated with online or by phone

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission offers these additional suggestions:

• Keep conversations on dating or social media platforms. Many platforms utilize harmful language filters that can detect fraud. Fraudsters want to quickly move conversations to private messaging apps to avoid detection.
• If contacts refuse to meet or video chat, that should be a red flag. Try other ways to verify their identities in real-time. For example, ask the person to send a selfie holding a piece of paper with your name and date next to his or her face.
• Before making any investment, get a second opinion. Talk it over with a financial advisor, trusted friend, or family member.
• Never pay more money to get your money back. If you suspect fraud, report it immediately to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
• Learn more about romance scams at consumer.ftc.gov or other reliable websites.

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Consumer scams are getting more and more creative with every year that goes by. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that consumers lost more than $5.8 billion to fraudsters in 2021, an increase of more than 70 percent over the previous year. And the data for 2022 is expected to be even higher when it's released, as criminals experiment with more intricate and inventive scams.

One of the latest technology-aided gambits involves scammers contacting you pretending to be your bank, in order to steal sensitive data and take over your accounts. So how do these scams work, and how can you protect yourself? 

Bank spoof scams: How they work

The Detroit Free Press reports on a recent surge in scammers targeting checking accounts and bank accounts, particularly during the recent holiday shopping rush. The latest trend is to impersonate or “spoof” bank fraud departments. 

Scammers and criminal gangs reach out to potential victims via fake text messages, phishing emails, or telephone calls — both live and pre-recorded. Once they’ve successfully impersonated the victim’s bank, scammers hope to confuse their mark into believing fictional stories about crooks hacking into their bank accounts. 

The scammer tries to convince the victim to reveal personal information or to click on fraudulent links to help “stop the crooks” when, of course, the scammer’s real goal is to take over their bank account themselves. 

Scammers use these fake, urgent warnings to panic you into acting before you have time to think, according to the FTC. This “fight or flight” feeling is what helps scammers achieve their goals — and it usually succeeds unless potential victims understand how to protect themselves. 

Related payment scams

The American Bankers Association reports that scammers also attempt intricate phishing attempts to trick consumers into using person-to-person payment apps to transfer money to the crooks, under the guise of a legitimate business or someone you trust. Criminal gangs usually already have some of their intended victim's personal details, often gained through a data breach, which they use to make the scam harder to detect. 

PayPal, Venmo, CashApp and Zelle are the preferred money-transfer apps for scammers. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), consumers lost $130 million in 2021 by mistakenly sending money to scammers via these payment apps or similar services.

How to protect yourself

To guard against these types of scams, follow a few cardinal rules from the CFPB: 

• Never trust Caller ID, especially when they ask for private information. Banks will never call and ask you for that info over the phone, to avoid this exact scenario.
• Worried that a call or message is fake? Don't use the number provided. Instead, reach out to your bank or credit card company via their mobile app or via their official phone number, which is usually located on bank statements and on the back of your credit or debit card.
• Never share passwords or numbers for Social Security, credit cards, or bank accounts.
• Never send money to someone you don’t know. If you think you sent money to a scammer, contact your bank or the payment app operator you used to report a potential mistake and hopefully recover your funds.
• Put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry to avoid robocalls from scammers. Go to www.donotcall.gov or call (888) 382-1222.
• Submit complaints about scammers and fraudulent activities to www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint.

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 Crooks succeeded in taking significantly more money from older adults in 2021 than the year before through investment, business impersonation and government impersonation scams, according to a new report to Congress from the Federal Trade Commission.

According to the report, consumers 60 and older filed 467,340 fraud reports with reported losses of more than $1 billion. This was an increase of nearly 40 percent in the number of fraud reports in 2020 when people in that age group filed  334,411 fraud reports with reported losses of more than $600 million. The FTC says the vast majority of frauds are not reported, adding that these numbers include only a fraction of older adults harmed by fraud.

The FTC says the vast majority of frauds are not reported, adding that these numbers include only a fraction of older adults harmed by fraud. To make matters worse, older adults who do report fraud often lose larger sums than their younger counterparts. However, older adults are less likely to report losing money to fraud than younger people. Among the possible explanations for this, the FTC said, could be that older people may be more likely to “avoid losing money when exposed to fraud (or be) more inclined to report fraud when no loss has occurred.”

“Older adults continued to be much more likely than younger adults to report losing money on tech support scams, prize, sweepstakes and lottery scams, and family and friend impersonation,” the report states.

Online shopping fraud continued to be the most commonly reported type of fraud in which victims reported losing money, according to the FTC. But older adults were much less likely to report losing money to online shopping fraud than younger adults.

Scammers who targeted older adults most frequently collected payment using gift cards and reload debit cards, followed by credit cards, according to reports collected by the FTC. But older adults reported higher losses in scams using bank transfers or payments. 

Walmart Accused of Enabling Fraud

 The agency sued Walmart this past summer, asserting the retailer “has been a particularly popular processor for fraudulent money transfers, in large part because of Walmart’s ineffective, poorly enforced anti-fraud policy.” The FTC asserted that Walmart failed to adequately train staff who handled money transfers about avoiding fraud, and told workers. “If you suspect fraud, complete the transaction.” 

Walmart has called the lawsuit “misguided” and asked a judge to dismiss it.  

Fraud Dollar Losses Surged 

 Younger adults aren’t immune. The  FTC says losses  increased across the board in 2021, but that the increases were “most striking for younger adults” who fell prey to romance scams and investment scams, both of which have much higher reported median individual dollar losses than most other types of fraud.

Romance scams led the rest when it comes to losses among older adults as well. According to the FTC, reported losses to romance scams increased significantly in recent years, and this trend accelerated with the start of the pandemic. “For older adults, reported romance scam losses increased from $139 million in 2020 to $213 million in 2021,” the FTC report states. At the same time, business impersonation scams took more than $151 million from older adults in 2021, more than double the previous year. Part of the increase, the FTC says, is attributable to a surge in scammers posing as being from Amazon.

Older adults’ losses to investment scams more than tripled in 2021, according to the FTC. The increase was largely because of cryptocurrency investment scams. These scams involve investments in cryptocurrency and cons where victims are tricked into paying the thieves money with cryptocurrency. ”Reported losses by older adults to scam investment opportunities where the payment method is in cryptocurrency increased more than ninefold in 2021,” the FTC report states.

People in their eighties and older lost the most — $47 million — on prize, sweepstakes and lottery scams, according to the report, which says this represents 31% of reported fraud losses by people in that age group. The FTC says the median individual reported loss on these scams for those 80 and over was $6,000 in 2021.

For the first time, more older adults were reported to have been scammed online in 2020 than through fraud that started with telephone calls. And that increased in 2021, according to the FTC, when online fraud among older adults was nearly double phone fraud. However, individual losses were significantly higher at $1,5000 among older adults scammed over the phone, compared to $300 lost individually to online fraud.

Scammers who contacted older adult victims via social media more than doubled in 2021, the FTC said.

But just as the internet is being used to scam victims, federal authorities hope to use it to disseminate information to arm consumers to protect themselves. For information about different scams, you can visit the FTC online. 

In place of all those robocalls, you may notice your cellphone has become the target of spam texts. And just like robocalls, these texts and robotexts are becoming the preferred vehicle for scammers looking to infect your phone, steal your information and take your money. In fact, there’s even a name for it: smishing.

The IRS recently issued a warning, urging taxpayers to remain vigilant after identifying an exponential increase in the number of IRS-themed smishing incidents. “Scam messages often look like they're coming from the IRS, offering lures like fake COVID relief, tax credits or help setting up an IRS online account,” the agency reported. 

"This is phishing on an industrial scale so thousands of people can be at risk of receiving these scam messages," said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. "In recent months, the IRS has reported multiple large-scale smishing campaigns that have delivered thousands – and even hundreds of thousands – of IRS-themed messages in hours or a few days, far exceeding previous levels of activity."

Amy Nofziger, director of fraud victim support at AARP, said spam texts are an effective tool for scammers. “Criminals know that most Americans have their devices with them at all times and are constantly engaged with their technology, so their chances of ensuring their next victim with a text message are high,” Nofziger said. “When people receive a text they often quickly glance at it and determine the priority of their response time, scammers know this and use highly emotional language to get the attention of their target, words like ‘immediate, quickly, in danger,’ so many unsuspecting victims quickly follow the instructions without much research.”

According to the Federal Trade Commission, 2022 is on track to be the first year where more people report being contacted by scammers via text than by phone call.

According to Robokiller, the call-blocking app, Americans received 15.6 billion spam texts in September, nearly 57 spam texts for every person in the United States. As the company puts it, “Spam texts are the new spam call.”

The company says Americans received 87.8 billion spam texts in 2021, compared to 72 billion spam calls. The previous year, there were 55.5 billion spam texts, compared to about 54.5 billion calls. 

According to the Federal Communications Commission, “complaints about unwanted text messages have risen steadily in recent years from approximately 5,700 in 2019,

14,000 in 2020, 15,300 in 2021, to 8,500 through June 30, 2022.”

According to the FTC, scammers use spam texts to trick people into giving the scammers personal information such as passwords, account numbers and Social Security numbers. They either use this information to gain access to your financial accounts and email or they sell the information to other scammers.

Scammers also will try to get you to click on links in text messages by promising things like prizes, gift cards or coupons. They might offer low-or-no-interest credit cards or promise to help pay off student loans.They might say they’ve noticed suspicious activity in your account or send you a fake invoice telling you to contact them if you didn’t authorize a purchase. 

How Text Scams Work

Nofziger provided the following examples of people who reported issues with texts to the AARP:

• A consumer got a text claiming $983 had been charged to his PayPal account and that a credit card application was submitted in his name and there were additional charges on that. The consumer downloaded the screen sharing service AnyDesk and provided access to his device. He later deleted it and changed his banking passwords.
• A caller reported that she got a text from someone claiming to be from the post office and the caller gave the texter banking information.
• A consumer received a text asking if she purchased a cellphone. The text appeared to come from Amazon. She was instructed to call a number , and when she did someone answered who claimed to be from the Chase Bank Fraud Division. This person told her that her account had been hacked, and got her to transfer $67,500 into a cryptocurrency account.
• A caller reported he received a text from the bank that there was fraudulent activity on his account. He called the fraud line and as he was on the phone with them saw $3,000 leave his account. He disputed the action and then a couple days later it happened again. He has been fighting Bank of America for over 2 months over the $6,000 that was unlawfully taken from his account. He has since pulled all but $100 from Bank of America and opened a new account at a different bank, he no longer does any online banking or purchasing so he can protect his money.
• A caller got a text she thought was a wrong number. The texter was asking for a vet appointment for their dog. When the victim responded that the texter had the wrong number and hoped her dog felt better, a conversation started. The caller ended up sending $10,000 to the scammer’s crypto account, which turned out to be a scam, and lost $10,000.pty list

The Better Business Bureau is warning about that last trick: the wrong number text. As the BBB explains this, “You receive a text that reads something like this: ‘Hey is this John? It’s Amanda. We chatted on Tinder before when I came to visit my cousin but we never met irl. I’m back in town if you want to meet up this time, are you free?’”

You might be tempted to reply to the text telling the sender they got the wrong number. This rewards the scammer, who will plow ahead to keep the conversation going. They might send you some compliments or some photos of “Amanda” who happens to be scantily clad. The stories will change in an effort to get you to reply.

“If you continue to engage with the stranger, who is really a chatbot, it tries to trick you into registering for dating or adult websites,” The BBB warns. “Your new ‘friend’ will encourage you to sign up for a specific website to see more explicit photos, which may involve offering up your credit card number. Considering the dubious nature of this scam, if you hand over your credit card information at any point, you could be putting yourself at risk for fraudulent charges and identity theft.”

Another AARP caller reported receiving a text purporting to come from the U.S. Postal Service. The caller wound up sending that texter banking information. The postal service has issued its own warning about such texts and suggests you report these smishing attempts to spam@uspis.gov.

How to Avoid Being Scammed Via Text 

The FCC and the FTC offer the following advice to protect yourself:

• Do not respond to suspicious texts, even if the message requests that you "text STOP" to end messages.
• Do not click on any links you receive in texts.
• Do not provide any information via text or website.
• Forward unwanted texts to SPAM (7726).
• Delete all suspicious texts.
• If you think a text message might be legitimate, contact the company using a phone number or website you know is real and not the information in the text.
• The wireless industry has a website, CTIA.org, offering options from different cellular providers and third parties. According to the site, major wireless providers offer various tools and solutions that you can engage or may be built into your device to block or flag calls: AT&T Call Protect; Verizon Call Filter; T-Mobile Scam ID, Scam Block, Name ID; U.S. Cellular Call Guardian.
• Update your smart device OS and security apps.
• Consider installing anti-malware software.
• Review companies’ policies regarding opting out of text alerts and selling/sharing your
• information.
• Review text blocking tools in your mobile phone settings, available third-party apps and your mobile phone carrier’s offerings.
• Report scam texts it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Tucked into the 2022 omnibus appropriations bill that President Biden signed into law earlier this year is a little-known measure that aims to tackle the financial exploitation of seniors. The Fraud and Scam Prevention Act promises a new level of prevention and response to this exploitation by recruiting a new army to fight it: the clerks and shopkeepers that seniors interact with as they go about their daily business. 

The legislation even creates a new task force, the Senior Scam Prevention Advisory Group, with representatives from government agencies, consumer advocates and industry organizations. Cynics might be inclined to roll their eyes at the formation of another watchdog, but some experts say this group has the potential to kick things up a notch. The group has been given the job of developing a training program, one that teaches retailers, financial institutions and wire-transfer services to recognize scams and stop senior fraud before it happens. As part of its duties, the group “would also be required to evaluate the success of the educational materials and programs they implement instead of using methods that have proven to be ineffective,” says Erin Witte, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America.

In the past, educational and prevention efforts have been directed mainly at seniors and bank tellers, but Witte thinks this focus on also training industry stakeholders can fortify the front lines in a growing battle. “These companies are often in a position to help prevent consumers from losing their money to a scam,” she says. “A retail cashier may be able to alert customers to a potential fraud before they purchase several hundred dollars in gift cards, a very common scam tactic.”

 Gift Card Purchases a Red Flag For Fraud 

Consumers who buy a lot of gift cards at once, often with a high-dollar value, are a red flag to store clerks or managers who know that the cards are often a scammer’s preferred method of payment and the buyer merely the latest victim. That intervention, though, currently only happens about 25% of the time, according to an April report by AARP. But it’s a crucial moment because AARP also finds that more than half the time a third-party intervenes in an attempted financial exploitation, the potential victims avoid losing money.

At the same time, the act also creates a new Senior Fraud Advisory Office within the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. This office also aims to “reform the FTC complaint system to drive better participation and enhance fraud surveillance through better coordination with law enforcement agencies,” says Dawit Kahsai, senior legislative representative at AARP.

For instance, the office has orders to actively monitor the latest fraud schemes and use that information for targeted outreach not only to seniors but their families and caregivers, too. A dedicated website of identified scams and resources is also part of the plan.

An AARP poll conducted earlier this year suggests getting the word out may be meaningful. Eight in 10 (82%) U.S. adults age 50 and older say they are talking to their elderly relatives about scams, with family caregivers even slightly more likely to report doing so (85%).

Still, thwarting the $5.89 billion in consumer fraud losses reported to the FTC last year (up 70% from a year ago) is a massive undertaking. Although alerting people can reduce the risk of financial harm, some older adults never receive these warnings and succumb to the pressure of bad actors.

In a recent case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, for example, an accountant at an Atlanta-based wealth management firm pleaded guilty to federal charges of embezzling $800,000 from an elderly client with dementia that the accountant befriended over the course of 10 years. 

Telling co-workers that the client was like “a grandmother to her,” court documents show that beginning in 2010, the accountant stole the victim’s annuity payments, wrote more than 200 fraudulent checks, and withdrew cash or diverted payments from the woman’s bank accounts. She’s also accused of impersonating the woman in phone conversations with financial institutions as well as using the victim’s name and Social Security number to open a separate account to conceal the alleged fraud.

The firm learned of the fraud in mid-March 2021, immediately fired the accountant and reported the crime to law enforcement. But the damage was done.

Finding new ways to prevent cases like this one is a big focus of the legislation, and it’s why Witte is hopeful that the new measures will have an impact. “Prevention is critical to protecting consumers,” she says, “because once the scammer has stolen the money it’s very difficult to get back.

The calls come from people saying they’re with the FBI or the IRS or Social Security or any number of government agencies; They’re all thieves.

If you get an unsolicited call from a government agency, hang up. Social Security, Medicare, the IRS, the FBI and others do not make cold calls and demand payment or personal information.

Scammers have more ways to con you out of your money than there are government agencies — and there are a lot of government agencies.

This particular tactic has grown so popular that those agencies are regularly issuing warnings to alert people that scammers are impersonating them. Even the Federal Trade Commission, which is itself charged with tracking scams, has issued an alert warning people that scammers are posing as FTC commissioners trying to trick people out of their money by, for example, telling victims they won a federally supervised lottery or sweepstakes, but they have to pay taxes or a fee to get the money.

In one international conspiracy alone, federal authorities said, scammers placed tens of millions of calls to U.S. consumers looking for victims. While the vast majority of the targets may have just hung up or not taken the calls, thousands of people do get victimized every year.

Thousands Victimized, Millions Stolen

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as IC3, received reports from more than 3,319 people over 60 who had been victimized by government impersonation fraud in 2021. The victims reported losses of more than $69 million, up from $45 million the previous year, although the number of victims was lower.

Amy Nofziger, director of fraud victim support with AARP, said the prevalence of government impersonation scams is “huge.” She added, “There’s not an hour that goes by on our helpline where we don’t get a report of some kind of government impersonation scam.” Seniors are attractive targets in part, she said, because they are more comfortable answering calls from unknown callers, while younger people who grew up with cell phones and caller ID tend not to pick up if they don’t know who’s on the other end. Fundamentally, Nofziger said, older people tend to have more respect for authority figures and the government. “When your government calls,” she said, “you are listening.”

Scammers Want You to Send Them Money Through Gift Cards

Nofziger said people should know, “The government will not call you unsolicited, bottom line. If you’re receiving a call that you did not initiate from someone in the federal government, it is not them.”

“The government will never threaten you with arrest, deportation, stopping of benefits” she said, “and they certainly will never ask for payment in prepaid gift cards, cryptocurrency, a peer-to-peer app such as Cash App, Venmo and Zelle and wire transfers.”

You might be wondering: how could anyone believe the government or a law enforcement agency would ever ask them to send money through, say, an iTunes card?

Nofziger says the victims, for one, react emotionally because they’re upset or anxious about the story they’re told And older people aren’t as familiar with gift cards and the way they’re sold in stores. It used to be, if you wanted a gift certificate, Nofziger said, you’d go to the store that the certificate was for and you’d get a paper certificate from the cashier.

The victims might not be familiar with the racks or carousels with plastic cards. The scammers will tell them they need to go to the store and get a prepaid voucher at the grocery store, to get the silver card or the yellow card on the carousel.

For that reason, Nofziger says, when she talks to older people, she tells them to get familiar with the carousels with cards on them the next time they go to the store. And if they’re ever told on the phone to pay a government agency using them, stop.

That Help With Your Government Benefits is a Scam

Another form of government imposter scams involve thieves who pose as people who can help with government benefits.

Genevieve Waterman, director of economic security at the National Council on Aging said Medicare open enrollment is an especially busy time for these scammers, who will pose as brokers ready to help their victims navigate the complicated choices they face.

Medicare beneficiaries, she said, “are inundated with many different mailings during the year, especially during open enrollment. We call it analysis paralysis.”

Nofziger said victims might receive a notice that they’re eligible for a government grant. These notices can come through emails or social media and sometimes appear to be postings or other communications from people the victims know.

Examples of Government Impersonation Scams in Action

How do these scams play out? We have lots of examples, so buckle up. Be warned, though, that these examples don’t even begin to cover all the ways that scammers trick, coerce and extort victims by pretending to be from the government. But knowing how they have worked is one important way to be alert to other scams.

For starters, look at the case of a married couple in Virginia prosecuted for their role in an international conspiracy in which participants impersonated government officials, including law enforcement officers, to trick victims into sending money.

In one part of this conspiracy, thieves posed as agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, telling a victim that they found a vehicle near the U.S. southwest border that contained a large amount of cocaine and the victim’s bank information. The thieves persuaded the victim to surrender half the cash in her bank accounts as a sign of good faith until a thorough investigation could clear her.

Another federal case involved a scheme that stole more than $7.5 million from 54 victims, according to federal prosecutors. In that case, victims were called and told they were being investigated by federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department and the DEA. The bogus agents told the victims their identities had been connected to a crime and that an order had been issued for their imminent arrest or deportation. Of course, the only way to avoid these consequences was to pay large sums of money.

The victims of that scheme were told to withdraw cash from their bank accounts and mail it to various addresses, which turned out to be Walgreens stores in northeastern Colorado.

In another case, federal authorities charged directors of six call centers based in India on accusations of making tens of millions of scam calls to U.S. consumers.

According to the Justice Department, one version of the scam from that conspiracy had the callers pretend to be federal agents contacting the victims to tell them their Social Security numbers were involved in crimes.

In another version, the callers said they were IRS employees calling because the victims owed back taxes.

In both of these scenarios, the callers threatened to arrest the victim if the victim didn’t send money.

Then there was the fake IRS email that went out telling potential victims they could get a third Economic Impact Payment if they clicked on a link to “access the form for your additional information” and “get help” with the application. But that link, the FTC warned, was a trick that, if clicked, could enable a scammer to steal victims’ money and personal information.

Medicare and Social Security Scams are Common

Social Security numbers are a common target. The Justice Department has issued a warning about a scam in which thieves pretending to be from the Social Security Administration call people and tell them their Social Security number has been suspended because of suspicious activity or because it’s been involved in a crime.

Thieves ask victims to confirm their number or they tell them to withdraw money from the bank and store it on gift cards for “safekeeping.” Victims are also told their accounts may be seized or frozen if they fail to act soon enough.

The Minnesota Attorney General issued a warning about a reported scam where callers claimed to be from Medicare, Social Security or an insurance company. They say new Medicare, Social Security or supplemental insurance benefits cards are being issued or that the beneficiary’s information on file needs to be updated. The thief asks the victim to verify or provide their personal banking information, which the scammer later uses to steal from the victim.

Then there are the scammers who impersonate local law enforcement officers and get victims to send money because subpoenas or warrants have been issued against them.

In one reported case, a physician was tricked by a caller in a sophisticated plot to pose as a police officer from the City of Miami. The caller, who was able to use technology to spoof the real police department’s phone number on caller ID, told the victim she had failed to appear in court as an expert witness and needed to pay an $8,000 fine.

These perpetrators often use robocalls. Victims may be told that their Social Security number has been inactivated and they need to “press 1” to speak to a government “support representative” for help reactivating it.

In yet another scam described by the FTC, thieves say they’re calling from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service or another agency and there’s a problem with immigration paperwork. They tell the victims they need to pay to solve that issue.

The FTC also tells of scammers posing as court officials or sheriffs saying there’s a warrant for the victim’s arrest and they need to immediately pay a fine or bail to avoid having to go to jail.

Or these “court officials” say the victim needs to pay a fine for missing jury duty.

Callers Regret Sharing Information

Nofziger offered descriptions of calls the AARP helpline has received from scam victims:

• A consumer received a call from someone claiming to be from Medicare. She said they asked her for confidential information. She gave the caller her Social Security number and her mother's maiden name.
• A caller reported that she received a call from "Medicare." It was early so she wasn't thinking and just answered their questions which were seeking her Medicare number and her Social Security number. The person then thanked her and would be calling her back to let her know more about the program. She figured out then she shouldn't have given that information and wants to know what to do to protect herself.
• A caller was contacted by phone with an offer of free COVID testing kits He was also unsure why it was a minimum of 8 tests each for him and his wife. He provided his Medicare number and dates of birth for himself and wife but never got the testing kits.
• A caller received a text for an unauthorized purchase, $1537.45 for an Apple MacBook Pro, through Amazon. She was transferred to an alleged FTC agent and they claimed she had 24 bank accounts using her Social Security number. She was told to remove all the money from her bank account except $500 because she faced money laundering and obstruction of justice charges. She removed over $11,000 from her bank account. He sent her barcodes and sent her to Walmart to deposit $1500 each on 6 different bar codes. She was told there would be 2 agents coming to her door the next day.
• A caller said their mother was phoned by someone saying it was the FBI to tell her they were coming to arrest her for fraud on her Social Security number. The mother withdrew all her money from the bank and purchased gift cards for $11,000, as instructed by the caller.

Ways to Avoid Government Imposter Scams

The government will never call you and ask for personal information or money. If you get a call like that, hang up immediately.In addition, FBI, the IRS, the FTC and the Social Security Administration offer the following guidance and information for avoiding scams:

• Don’t wire money, send cash, or use gift cards or cryptocurrency to pay someone who says they’re with the government. Scammers ask you to pay these ways because it’s hard to track that money, and almost impossible to get it back.
• Don’t give your financial or other personal information to someone who calls, texts, or emails and says they’re with the government. If you think a call or message could be real, hang up and call the government agency directly at a number you know is correct.
• Don’t trust your caller ID. Your caller ID might show the government agency’s real phone number or even say “Social Security Administration,” for example. But caller ID can be faked.
• Don’t click on links in unexpected emails or text messages. Scammers send emails and text messages that look like they’re from a government agency, but are designed to steal your money and your personal information. Just delete the message.
• Do not take immediate action. If you receive a communication that causes a strong emotional response, take a deep breath. Hang up or ignore the message. Talk to someone you trust.
• Be skeptical. If you think a real law enforcement officer is trying to reach you, call your local law enforcement using a non-emergency number to verify. Do not believe scammers who “transfer” your call to an official or who give you a number as proof. Scammers can create fake numbers and identities.

The IRS will never:

• Call to demand immediate payment using a specific payment method such as a prepaid debit card, gift card or wire transfer. Generally, the IRS will first mail a bill to any taxpayer who owes taxes.
• Threaten to immediately bring in local police or other law enforcement groups to have the taxpayer arrested for not paying.
• Demand that taxes be paid without giving taxpayers the opportunity to question or appeal the amount owed.
• Call unexpectedly about a tax refund.

The FBI will never:

• Call or email private citizens to demand payment or threaten arrest. You will also not be asked to wire a “settlement” to avoid arrest.
• Ask you to use large sums of your own money to help catch a criminal.
• Ask you for wire transfers or gift cards.
• Call you about “frozen” Social Security numbers or to coordinate inheritances.

What to do if You’ve Been Targeted by Scammers

• Contact law enforcement.
• Members of the public are encouraged to report suspected Social Security fraud to the Office of Inspector General at https://oig.ssa.gov.
• File a complaint with the FBI IC3 at www.ic3.gov.
• If the scammer claimed to be from the IRS, Report the call using the IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting form or by calling 800-366-4484. And report the number to phishing@irs.gov and be sure to put "IRS Phone Scam" in the subject line.
• The Federal Trade Commission is the main agency that collects scam reports. Report government impersonation scams to the FTC online, or by phone at 1-877-382-4357 (9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET).

In 2017, credit bureau Equifax announced that the sensitive personal information of 147 million people had been exposed in a data breach. As part of Equifax’s settlement with regulators, affected consumers were able to sign up for free monitoring of their credit reports from Equifax as well as the other two major credit bureaus, Experian and TransUnion.

Early this year, the settlement became final, and if you were among those who filed a claim for credit monitoring (the deadline was in January 2020), you should have received a letter or an e-mail from info@equifaxbreachsettlement.com with instructions to sign up for daily three-bureau monitoring with Experian IdentityWorks. You must enroll by June 27, 2022. For more details, you can check this page on the Federal Trade Commission website.

Names, birth dates and Social Security numbers are among the data involved in the breach. Those are key pieces of information that a criminal can use to open credit accounts in your name, among other forms of identity theft. If a new inquiry (a request by a lender to view your credit report), credit card, loan or collection account pops up on your credit reports, IdentityWorks should notify you.

The service also provides monitoring of internet black markets for your personal data, and up to $1 million in identity theft insurance, which reimburses you for certain expenses related to recovery from identity theft, such as lost wages or income, attorney and legal fees, and costs of child or elder care. You also get monthly access to your Experian credit report—although you can get a free credit report each week from each of the three major credit bureaus for the remainder of 2022 at www.annualcreditreport.com, and through 2026 all U.S. consumers get seven free Equifax credit reports per year. Your IdentityWorks membership lasts for four years, and you don’t need to cancel the service when it expires.

Even if you didn’t file a claim, if you become an identity-theft victim, you can get free identity-restoration services—such as help contacting your banks and lenders and notifying law enforcement—if you are among those whose data was exposed in the Equifax breach. To check your eligibility, visit the Equifax Data Breach Settlement website.

1. Your Chances of Winning Big are Itty Bitty. You might not be surprised to learn that you’re more likely to get elected to Congress than to strike it rich in the lottery. With the Powerball jackpot, the odds of winning any prize are about one in 25, but the chances of winning the big money jackpot are less than one in 292 million. With Mega Millions, the odds are even worse: less than one in 302 million for the jackpot. Still, the allure of a multimillion-dollar jackpot tempts. Who hasn’t fantasized about how they’d spend the money? (At least, what’s left after you pay the taxes on your lottery prize.) And so the tickets keep selling.

2. Lottery Scams Abound.

Sadly, you’re way more likely to lose to a lottery scammer than you are to win a jackpot. According to FBI statistics, more than 8,500 victims lost a total of more than $61 million to scams involving lotteries, sweepstakes and inheritances in 2020. In these scams, victims are typically contacted about winning lotteries or sweepstakes they never entered. The Federal Trade Commission warns that victims are told they have to pay money (often for fees, taxes or even customs charges) or provide personal financial information to collect their prize or increase their chances of winning. “If you pay,” the FTC says, “you’ll lose your money and find out there is no prize.”

3. Everyone Knows Who Won the Lottery (Usually).

Information about big lottery winners is frequently made public in many states, so your chances of joining the anonymous rich are even lower than winning, period.. Adding fame to fortune might not sound so bad, but public awareness of your luck could make you a target of scammers or people looking for handouts. You might be amazed by how many “cousins” you have.

Some good news for jackpot winners is that new laws are being passed in some states to provide some privacy. According to Powerball, the following 16 states (and Puerto Rico) offer winners a measure of anonymity:

• Arizona
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Kansas
• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• New Jersey
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Wyoming
• Puerto Rico
  

Some of these states limit the protections to people who have won above a certain amount (For example, lottery winners in Arizona must have won at least $100,000 to have their identities protected, while winners in West Virginia must have won at least $1 million and donated at least 5% of their winnings to a state fund.)

Even in states without such laws, however, some winners have found ways to remain anonymous, such as by claiming their prize through a trust or other legal entity, such as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). In these cases, the trust's name, and sometimes the name of the representative collecting the prize on its behalf, will be disclosed to the public, but not the name of the real winner – assuming they’ve gotten good legal advice..

4. Winning the Lottery Isn’t Necessarily a Nightmare

You’ve probably heard plenty of stories about people who won big in the lottery and died penniless. And to be sure, this has happened. Some people’s unbelievable good luck was canceled out by subsequent, really bad luck. Plus, as we mentioned, scammers are ubiquitous and taxes have to be paid. But a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that overall, people who win big money are likely to hold onto their wealth for years and to be both happier and more financially secure over the long run.

5. Lottery Winners Need Professional (Financial) Help.

If you do beat the crazy odds and hit it big, you should take your time cashing in your ticket until you’re ready. Lotteries give you a few months, and it’s not a bad idea to use at least some of that time to prepare. Take a picture of your ticket stub, put it somewhere safe and start assembling your financial dream team. No, your cousin’s brother’s tax guy won’t suffice. If you’ve won serious money, start out right by lining up an array of experts in handling large sums of money: consider hiring an investment adviser, estate-planning lawyer, certified public accountant and a certified financial planner or private banker. You might even consult an insurance expert.

6. Lump Sum or Annuity?

Large jackpot prizes usually offer a choice between collecting your winnings as a lump sum (minus taxes) or receiving disbursements over 20 years or more (30 years for Mega Millions.) There are pluses and minuses to each. A lump sum, if properly invested, will grow in value. If you’re a smart money person, the jackpot could grow a lot. An annuity, on the other hand, can protect you against any problems you might have with self-control. Even if you blow through all the money you receive one year, you’ll be getting more the following year. Unless you sell your future payments at a discount or get a loan against them (don’t do that), the funds will keep rolling in as long as the annuity continues. But if you die before your payments end, a lottery annuity could create tax issues for your heirs; they may be required to pay estate taxes on your remaining winnings. Somehow, they’ll manage, though. There are worse problems to have than figuring out how to pay taxes on an inherited windfall.

7. Give, But Be a Smart Giver.

Remember how we said news of your good fortune will likely lead to a potentially overwhelming number of asks? It’s tempting to hand out wads of cash But that kind of charity can wreak havoc on relationships and your bank account. At the same time, hoarding your big win like Scrooge McDuck might also not be good in the long run. Setting up a trust or family foundation can simplify the giving process. Your advisers can help you set up donations of tax-smart assets.

It may be the season of goodwill toward all, but Santa has a naughty list for a reason. And this time of year is also a busy and lucrative season for scammers. So while you’re looking for that perfect, last-minute gift, be sure to have your guard up to protect yourself from thieves.

Well-known supply chain problems are creating opportunities for scams this year, said Naomi R. Cahn, director of the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Last year alone, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 2.1 million reports of fraud from consumers, with imposter scams and online shopping as the leading categories. Consumers last year lost more than $3.3 billion to fraud, an increase over the $1.8 billion lost in 2019.The FTC says that scammers – like the rest of us – follow headlines and know what everyone is trying to buy. Shortages create openings for scammers to present themselves as problem solvers to frazzled consumers.

And it’s not just seniors who are being targeted by scams, Cahn said; we’re all potential victims.

How to Protect Yourself From Scams

But fear not. Odds are good that if you’re smart about your shopping, you’ll avoid becoming a target, Cahn said. “We tend to hear about the scams,” Cahn said. “As long as you’re scam savvy and protect yourself, in general, most of the time you’ll be fine.”

How to be scam savvy? “Beware of gifts that seem too good to be true or ads for companies you've never heard of that pop up on social media.” Cahn said.

Say there’s a toy or some kind of gadget you can’t find anywhere because of supply chain issues. But you really want that gewgaw for someone on your shopping list. Lo and behold, you see anad in one of your social media feeds for that very thing at a great price. But it’s from a vendor you’ve never heard of. Be wary, Cahn advised.

Check out the store. Look for reviews online. Look for a solid history. Search for the name online, along with words like “complaint” and “scam.” Check for contact information and return policies. See if anyone you know has shopped there successfully. Do not be too eager to click through and give the site any financial information.

Cahn said she recently placed an order and realized she didn’t get a confirmation email. She called the retailer to make sure everything was taken care of. Even though you might be on hold for long periods of time, this is an important step, Cahn said. This is why you should make sure that you place orders from established, reputable retailers that have phone numbers you can use to contact them.

Online Shoppers Vulnerable to Cyber Scammers

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) advises special precautions for online shoppers. The agency says attackers take advantage of online shoppers three ways:

• Creating fraudulent sites and email messages. Attackers can create malicious websites or email messages that look legitimate to get you to give them personal and financial information. They may also represent themselves as charities.
• Intercepting insecure transactions. If a vendor fails to use encryption, an attacker may be able to intercept your information.
• Targeting vulnerable computers.f you don’t protect your computer from viruses or other malicious code, an attacker may be able to gain access to your computer and the information it holds.

But even when you shop with reputable online retailer, you can still fall victim to so-called porch pirates who steal packages that have been delivered but not yet retrieved by residents. Be sure to retrieve all packages as soon as they’re delivered to keep thieves from taking them from your porch, or ask a trusted neighbor to help. If you’re going away, be sure to stop your mail so it doesn’t pile up and alert thieves you’re not home.

Also be wary this time of year of donation solicitations. Scammers will take advantage of your charitable impulses and request donations to bogus causes. Before making any donations, be sure to check that the organization is legitimate.

"It may be a matter of months, or more likely a few years," I wrote in September 2017, "but sometime soon a U.S. company will breach the trillion-dollar mark." By June 2021, to my pleasant surprise, all five companies I highlighted had become trillionaires.

The question now is how high these stocks can go. Big is not beautiful to many regulators and elected officials (of both parties), and President Biden is developing an executive order to rein in businesses that dominate their sectors. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lost an antitrust case against Facebook (FB) in June, but the setback merely convinced many in Congress that tougher laws are needed.

Another constraint is a sort of law of financial gravity. It's not hard to imagine a stock with a market capitalization (stock price times shares outstanding) of about $100 billion becoming what the great mutual fund manager Peter Lynch called a four-bagger – that is, quadrupling in value.

That could happen with Uber (UBER), Square (SQ) or Zoom Video Communications (ZM). But Apple (AAPL)? As a four-bagger, it would have a market cap of $9 trillion, roughly the same as the gross domestic products of Germany and Japan combined. Investing in giant companies may considerably limit your upside.

Then again, a few years ago the whole concept of a trillion-dollar stock was alien, even nutty. Now, we have Amazon.com (AMZN), which hit the mark just a year after my 2017 column, and Alphabet (GOOGL), the parent of Google, which exceeded $1 trillion in January 2020. Facebook hit the milestone in June. Although it has since retreated some (based on data calculated for this column as of July 9), we're including it in the trillionaires club for now. Plus, there are two stocks whose market caps have breached two trillion dollars: Apple and Microsoft (MSFT).

I've now disclosed the punch line to this column in the boldfaced names (as usual, stocks I like are in boldface). I'm doubling down and recommending them all. As for the trustbusters: If the worst happens, and Google is forced to divest YouTube, Facebook has to shed Instagram, or Amazon has to spin off its cloud business, well, so what? As a shareholder, you will get stock in the new stand-alone companies, too.

The most important fact about these trillionaires is that, unlike the highfliers of the late 1990s, they are making tons of money. Their profit margins are spectacular. For every three dollars in revenues, for example, Microsoft and Facebook drop about a dollar to the bottom line.

Hand Over Fist

The trillionaires are so profitable that they can make massive capital investments that keep them far ahead of competitors, whether actual or potential. Last year, Amazon pumped $40 billion back into its own business, making the company by far the largest capital investor in the U.S. Alphabet and Microsoft rank first and second among U.S. companies in spending on research and development.

All five trillionaires have exceptional balance sheets. Microsoft is one of only two U.S. firms – the other being Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – with a credit rating of AAA from Standard & Poor's. That's higher than the U.S. government is rated. Alphabet has $135 billion in cash and securities and $28 billion in debt.

Only two trillionaires pay dividends: Microsoft and Apple, both com­ponents of the Dow Jones industrial Average. Neither yields more than 1%, but you don’t invest in stocks like these for the payout. They can earn far more by investing their profits than you can. Apple's return on common equity over the past 12 months was 103%.

Let's take a deeper dive on Alphabet. Its main business is selling highly effective, targeted adver­tising. Revenues took a modest hit because of the 2020 pandemic, so they rose 13% for the year – which for most companies would be sensational. Alphabet is now recovering smartly, with revenues jumping 34% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period a year ago. Google's sales this year will easily exceed $200 billion, up from $38 billion 10 years ago.

The consensus estimate is that profits will rise roughly 50% this year, then settle down to something that has become normal for Alphabet: about 20% annualized. That means close to $100 in earnings per share for the next 12 months. At $2,510 a share, the stock is underpriced. Where else can you buy such consistent growth?

The answer is other trillion-dollar stocks, of course. They're all increasing their profits by double digits. For the year ahead, Apple is forecast to earn $5.12 a share, for a forward price-earnings ratio of 28. Like Alphabet and Apple, Facebook has a P/E in the high 20s. That's not that much more than the average for the S&P 500 as a whole, currently 24. Amazon is the outlier, at nearly 65, but that’s down considerably from 186 four years ago, and Amazon deserves a high P/E. Analysts foresee annual average earnings growth of 38% for the next five years.

Flexibility Pays Off

Amazon was a huge beneficiary of the change in retail shopping behavior, reinforced by the pandemic. The company's U.S. e-commerce sales increased 44% in 2020, and its market share is forecast to rise just above 40% this year; Walmart (WMT) is second in share at 7%.

As I pointed out four years ago, what makes a trillionaire like Amazon attractive is its flexibility. Its Web Services subsidiary, which sells cloud storage, contributed more to operating income in 2020 than did retail sales. In addition, Amazon produces movies and TV shows, and digital advertising is soaring.

Size attracts the attention of lawmakers, regulators and interest groups, but attempts to constrain the trillionaires have so far been unsuccessful.

The recent FTC suit against Facebook, said the judge in the case, did not provide enough support for claims of monopoly. After all, Facebook's share of the digital ad market is 25%, compared with 29% for Google and 10% for fast-rising Amazon. One of the FTC's allegations was that Facebook bought up potential rivals, including WhatsApp and Instagram, thus eliminating competition. But Instagram had just 30 million users in 2012 when Facebook, then with about 1 billion users, acquired the company for $1 billion. Today, Instagram has 1.3 billion users and Facebook has 2.8 billion. All of the trillionaires make acquisitions; some work out very well.

Will any other stocks join the trillionaires club? Currently, there's a big drop-off from Facebook, at $994 billion, down to the sixth-largest U.S. company, Tesla (TSLA), at $633 billion, followed by Berkshire Hathaway and Visa. I’m betting Tesla will make the club in the next two or three years.

If you want to buy the five trillionaires as a group, a good choice is Red Oak Technology Select (ROGSX), a managed mutual fund that owns just 27 stocks, with the five trillionaires accounting for the top five holdings and representing 33% of assets. For more concentration, consider Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), an exchange-traded fund that mimics the Nasdaq 100, the largest stocks on that exchange. The trillionaires represent roughly 40% of QQQ's assets – and you get Tesla to boot.

Whether it’s fake online shopping sites, identity theft or scam artists using phone or email, fraud is on the rise, with a record 1.3 million cases in the first nine months of 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Although anyone can become a victim, FTC data show that consumers age 80 and older are far more likely to be scammed by phone and lose the most money, a median of $1,250. “Even if you do everything perfectly, you can still be susceptible to fraud,” says Shameka Walker, a fraud and identity theft program manager for the FTC.

By now, you probably know not to give out sensitive information to anyone contacting you and that credit cards offer more protection against fraud than debit cards. With a credit card, the most you’ll be responsible for is $50. Debit cards, on the other hand, could leave you paying for all of a thief’s spending spree if you don’t report it within 60 days of the statement date.

But there’s a lot more to guarding against fraud than knowing which card to use. In fact, it’s the things you may not know that could cost you the most money.

Even the Savviest Consumers Can Be Defrauded

Fraudsters don’t just target the gullible. “I see victims from all walks of life and all professions,” says Alisa Bralove-Scherr, deputy director of mediation in the Maryland Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.

In fact, the biggest mistake people make is to think they’re immune, says Bryan Roslund, assistant state’s attorney for Montgomery County, Md. Thieves keep honing their craft, using whatever they can to take over your bank or retirement account. “This is where they excel,” he says, by finding new ways to take advantage of you.

For example, Roslund says, if you challenge a caller who warns that you have not shown up for jury duty, a scammer knows how to shift tactics immediately — usually by admitting you’re right and that they were working from the “wrong list.”

Sophisticated criminals even monitor emails to intercept lucrative transactions. Roslund had a case where a financial agent lost $30,000 when he wired money to a Florida restaurant because someone made a tiny change to the recipient’s email address.

Online Shopping is How Identity Thieves Often Find You

According to the FTC, you’re more likely to suffer fraud through online purchases, and COVID-19 has only encouraged this equal opportunity crime to flourish as more Americans turn to websites for socially distant shopping. A 2020 Pitney Bowes survey found that 45% of shoppers bought more than half of their goods online, three times the pre-pandemic level.

Scammers capture buyers — especially those looking for deals or hard-to-find products — with convincing emails and websites that appear to be from a known company. In November 2020, the FTC filed a complaint against the operators of 25 websites claiming to be Lysol or Clorox with high-demand products for sale.

Consumers should scrutinize URLs for subtle misspellings or punctuation at the end, which can be signs of a bogus company website. A site with an “https” address is more secure but not necessarily legitimate. With emails, check for irregularities by hovering your mouse over a sender’s address before opening a message that appears to be from a known source.

A Credit Freeze is Not the Same as a Credit Lock

Freezing your credit deters someone from obtaining a loan, phone or credit card in your name. A freeze restricts access to your credit report, which most institutions require before approving a new account. You will need to contact all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Trans-Union and Experian) to get a PIN or password. “It took me about 15 minutes to do,” says John Buzzard, a financial fraud and security expert with Javelin Strategy & Research during a recent AARP webcast.

You will need to lift the freeze when applying for loans or credit. Under federal law, if you request a lift online or by phone, a credit bureau must do so free of charge and within one hour, but you may want to allow more time, particularly if you can’t find the PIN.

A credit lock offers similar protections, except that you don’t get a PIN and you can lift the lock yourself. But the convenience comes at a price: Locks don’t have the backing of federal law that freezes do, leaving you vulnerable if something goes wrong. Plus, one of the bureaus charges for the lock (you need all three for it to be effective).

You can also lock credit cards you rarely use so that they can’t be used to make purchases. Card issuers will do this for free, or you may be able to using a mobile app. Unlocking is simple and immediate.

Credit Monitoring Services Don’t Prevent Identity Theft

Although these services alert you to an identity threat and help with recovery, your identity can still be stolen. “You can do all the things [the services] do” for free, says the FTC’s Walker. Plus, thanks to last year’s stimulus package, the three credit bureaus are offering consumers free weekly credit reports until April 20, 2021.

Paying With an App Offers the Most Safety

Mitchal Smith, owner of credit processing company Prometheyan Theory in Raleigh, N.C., recommends using an app such as Google Pay or Apple Pay instead of carrying a card that can be stolen or scanned.

The apps are simple to install, though you will need your bank’s approval to link your account to your smartphone. To pay, you tap your phone at a payment terminal. The apps are safer because you don’t give the merchant your credit card number. Instead, Google or Apple assigns a different virtual account number for every transaction you make.

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

When signing up for a new credit card, you probably pay attention to the interest rate and maybe the balance transfer fee. You might even check to see what the late fee is. Congratulations on taking those steps to protect yourself.

But you’re still not doing enough.

There are two situations that require your attention, even if you don’t read your Terms and Conditions or the Privacy Policy, which, of course you should do, too. First, you should know there are hidden credit card policies. Second, you should know that it’s difficult to opt out of letting the bank or credit card issuer share all of your information.

Credit card gotcha No. 1: Hidden policies

I recently had an issue with my bank — a national bank with offices across the globe whose name you’d know. This may even be your bank.

I was a few days late paying a credit card bill and was ready to accept the penalty. I knew I would owe a fee and interest and was prepared to pay without complaint. I also had not been late on a payment before then. But my bank cut off my credit card. I found out when a merchant denied the card — one I’ve been using for more than three years.

My first thought was: What will this to do my credit score? I work hard to keep it at around 800.

I talked with three bank employees before I found someone to explain why my card had been declined. But even then, it wasn’t much of an explanation. I was told: “We don’t tell customers about denials when there’s a late payment.”

What? Yes, I was late, but suddenly I had lost my rights as a consumer?

The customer service rep said, “It’s in the Terms & Conditions.” I asked her to show me where, and she couldn’t find it. Nor could I. The warning wasn’t on my statement, wasn’t in the card issuer’s Terms & Conditions … it seemed to be a policy that was made up on the fly.

It was maddening.

That provision — that a credit card may be cut off after missing one payment — isn’t in the fine print. It’s not in the big print, either.

Lesson: Not everything is covered in the fine print. Banks always have the upper hand.

Advice: Take 15 minutes to get to know your new credit card, or even one you have had in your wallet for years. Read all of the fine print. Then, call the bank and find out under what conditions they would deny your use of the card. Better to know ahead of time than at the moment you’re trying to buy something.

Credit card gotcha No. 2: Opting out is a huge pain

After learning about these hidden policies, I was on a roll. Because privacy is such a big concern, I decided to opt out of allowing my bank to share my information. You have to do the work to not allow banks to share your information — to opt out. Opting in is the default.

You can find information on your rights to opt out at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website. Mercifully, that information is easy to read.

It took me 20 minutes on my bank’s website just to find the policy for sharing information, and I ultimately didn’t even find it there. Typing “opt out” in the search function doesn’t get you anywhere. But opting out is the only way to limit what a bank or credit card company does with your personal information.

Having no luck on my bank’s website, I eventually made my way to my credit card statement and found this … on the third or fourth page, well past what most of us usually look at when paying our monthly bill. It’s a very brief excerpt from a much, much longer piece of text:

The words “you” and “your” apply to each person who submits the application. You have read the accompanying application, and you affirm that everything you have stated is true and complete … You consent to our sharing of information about you and your account with the organization, if any, endorsing this credit card program. You authorize us to share with others, to the extent permitted by law, such information and our credit experience with you. In addition, you may as a customer later indicate a preference to exempt your account from some of the information-sharing with other companies (“opt-out”). If you accept or use an account, you do so subject to the terms of this application, the “Details of Rate, Fee and Other Cost Information” and the Credit Card Agreement, as it may be amended; you also agree to pay and/or to be held jointly and severally liable for all charges incurred under such terms ... You further consent to our use of automatic dialers, text, or prerecorded messages for servicing your account even if the telephone number is a mobile telephone number for which the called party is charged ...

That’s written at the same level as academic articles. It’s not designed to be read and understood by the general public.

And can you believe everything you’re “agreeing” to here?

Once I finally found the right information, I still wasn’t finished. I had to call or write the bank to opt out. Again, they don’t make it easy.

The bottom line

Credit cards are a necessity in today’s world, but so is being smart about how you use them and taking the time to know as much as you can about their terms and conditions. It also can’t hurt to occasionally read all of the fine print, however painful that might be.

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

In today's digital age, data breaches have become all too common and leave unsuspecting consumers vulnerable to a host of identity theft issues. From AT&T to National Public Data, no industry seems to be safe from determined hackers. Last year alone, 17 billion records were exposed in reported data breaches, according to Flashpoint.com, a Washington, DC based cybersecurity risk management firm.

If you've been notified by your credit card company, a retailer you visit often or another trusted source that your sensitive information has been compromised, you'll need to act fast. Taking action within the first 48 hours is the difference between stopping identity thieves dead in their tracks or having them wreak havoc on your financial life for months to come, suggests Carrie Kerskie, president of Kerskie Group LLC, a Naples, Fla.-based company that helps identity fraud victims recover.

We've combed through our archive of tried-and-true advice, spoken with industry experts, and reviewed the Federal Trade Commission's consumer tips to find out what steps you should take immediately after discovering you're a data breach victim. Here's where to start.

Discovering that your sensitive personal information has been compromised can be scary. Even still, that's not an excuse to let panic stop you from taking the appropriate measures before it's too late. First, you'll want to find out what information was compromised, says Andrew Schrage, co-owner of the personal finance blog MoneyCrashers.com. This step is vital, because depending on the type of information that was exposed you may need to address it more urgently.

For example, in 2024 the UnitedHealth Group cyberattack at its Change Healthcare unit data breach included Social Security numbers, credit card data, bank account numbers, medical record numbers, providers, diagnoses, medicines, test results and more. An identity thief using your Social Security number to open new lines of credit can be detrimental to your credit history for months afterwards. In this scenario, you would want to immediately notify the major credit bureaus, your credit card provider, and your bank. But a data breach that exposes only phone numbers and e-mail addresses isn't nearly as severe and wouldn't warrant an immediate response.

If you are unsure about the appropriate course of action, go to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) IdentityTheft.gov/databreach website for recommendations on how to proceed based on the type of personal information that was exposed in any particular breach.

Armed with your sensitive personal information, it may not take skilled hackers long to figure out the password to your e-mail or bank account — especially if it's something as simple as your birthday or pet's name. That's why you should change the passwords to all of your pertinent accounts as soon as possible.

To avoid having to remember a long list of online passwords, use a password manager. We often recommend LastPass, which uses a browser extension to store multiple account passwords and encrypts that information. To help make it easier, you'll only need to remember the LastPass password rather than a long list of passwords. The service includes a multifactor authentication login process. This means in addition to inputting your "master" password, you'll have to input a special code sent to a secondary device (such as a text message to your smartphone) before the login process is complete.

LastPass offers several different plan types including a free version. Their premium plans, which range in price from $3 to $7 per month, are available for personal or business use and include encrypted file storage.

To help prevent further fraudulent activity, be sure to sign up for transaction alerts for your bank and credit card accounts. In doing so, you'll be notified by e-mail or text message whenever there's a new charge to your account.

Be sure to set up the notifications for the lowest transaction amount possible. That's because crooks will test accounts with small charges first before making larger ones. If you start to see charges you don't recognize, contact your bank or card issuer immediately.

For an added layer of protection, consider placing a fraud alert on your credit reports. (You can request a fraud alert if you've been a victim of a data breach or if your wallet, Social Security card or other form of personal identification has been lost or stolen, according to the FTC.) A fraud alert requires a business or financial institution to verify your identity first before issuing a new line of credit. It's free and remains active for one year. If necessary, you can even renew it. 

• How to do it: Contact one of the major credit bureaus and request a fraud alert on your credit report. Each credit bureau is required to notify the other bureaus about the alert. Make sure your most recent contact information is on file.

If you want to lock down your credit even more, put a freeze on your credit (also referred to as a security freeze). With a freeze, potential new creditors aren't even able to access your credit history to determine if you're eligible for a loan or new credit card. When the time comes to lift the freeze — say, you're looking to purchase a home or buy a car — you can do so temporarily and reinstate the freeze later.

A credit freeze is free. To get started, you'll need to contact all three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). The quickest way to do this is over the phone or online. You'll want to have your Social Security number, birth date and home address handy, because you'll be asked to supply this information to help verify your identity.

Managing a security freeze is simple, and in most cases you can do it on your own, Griffon Force's Kerskie notes. On Equifax.com, for example, you can log into your account to set up a freeze, lift it temporarily or cancel it.

Chances are, you'll be on high alert in the weeks and months after your sensitive personal information has been compromised in a data breach. This is the time to be extremely vigilant and keep a close eye on your credit report. Doing this will help you flag any suspicious activity as soon as it happens.

There are several sites and online services where you can get a free copy of your credit report on a weekly, monthly or annual basis:

AnnualCreditReport.com: This is the only place where you can request a complete report from all three major credit bureaus annually. The report will be dense with text, and the level of detail can be overwhelming.

CreditKarma.com: Register to get weekly, comprehensive updates on your Equifax and TransUnion credit reports. The site also provides financial calculators and other resources to help you better understand your credit history.

Experian: You'll have to register and create an account on their website to receive a free updated Experian credit report every 30 days. You can also get notification alerts to help identify potentially fraudulent activity.

Also, don't underestimate the importance of carefully examining your banking and credit card statements, advises Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert for NerdWallet.com. "Sometimes the first sign of identity theft is an erroneous charge on a monthly statement," she says.

E-mail addresses and phone numbers are often included in data breaches. For example, contact information for 3 billion people was exposed in the National Public Data data breach this year. Armed with this information, crooks can target unsuspecting victims with e-mails, text messages or phone calls aimed at tricking them into divulging more personal information — or even collecting money. In many cases, they'll pose as official representatives of a financial institution or a federal government agency. They may try to pressure you on the spot into making a payment for an overdue bill or threaten legal action.

It's important to remember that a federal government agency, such as the IRS, won't ever call you and request payment of any sort over the phone. The IRS always sends notification via snail mail if there's a legitimate situation that needs to be addressed. 

With potential e-mail scams, don't click on any links or open attachments that look suspicious. Doing so could infect your computer or smartphone with malware, allowing scammers to gain access to your device without your knowledge. 

Lastly, never authenticate yourself over the phone when contacted by someone you aren't sure is who they say they are. If you're doubtful, look up the phone number for the institution this person is claiming to represent, and call it to see if it actually contacted you.

Con artists don’t take time off for the holidays. As the year draws to a close, here are some scams to watch out for.

Phony CDs. Low interest rates have decimated returns from certificates of deposit—the average rate for a one-year CD is just 0.74%—creating opportunities for hucksters claiming to offer a better deal. The bogus CDs offer interest rates that are much higher than average, with no early-withdrawal penalties, and require high minimum deposits—often $200,000 or more. Steer clear of any website that asks you to send money via wire transfer to an account outside the U.S., or to one with a different name than the financial institution claiming to sell the CD.

Everything must go! If your favorite store is going out of business, you may think you’ll get a great deal on its inventory. But many retailers sell their merchandise to third-party liquidators, which may charge more for some items than they cost before the sale, says the Federal Trade Commission. Use your smartphone to compare prices online before you buy.

Binary options. Binary options allow you to make a bet on the direction of a stock, currency or other asset. Even when they’re legitimate, you can lose a lot of money. But fraudulent online platforms promoting binary options often take the money and run. A consistent theme of these platforms is they almost always show investors making a big profit, according to the Better Business Bureau. But when investors try to claim their gains, they’re told they need to deposit more funds, or the scammers vanish. If you are interested in trading options, check with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (866-366-2382) to be sure the trading platform is a “designated” market, as well as with the SEC (800-732-0330) to see if the offering is registered.

The $700 million Equifax settlement is a landmark moment for consumer data privacy, but if you’re counting on a payoff, you’ll probably be disappointed. While we won’t know how much victims will be paid until after the settlement’s application deadline—January 2020—early signs haven’t been promising.

There is some good news: If you’ve spent time or money since September 2017 dealing with the breach, you have a few options. You can request reimbursement for up to 20 hours spent on reclaiming your identity, at a rate of up to $25 per hour. For other expenses—accounting fees, unauthorized account withdrawals and the like—customers can ask for up to $20,000 in restitution. You won’t need to prove that Equifax is to blame for any identity fraud you’ve dealt with as long as it occurred after the breach and your data was involved. (To apply for reimbursement, go to equifaxbreachsettlement.com.)

Caveats. Before you file for reimbursement, consider that, first, consumers will generally be expected to document their damages and time spent dealing with the problem—and the more money you ask for, the more documentation you’ll be asked to provide. Up until now, that’s been unprecedented for data breach settlements, says Charity Lacey, of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “If that’s the trend, are we expecting customers to document everything they do after they’re affected by a breach? Every breach?” she asks.

The other caveat concerns the amount of funds available to consumers and how that money will be allocated. Although a total of about $400 million has been set aside for consumer restitution, the actual amounts available for different settlement options—such as hour-by-hour re­imbursement, free credit monitoring services, and credit monitoring re­imbursement—varies by option.

At least one pool has already been stretched painfully thin by the volume of applicants. One week after the settlement was announced in late July, the Federal Trade Commission told consumers they’d be “disappointed” if they expected the full $125 reimbursement payout available to those who have already signed up for credit monitoring elsewhere.

Only $31 million was set aside for the payment pool, which would pay only 248,000 people if everyone received the full $125. Because the reimbursement payments will be paid equally to everyone in the pool, the actual payment will likely be a fraction of the advertised amount. More than 4.5 million people visited the official settlement website in the week after the deal was announced, the FTC said.

If you believe you’re owed more than $20,000—or you’re concerned that your payoff will be diluted by the number of claimants—you can opt out of the suit by November 2019 and retain your right to pursue separate legal action. If you don’t opt out and you apply for any kind of restitution—or you don’t take any action—you’ll be unable to sue the company for any future damages from the 2017 breach.

Scam artists are more prevalent now than ever. In fact, Americans reported losing $1.5 billion to fraud in 2018, up 38% from 2017, according to the Federal Trade Commission. And in today’s information age, when much of our financial life is managed through a computer, mobile phone or other electronic device, fraudsters have many tools at their disposal.

You might think that older Americans would be at particular risk, because they may not be aware of the different ways they could be swindled through what seems like an innocent or legitimate communication. However, according to the FTC, younger people were the most frequent victims, with 43% of people in their 20s reporting a loss to fraud, vs. only 15% of those in their 70s.

So, clearly, people of any age can fall prey to the increasingly sophisticated tactics employed by online criminals. That’s why it’s more important than ever to keep your guard up and protect your financial and personal information from would-be thieves.

Here are five strategies to help you avoid falling victim to a financial scam:

No. 1 – Don’t freely give out information on your identity

Share your personal information on only a “need-to-know” basis. For example, avoid giving out your Social Security number if you have any questions at all about how secure it will be. Legitimate businesses typically avoid asking for this information unless needed, and even when they do, you can question it.

Share your phone numbers or your address only if absolutely necessary to complete a transaction that you initiated. And if you didn’t initiate the transaction yourself, be extra careful — and read No. 2 below.

No. 2 – Don’t share financial information

If an unrecognizable person or entity approaches you (typically by phone call or email) asking for credit card or bank information, turn down their request. Consider it an additional red flag if they tell you that something has happened to your account and they are here to protect it. This is a scare tactic frequently employed by scammers looking to take advantage of unsuspecting victims.

If you have any questions about the security of a financial account, call your bank or other financial firm directly (and look the number up yourself — don’t use any number given to you). If you are concerned about whether your credit card information has been stolen, contact your card company immediately. Only by taking the initiative to call companies on your own can you check on the validity of any issues that are raised.

No. 3 – Don’t fall for email scams

Most of us may, from time-to-time, receive a random email requesting that we take urgent action to avoid a financial loss or capture a windfall of money. It may appear to be from a friend who claims to be in trouble and needs you to send money to a specific bank account. It may be somebody you don’t know (such as a foreign royalty or another exotically titled person) who claims you will benefit financially, but first you must send money to them. Or it may be from an entity asking you to click a hyperlink in the email, which will then ask you to pass along financial information. In some cases, the email may look authentic, with a company logo included.

In all of these cases, the best move is to ignore the message and delete the email without clicking on anything at all.

No. 4 – Don’t be casual about passwords

The increasing requirement to access websites or phone apps using a login and password adds complexity to our lives. You need to keep track of all that information. Hackers have a way to crack simple or obvious passwords. Create passwords that incorporate eight or more characters, with upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols like dollar signs or exclamation points. Try to vary passwords so you have more than just a few favorites in rotation, and change them every few months.

An alternative is to use a password program that will generate strong passwords and make it easy for you to access your accounts while reducing the likelihood of being hacked.

No. 5 – Don’t fall for tax scams

A common scheme involves phone calls or emails from scammers claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service, warning that you owe back taxes. What’s worse, by using the guise of the IRS, they will claim that you could be subject to arrest if you don’t provide them with payment. Or, they may claim that you have a refund coming. Don’t fall for it. It is just a way to obtain information so they can access one of your financial accounts. Note that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text message or social media channels requesting personal or financial information. Usually, it will contact people through regular mail.

Check the IRS website to understand how to know when it is really the IRS contacting you.

Be prepared to play defense

Financial scams are all too common these days. Protect yourself and watch out for family members too, including your elderly parents and your children (especially young adults). If you have any questions about the legitimacy of any communication you receive, check with a family member, trusted friends or your financial professional.

Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC.

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

Every company faces headwinds at some point. Even the bluest of blue-chip stocks must tackle a serious threat from time to time.

Dangers can come from anywhere. They can be industrial accidents such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that cost BP plc (BP) nearly $65 billion in legal fees, settlements and cleanup costs as of 2018. There are technological squabbles, such as Apple’s (AAPL) 2017 patent infringement lawsuit settlement with Nokia, which forced the iPhone maker to pay $2 billion upfront as well as ongoing royalties from iPhone sales. Pfizer (PFE) was weighed down considerably in 2011 as it was about to lose market exclusivity on its blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor – this so-called patent cliff is a frequent headwind for pharma stocks.

Some blue chips, such as Apple and Pfizer, take the hit and keep on chugging. Others, like BP, take much longer to recover – if they ever do.

You can get some insight into potential headwinds by reading the “Risk Factors” section of each company’s annual 10-K filing. Companies are required to list, by order of importance, the most significant risks challenging future profits or stock performance. Some risks apply to the entire economy, some to that particular industry and a few are unique to that company.

Here are 13 blue-chip stocks that currently are navigating their way around a landmine or two. This isn’t necessarily a list of stocks to sell, however. Great companies can often overcome major setbacks, and many of these companies are working toward that. But retirees need to be especially aware of forces that threaten substantial shorter-term losses. And even the most ardent bull should acknowledge and understand significant risks – even if they merely set a stock up for a dip-buying situation.

Data is as of June 10. Dividend yields are calculated by annualizing the most recent payout and dividing by the share price.

• Market value: $499.0 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Facebook (FB, $174.82) disclosed in its first-quarter results that it anticipates paying fines of up to $5 billion to settle lawsuits from federal regulators. The company has been negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that it violated a 2011 consent decree requiring that consumers be provided with “clear and prominent notice” before sharing customer data. Regulators say Facebook violated the agreement by not informing users that it was sharing their data with Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 presidential campaign. The company had set aside $3 billion to cover payment.

Facebook also faces big fines from the European Union under new privacy laws. Regulators in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria may fine Facebook, and its Instagram and WhatsApp services, up to 4% of annual revenues for privacy violations, which could result in additional fines of up to $1.63 billion for each business.

And just this month, Facebook was among four prominent blue-chip stocks in the tech sector – along with Apple, Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) – facing potential antitrust scrutiny, according to various media reports.

Facebook’s ability to grow going forward will be tied to just how well it can continue monetizing its 2.7 billion monthly active users – across all its apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp – under tighter scrutiny of its privacy and data-use practices. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has some solutions, as he always does, including drawing in more than 3 million advertisers for its Stories visual product.

Legal costs do add up, though. Facebook grew first-quarter revenues 26%, but corporate expenses swelled by 80% because of the funds set aside for a potential lawsuit settlement. That helped drag operating margins down from 46% to 22%, slashing profits by 51% to $2.43 billion.

• Market value: $110.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.3%
• Eli Lilly (LLY, $113.93), along with rivals Sanofi (SNY) and Novo Nordisk (NVO), are defendants in class-action lawsuits challenging their insulin pricing practices. These three companies supply most of the world’s insulin.

The suits stem from 2017, when the plaintiffs claimed those companies colluded to boost list prices of insulin, The plaintiffs originally sued the three drugmakers in 2017, alleging they colluded to boost list prices of insulin, which the American Diabetes Association said tripled between 2002 and 2013, and which the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute says doubled between 2012 and 2016. Some patients with no insurance or large deductibles have been stuck with out-of-pocket costs for insulin as high as $900 per month.

Racketeering charges have been dismissed, but other parts of the lawsuit are moving forward. Commenting recently on insulin pricing, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said his agency would push for the development of lower-cost biosimilar versions of insulin.

Lilly’s insulin drug (Humalog) is its second-highest revenue generator, accounting for more than $2.9 billion of global sales. Lilly hopes to soften criticism of its pricing by launching a generic version of Humalog that will cost half as much. The new drug (Insulin Lispro) is priced at $137 versus $275 for Humalog.

Goldman Sachs analyst Terence Flynn assigned a “Buy” rating on LLY in late May. He not only praised product cycles in four growing categories, but said Wall Street is sleeping on Lilly’s longer-term potential in diabetes.

• Market value: $55.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.2%

German blue-chip Bayer AG (BAYRY, $14.93) unwittingly acquired a potential ticking time bomb when it purchased Monsanto, the maker of Roundup weed killer, in 2018 for $63 billion. Since acquiring Monsanto, Bayer has been hit by thousands of Roundup lawsuits posing risks that have cut its share price by nearly half.

A U.S. jury recently awarded a couple $55 million for pain and suffering and $2 billion in punitive damages after concluding Roundup exposure caused their cancer. This was the third Roundup lawsuit Bayer has lost. The first two resulted in jury awards of $78.5 million and $80 million, respectively.

Bayer plans to challenge the verdicts, based on recent findings by the Environmental Protection Agency that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is not a carcinogen.

More than 13,400 plaintiffs have filed Roundup lawsuits in state courts, and a mediator has been appointed to oversee another 900 Roundup lawsuits at the federal level. The next federal Roundup trial has been scheduled for February 2020.

Bayer remains the market leader in agricultural chemicals and a major player in pharmaceuticals, with blockbuster prescription drugs such as Xarelto and Eylea and over-the-counter drugs like Bayer aspirin, Aleve and Claritin. That’s enough to keep analysts interested, despite all the legal uncertainty. The stock has 13 “Buy” or “Overweight” ratings, 11 “Holds” and just one “Sell,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Zacks Research is tracking steadily rising analyst EPS estimates, too, and has upgraded its BAYRY rating to “Strong Buy.”

• Market value: $369.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.7%
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, $139.02) is the world’s largest health care company and an industry leader in prescription drugs, medical devices and consumer health care. The company owns oncology drugs Darzalex, Imbruvica and Zytiga, as well as immunology drugs Stelara and Tremfya. J&J also is launching a nasal spray for treating depression (Spravato) this year that analysts say eventually could produce $3 billion in annual sales.

Its consumer health product line is robust, too, including household names like Listerine, Band-Aid, Aveeno and Tylenol. But JNJ’s problems actually stem from this division.

The company’s well-known Johnson’s Baby Powder product has become a major drag on earnings. JNJ faces more than 14,000 lawsuits claiming that its talcum baby powder causes cancer, and so far, awards from litigation have been enormous. Last year, a Missouri jury awarded nearly $4.7 billion – nearly 6% of 2018’s full-year revenues – to a group of 22 women last year, and the company suffered a $29.4 million verdict in California this March. JNJ plans to appeal these verdicts but still faces more than a dozen new trials, primarily in California, over the next few months.

The company’s mounting legal costs contributed to a 14% decline in first-quarter earnings per share.

Despite these challenges, JNJ remains one of the best-known Dividend Aristocrats, with 57 consecutive years of dividend growth. And while analysts are mixed on JNJ, the largest number (nine) of 19 covering analysts say it’s buy-worthy. Goldman Sachs started the company at “Buy” in late May, touting its diversified portfolio and low exposure to Medicare/Medicaid, which should make it less vulnerable to policy arguments heading into 2020 elections.

• Market value: $208.0 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.9%

Once considered America’s most valuable bank brand, serving one in three U.S. households, Wells Fargo (WFC, $46.27) now has a tarnished reputation after opening millions of fraudulent accounts, allowing illegal lending practices and knowingly selling sub-standard mortgages. The bank recently paid shareholders $240 million to settle a lawsuit over millions of bogus customer accounts created to boost performance metrics. Wells Fargo has already paid $160 million in government fines and a settlement of $480 million to institutional investors over the fake accounts and expects to pay out $2.7 billion more, exceeding previous estimates.

In addition to a substantial fine, the Federal Reserve restricted the bank’s growth by imposing a cap on assets. This cap will remain in place under Fed officials are convinced the bank’s governance and internal controls have improved.

Over the past two years, Wells Fargo has closed hundreds of branches and decided to cut more than 26,000 employees. This year, WFC shares are barely above breakeven while blue-chip bank stocks such as Bank of America (BAC, +13.9%) and Citigroup (C, +28.9%) have soared. Analysts have soured on the stock, with 15 of 31 covering Wells Fargo calling it a “Hold,” and another four in the “Sell” camp.

Goldman Sachs’ Richard Ramsden was one of several analysts to downgrade the stock in April following Wells Fargo’s first-quarter earnings report, citing lower guidance for net interest income and the sudden departure of CEO Tim Sloan.

• Market value: $233.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.1%

Swiss drugmaker Roche Holdings (RHHBY, $34.22) is taking a steep dive off the patent cliff with three of its top-selling drugs (Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin) all on target to lose patent exclusivity during the second half of 2019. These oncology drugs accounted for $18.8 billion and 43% of the company’s revenues last year.

Roche has dominated the cancer drug market since 2002 largely thanks to its Genentech acquisition, but faces increased competition as some of its key drugs decline and rivals such as Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) battle for share. Market research firm EvaluatePharma projects a 12% decline in revenues from Roche’s cancer franchise over the next six years, even as the overall cancer drug market is poised to double in size.

The company is counting on new drugs in non-oncology areas to help close the revenue gap. One such drug is multiple sclerosis treatment Ocrevus, which analysts expect eventually will generate $5 billion in peak annual sales. Roche is also utilizing M&A to build its presence in new disease areas. Its planned purchase of Spark Therapeutics, a leader in gene therapies, will help Roche build a major presence in hemophilia treatments.

Analyst appear optimistic that Roche will be able to replace revenues lost from expiring drugs with sales of new drugs. The consensus rating among the 22 analysts following RHHBY is “Buy,” and their consensus estimates are for low-single-digit sales and EPS growth this year.

• Market value: $41.5 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.3%

Drugmaker Allergan (AGN, $126.61) tried to extend the patent life of its blockbuster eye drug Restasis – at $1.2 billion in 2018, it’s Allergan’s second-biggest moneymaker behind wrinkle treatment Botox – by transferring ownership of its patent to an American Indian tribe. Despite this unusual step, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled the company’s patents invalid last year, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in April, paving the way for new generic competitors.

Allergan still enjoys strong sales of Botox, which rose 9% in the first quarter and contributed $868 million to revenues. The company also has a clear winner in Vraylar, an antipsychotic that is the fastest-growing branded drug in its category. Vraylar revenues have expanded by double digits every quarter since its launch, including 70% sales growth during Q1 2019. Allergan anticipates launching Vraylar for a new indication (bipolar depression) later this year.

The company has other drugs in the pipeline poised for launch or other important trial dates over the next 18 months, including abicipar (macular degeneration), bimatoprost (glaucoma) and ubrogepant (migraine). It also expects to launch a device – CoolTone, a muscle stimulator – in the second half of 2019.

Allergan recently raised 2019 sales and earnings guidance and expects cash flow to top $5 billion this year, providing ample fodder for share repurchases, dividend growth and acquisitions.

AGN’s expanding pipeline and cash flow generating abilities have the majority of covering analysts optimistic about the stock’s prospects. Allergan is rated “Buy” or “Strong Buy” by 14 analysts and “Hold” by nine. Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen – one of the “Holds” – recently called Allergan one of the highest-quality, most innovative companies in the pharmaceutical industry. She is remaining on the sidelines, however, while she looks for improved earnings visibility.

• Market value: $113.8 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.6%
• AbbVie (ABBV, $76.95) is another blue-chip pharma stock and the owner of Humira, the world’s No. 1 selling prescription drug. Humira generated sales of more than $20 billion in 2018, which represented more than half of AbbVie’s revenues.

But Humira’s day is coming. The drug already went off-patent in the European Union last year. The company has fended off eight would-be biosimilar competitors in the U.S., keeping them at bay through 2023. Nonetheless, this is an eventual major threat – one that AbbVie plans to address by building a rich drug pipeline.

The company has big expectations for oncology drugs Imbruvica and Venclexta, which already contribute $4 billion to sales and could surpass $9 billion by 2025. Other top performers are immunology drugs upadacitinib and risankizumab, which may add $10 billion to sales in the next six years. In all, AbbVie anticipates sales of non-Humira drugs rising to $35 billion by 2025, more than offsetting declining Humira sales.

AbbVie’s yearly $4 billion to $5 billion investments in drug R&D are paying off. Research firm EvaluatePharma recently rated its clinical pipeline the second best in the pharma industry. AbbVie has more than 20 new products (or new indications of existing drugs) positioned for a 2020 launch.

AbbVie split from Abbott Laboratories (ABT) in 2013, with both companies keeping the title of Dividend Aristocrat following the breakup. ABBV has kept up the annual payout hikes since then, registering its 47th consecutive year of dividend increases in April with a substantial 35% improvement to 71 cents per share.

Nonetheless, ABBV shares are off more than 16% this year. Most of the losses came in January, when the company announced a $4 billion write-down of an acquisition, then followed that up with disappointing fourth-quarter earnings.

• Market value: $87.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 0.4%

Under a barrage of bad news and mounting debt, General Electric (GE, $10.05) – arguably relegated to former blue-chip status at this point – suffered a meltdown in 2017 that sent its profits and shares plunging. The company is on its third CEO in two years, and it’s working to spin off various units to generate more value.

The next big challenge facing General Electric is its woefully underfunded pension plan. About 70% of GE’s retired and active workers are covered by plans that require funds be set aside for future payments. The company’s workers are guaranteed $92 billion in payments, but the company has set aside only $69 billion to meet its obligations.

General Electric contributed $6 billion to the plan in 2018, which could cover required cash contributions through 2020, but is gambling on a rising stock market. The company’s pension burden increases when the stock market falls, since the value of plan assets shrinks. A prolonged bear market could create major liquidity problems for GE.

However, UBS analyst Peter Lennox-King thinks GE’s pension costs will fall in coming years, boosting EPS as a result. He looks for a $1 billion to $3 billion drop in General Electric’s pension costs by 2020, which could add 29 cents per share to earnings – considerable given consensus estimates for 75 cents. Lennox-King, who rates GE a “Buy,” reasons that the company’s non-ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) pension obligations can be funded from current cash flow and don’t require pre-funding.

Indeed, General Electric’s ERISA-based obligation is about 80% funded. The average pension plan across the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was 85% funded as of December 2018 – not much of a discrepancy.

• Market value: $35.8 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.6%
• Delta Air Lines (DAL, $54.73), one of a handful of blue-chip stocks in the airline space, also faces challenges from its massively underfunded pension plan. The company had pension obligations totaling $19.8 billion as of the end of last year, but funding of only $13.5 billion. Delta’s 68% funding ratio gave it one of the weakest coverage ratios in the S&P 500. The company said it would contribute $500 million in 2019, but that still puts it well shy of its obligation.

Delta’s pension woes are the result of many years of overly rosy estimates of what it could earn from invested pension assets. From 2008 to 2017, the company anticipated investment returns totaling $7.7 billion, but actual returns were only $5.8 billion.

Its overly optimistic assumptions are a threat to future earnings since every 50-basis point decline in plan returns adds $73 million to pension expense. Using the more conservative return assumptions employed by other S&P companies would add as much as $438 million to Delta’s pension expense. David Trainer, CEO of independent research firm New Constructs, LLC, estimated last year that the hit to earnings would come to 48 cents per share.

Despite its pension issues, however, Delta has delivered seven consecutive quarters of better-than-expected financial results, and Wall Street is highly bullish about this blue-chip airline stock. Among the 22 analysts following Delta, 16 have “Buy” or “Strong Buy” ratings, while six say it’s a “Hold.” A slew of analysts reiterated their “Buy” calls a couple months ago following the company’s earnings report. That includes Cowen analyst Helane Becker, who raised her price target given Delta’s solid core business and the renewal of a credit card partnership with American Express (AXP).

• Market value: $99.3 billion
• Dividend yield: 2.5%
• Lockheed Martin (LMT, $351.60), the largest of the defense-industry blue chips, also has issues with a poorly funded pension plan. Lockheed Martin was forced to contribute $5 billion to its pension plan in 2018 – roughly equivalent to a full year of earnings – to reduce a pension funding gap that had swelled to $15.6 billion, or approximately 16% of the company’s current market value. The 2018 contribution was a big change from LMT’s typical contribution, which has averaged only about $50 million annually in recent years.

Even with the $5 billion infusion, Lockheed Martin’s plan remains noticeably underfunded. The company ended 2018 with pension obligations totaling $43.3 billion and pension assets valued at $32.0 billion, creating a funding gap of $11.3 billion.

Regardless of pension challenges, Lockheed Martin is off to a roaring start in 2019. A broader bull run and better-than-expected first-quarter results (EPS of $5.99 beat consensus analysts by nearly 40%) have sent LMT shares 34% higher. produced a 30% year-to-date share price gain.

A major growth driver for Lockheed Martin is its F-35 fighter jet program. Poland formally ordered 32 fighter jets in May, and other NATO allies are purchasing aircraft as well. Japan is the largest buyer, with 105 F-35s ordered, and the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Italy have all ordered jets. The U.S. plans to purchase 2,663 F-35 fighter jets for the Air Force, Navy and Marines in coming decades. Lockheed Martin expects to sell 4,600 fighters over the life of the F-35 program, valued by analysts at over $1.3 trillion.

Each of its four businesses recorded sales and profit growth in the first quarter, causing Lockheed Martin to raise its 2019 EPS guidance by 90 cents per share, to a range of $20.05 to $20.35.

• Market value: $51.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.2%

Creditors of General Motors (GM, $36.01) continue to seek higher awards as part of a revised settlement of the company’s legacy ignition switch lawsuit. GM allegedly sold vehicles with faulty ignition switches, which could have prevented airbags from deploying during a crash.

If approved, the new settlement could cost General Motors an additional $1 billion in stock and force the company to accept additional claims totaling more than $35 billion. General Motors said in its 2018 annual report that it opposes the revised settlement but was unable to estimate the losses or a range of losses that could result if courts rule in favor of its creditors.

Despite these lawsuit challenges, analysts remain impressed with GM’s competitive positioning in trucks and autonomous vehicles, assisted by its popular OnStar service. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy has a “Buy” rating and $63 price target on GM stock. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas believes GM will benefit from strong demand for its trucks and SUVs for several more quarters and rates the shares “Overweight” (equivalent of “Buy”).

And General Motors is compensating investors generously with a 4%-plus dividend yield at current prices.

• Market value: $10.5 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• PG&E (PCG, $19.77), the holding company for California utility Pacific Gas & Electric, certainly had a place among blue-chip stocks until relatively recently. However, it filed for bankruptcy in 2019 due to crushing wildfire liability costs. California officials concluded that sparks from PG&E equipment caused multiple massive wildfires in 2017 and 2018 and plaintiffs are seeking damages estimated to exceed $30 billion.

Although a bankruptcy filing doesn’t make litigation disappear, it does consolidate claims into a single proceeding before a bankruptcy judge, potentially avoiding excessive jury awards.

Costs relating to wildfire-related inspections, cleanup and legal fees trimmed 70 cents per share from the company’s first-quarter 2019 earnings. PG&E won’t provide full-year 2019 guidance due to uncertainty around the lawsuits, but estimates at least $1 billion-$1.4 billion of additional wildfire-related expenses this year.

PG&E is America’s largest electric utility, providing natural gas and electricity to more than two-thirds of California. The utility is no stranger to bankruptcy, having suffered through one 18 years ago when it was forced to sell electricity below costs. The company reemerged from bankruptcy in 2004 after paying $10.2 billion to creditors.

PCG shares have lost nearly two-thirds of their value from their 2017 highs, yet have rebounded considerably from earlier in 2019, when they plunged below $7. The 13 analysts who cover the stock aren’t howling to sell, either. Eleven are staying on the sidelines with cautious “Holds,” but two analysts – who are banking on lighter-than-expected penalties and see opportunities in this beaten-down stock – consider it a “Buy.”

Citi analyst Praful Mehta is one of them, actually upgrading the stock to “Buy” in February and reiterating its call just a few days ago. “We believe legislation (to socialize wildfire costs across several other groups) will be passed by the end of session and not July 12th. As noted earlier, we think this legislation will follow the path of least resistance,” he writes.

Scams can hit anyone at any age, but falling victim to fraud is especially painful for retirees, many of whom are counting on the fixed income from their nest eggs and Social Security benefits to last through retirement.

According to Federal Trade Commission data, 1.1 million frauds were reported in 2017, with 21% of the fraud victims suffering a financial loss. Fraud losses for all ages totaled $905 million in 2017, with a median loss of $429 per victim. Retirement-age fraud victims tend to lose more money to scams than younger victims. The median fraud loss was $500 for victims in their 60s, $621 for victims in their 70s, and $1,092 for victims 80 and over. More than 107,000 Americans ages 60 to 69 reported being victims of fraud last year, the highest total of any age range tracked by the FTC.

So how are retirees being swindled? In more ways than you can imagine. Here are some of the most common scams being run today, along with advice from fraud experts on how to avoid getting ripped off.

In an effort to deter identity theft, the federal government is in the process of replacing all Medicare cardswith new cards that don’t have Social Security numbers printed on them. The new cards started going out in waves last April, and everyone should have a new replacement card in hand by April 2019. That’s the good news.

The bad news: Phone scammers are using this yearlong rollout as an opportunity to defraud Medicare recipients. The FTC is getting reports of various scam tactics, ranging from callers claiming to be Medicare representatives asking you to verify personal information (which could be used for identity theft) to offering to send you a new plastic Medicare card for a fee (legit cards are paper, and there is no fee).

Kathy Stokes, interim director of AARP’s Fraud Watch Network, says another variation on the scam involves a caller claiming that your old Medicare card has a balance on it that can be transferred to your new card – if you provide your bank account and routing numbers. Hang up. Unless you contacted Medicare and specifically left a message requesting a call back, says Stokes, “chances are slim to none it’s actually Medicare calling you.”

One scam targeting retirees that the FTC is seeing more of starts with a phone call from someone claiming to be with the Social Security Administration. The caller tells you that your Social Security number has been suspended, perhaps due to fraud or other criminal activity. The caller sounds very official and very convincing. All you need to do to get your Social Security number reactivated is provide the caller with personal information including the details of the bank account where your benefits are being deposited. Don’t.

• “The Social Security Administration is not going to call you and tell you your benefits are suspended,” says AARP’s Stokes. She recommends that everyone open an online account with Social Security. Not only can the account be used for official communications with the agency, but it also prevents scammers from opening a fraudulent account in your name and claiming your Social Security benefits.

Thinking about getting those hard-to-shop-for grandkids gift cards for the holidays? Think twice before you do. Fraud.org, a website operated by the National Consumers League, reports a spike in fraud involving gift cards.

Here’s what’s going on: Thieves are stealing the numbers, including the scratch-off security codes, from the gift cards while they’re still hanging on the sales rack in stores. Once the card is purchased and activated at the register, the thief drains the value of the gift card by quickly making online purchases. Software makes it easy for scammers to check balances online and be alerted once the gift cards have been activated.

Fraud.org recommends that you avoid buying gift cards that aren’t in secure packaging. In some cases, the thieves are actually replacing the scratch-off foil covering the security codes to disguise their tampering. Carefully inspect packaging before purchasing a gift card, and pay particular attention to the scratch-off foil covering. If it’s crooked, oversized or peeling, don’t buy it. Alternatively, purchase electronic gift cards (delivered by email) rather than physical gift cards.

That $9,000 prize check you received in the mail for winning a sweepstakes you never entered will cost you money – lots of money – if you deposit it and follow the scammer’s instructions, says Stokes.

• Americans reported losing $95 million last year to the many variations of sweepstakes and lottery scams, according to the FTC. Here’s how one variation, the fake-prize-check-in-the-mail scam, can play out. You receive a congratulatory letter along with with a check for a portion of the prize. You’re instructed to deposit the check, then wire back some of the money to cover fees, taxes or some other seemingly plausible expense. Once you do, the letter promises you will receive the rest of your prize money. Lucky you?

In reality, you’re being suckered. When that check bounces, you’re liable for bank fees, any portion of the original deposit you already spent, plus any amount you wired back to the scammers. “Checks take a while to clear, so by that time, the scammers are gone and so is your money,” says Stokes.

Phone scammers are calling up utility customers and threatening to cut off electricity, gas or water services if past-due bills aren’t paid immediately. Scammers often demand payment over the phone by credit card, or they request unusual payment methods such as gift cards, reloadable cash cards or even cryptocurrencies, warns the FTC.

“You know that utility companies are not going to work in that way,” says Stokes of AARP. “If you’re having a problem paying your bills, you’re going to hear from the utility company by several letters, at least, until you get a phone call.”

In addition, Stokes says scammers are emailing and snail-mailing fake utility bills that look genuine. To avoid falling for a fake bill, she recommends setting up an online account with each utility company and paying utility bills online. Online accounts also allow you to check balances instantly to see if any are really past due.

This one’s often called the “grandparent scam” because scammers usually target the elderly, and usually late at night to help infuse more confusion. The grandparent will receive a phone call from someone posing as a friend of the grandchild, a police officer or perhaps a lawyer representing the grandchild. The caller will claim the grandchild needs urgent help. Further, the grandparent will be urged not to tell the parents or anyone else because the grandchild is “already in enough trouble.”

What’s the scammer angling for? Money wired immediately to cover purported hospital bills, bail, a plane ticket home – whatever fits the narrative of the particular scam. A disturbing variation on the scam involves a caller posing as a kidnapper and demanding ransom for the safe return of the grandchild. Some scammers use social media to learn details about victims to sound more convincing.

Red flags include the urgency to wire money and the unwillingness of the caller to put the grandchild on the phone. The New York State Attorney General’s Office, which recently busted a sophisticated family-emergency ring, advises anyone who receives such a call not to give out personal information or wire money to a stranger. Instead, hang up, contact your grandchild to confirm his or her safety, and report the call to the police – especially if it was threatening.

Retirees, whether widowed, divorced or never married, are looking for love online, and unfortunately for them dating sites are ripe for abuse by scammers pretending to love them back.

• “Romance scams are targeting the older community more and more,” says AARP’s Stokes. “[Older adults are] getting online, getting on a dating site to meet someone, finding the perfect match, the love of your life -- then the requests start coming.”

A common thread of romance scams is the inability of the scammer to meet the victim in person, perhaps because the scammer claims to be overseas on business or stationed abroad in the military. The initial request for money can revolve around paying for a flight to visit, but once the money is wired the scammer will make excuses to postpone the trip. Now that the victim’s trust has been gained, the scammer may feign family emergencies, accidents or temporary business setbacks as reason not only for further trip delays but also for requests for additional money.

“They string them on and string them on and string them on,” says Stokes. “People literally lose thousands and thousands of dollars to these romance scams.”

Quick pronouncements of love, requests to wire money to foreign bank accounts and repeated excuses for not being able to meet in person (especially if the person claims it’s because he or she is overseas) are among the surest signs of a romance scam, according to Fraud.org.

Next time you pull over to fill up the tank, take a close look at the gas pump before you swipe your debit or credit card. Gas station point-of-sale card readers are frequent targets of scammers, who attach “skimming” devices on top of the real units to steal your account information when you insert or swipe your card.

Even Stokes, AARP’s fraud expert, was the victim of a skimming device at a gas station. Her bank caught the fraud quickly, she says, but she had to replace the card. Lesson learned. To avoid skimming devices at gas pumps, Stokes recommends either paying in cash or paying with a credit card inside rather than at the pump.

Along the same lines, beware the standalone ATMs not associated with a major bank that you often see at gas stations and drugstores. “Those are hot for scammers,” Stokes adds.

Looking forward to traveling more now that you’re retired? Good for you. Just be sure to use caution as you plan your trips. The median loss for travel-related fraud, including deceptive offers for timeshares and low-cost vacation packages, was $1,710 per occurrence in 2017. That’s the highest amount for any fraud tracked by the FTC.

Vacation rentals are particularly susceptible to scams. Scammers even go so far as to set up phony listings using attractive photos and descriptions of properties stolen from legit vacation rental websites.

“It’s really, really easy for scammers to go online and copy the information about the vacation property and post it themselves,” says Stokes. “People will put in their information and think they’ve rented a place and then go there the day of and find either the property is being rented by someone else … or they go there and there is actually no ‘there’ there.”

Sites such as Airbnb.com and VRBO.com have safeguards in place to deter scams. Consider using one of them to book a vacation rental. Be wary when using a less-regulated site such as Craigslist.org, and watch for fake sites that are named and designed to look like legitimate sites.

Imposter scams are far and away the biggest category of fraud tracked by the FTC, resulting in more than $328 million in reported losses last year. The majority of imposter scams involve people pretending to be government officials. The rest involve imposters pretending to be friends, family members, love interests, business representatives and tech support workers.

• Bottom line: Be suspicious of anyone contacting you out of the blue claiming to be a government official and demanding that you divulge sensitive personal or financial information. Ditto for demands that you immediately wire money.

“Medicare is not going to call you. Social Security is not going to call you,” says AARP’s Stokes. “The IRS will reach out to you many times by mail if you have back taxes as an issue before you would get a phone call. Same thing with local government: The court clerk isn’t going to call because you missed jury duty and require you to pay a fine or face arrest. You’ll be contacted by mail first.”

Below are the top 10 fraud categories, based on the number of complaints received by the FTC in 2017, followed by the total dollar losses reported by scam victims:

• Imposter scams: 347,829 reports; $328 million lost.
• Telephone and mobile services: 149,578 reports; $17 million lost.
• Prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries : 142,870 reports; $95 million lost.
• Shop-at-home and catalog sales: 126,387 reports; $94 million lost.
• Internet services: 45,093 reports; $19 million lost.
• Foreign money offers and counterfeit check scams: 31,980 reports; $34 million lost.
• Travel, vacations and timeshare plans: 22,264 reports; $38 million lost.
• Business and job opportunities: 18,702 reports; $47 million lost.
• Advance payment for credit services: 17,762 reports; $15 million lost.
• Health care: 10,321 reports; $1 million lost.

Net neutrality is the idea that all legal internet content should be treated equally by internet service providers. Comcast, Verizon and other web services, the thinking goes, are conduits to the World Wide Web and should abide by certain rules. They shouldn’t speed up, slow down or block certain sites, for instance. Net neutrality has become a rallying cry for web advocates looking to defend what they call the “free and open” internet. The theory is simple to lay out, but in practice it’s a more complex debate.

What’s happening now, and why is the debate so heated? The Federal Communications Commission is reversing a 2015 order that imposed stringent rules on broadband. The FCC, which has new members appointed by President Trump, argues that paid prioritization (so-called fast lanes) and other practices could benefit consumers and shouldn’t be banned outright.

The new rules switch the web back to a lightly regulated information system and scrap the regulations that barred blocking or throttling legal content and banned fast lanes. What’s left is a transparency rule that forces web providers to disclose their business practices to customers if they block or throttle online data, or if they strike deals to speed up certain content via fast lanes.

Many consumers don’t think too highly of their cable or internet service provider. In a 2017 customer satisfaction survey, cable companies and ISPs ranked dead last among 43 industries.

Consumers also recoil at the idea of having their unfettered access to the internet change drastically. Plus, many customers find competition for high-speed home web service lacking, and they worry about broadband providers hiking prices or rolling out unfair practices. The debate has incited both sides of the political aisle, with Republicans cheering the regulatory rollback and Democrats fiercely opposing it.

Who will police bad behavior? The FCC says that the move reinstates the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to police deceptive or unfair practices, and that state attorneys general still can crack down on companies for breaches of their terms and agreements. The FCC also points to the antitrust tools that the Department of Justice can use to crack down on future anticompetitive behavior. The FCC can dole out fines to companies that fail to meet transparency requirements.

How will internet providers react to the new rules? If the rules take hold, internet providers would slowly but surely launch a new crop of money-making services. Expect fast lanes to crop up for services such as virtual reality gaming and telehealth. Cellular providers would launch more zero-rated plans, which let users stream certain apps and websites without hitting their data cap. These plans were at risk of violating the 2015 rules, so some providers were reluctant to offer them.

T-Mobile, for instance, has used such plans to let customers use music-streaming apps and more. In T-Mobile’s case, no money is exchanged, but the apps must meet T-Mobile’s technical requirements.

Will my internet cost more? It’s possible consumers will save money for some services. Offering zero-rated services for cellular plans makes streaming data cheaper. As cellular providers duke it out in a competitive wireless market, prices will stay low for mobile data. And next-generation 5G wireless technology should spur more competition in some urban areas. But the FCC rules will likely embolden more broadband companies to launch data caps for home service and charge extra when users go over their limit.

What happens next? The fight over net neutrality is headed for another round of court battles, which could delay the new regulations from kicking in.

Yelp has long been accused of acting like the Tony Soprano of online reviews. Companies claim that Yelp favors advertisers by emphasizing their search results and reviews. Some businesses say Yelp has tried to persuade them to buy ads by offering to make negative reviews disappear — or tried to strong-arm them by threatening to delete positive comments. A few companies banded together in 2010 to sue the firm over such practices. And some Yelp shareholders have sued, too, claiming the company inflated its revenues by coercing businesses to advertise. More than 2,000 complaints about Yelp have also piled up at the Federal Trade Commission, which has scrutinized Yelp’s ad-sales tactics and “recommendation” software, used to highlight reviews deemed the most useful to consumers.

So far, Yelp has batted down all these claims. A federal judge dismissed the shareholder lawsuit last year, finding scant signs of “allegedly extortionate practices.” Judges also tossed the local-business lawsuit in 2014, writing that Yelp’s threats of “economic harm” were, “at most, hard bargaining.” The FTC decided last year to close its inquiry without taking any action. For its part, Yelp says it takes “many steps to prevent gaming of our system and to protect consumers and business owners alike.”

Yelp’s successes haven’t stymied its critics, though. On sites such as Yelp-sucks.com, business owners and consumers continue to rant about the firm. An upcoming documentary, Billion Dollar Bully, takes aim at Yelp’s tactics. On TV, Yelp’s hefty influence in the ratings world has made it the target of biting satire. On an episode of the animated series South Park last year, elite (and insufferable) Yelpers try to extract special treatment from restaurants, which exact some unsavory revenge.

You hear the words "childhood disease" or “cancer victim" or "natural disaster,” and it can be hard to say no to donation requests to help. But your instinct to be generous always should be tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism.

Case in point: The Federal Trade Commission charged four cancer charities with bilking donors out of $187 million. The FTC announced on May 19 that the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and The Breast Cancer Society allegedly used most of the funds raised to support cancer patients to instead benefit the charities’ organizers and their family members and friends. Donations were allegedly spent on cars, cruises, concert tickets and other items that did not help cancer patients.

So how can you make sure that the money you give doesn’t end up lining the pockets of the unneedy? Follow these tips.

Hang up on telemarketers. The cancer charities charged with fraud by the FTC used telemarketing calls – as well as direct mail and Web sites – to solicit donations. If you get a call from a group asking for money, you might feel pressured to make a donation on the spot. But the FTC cautions that you shouldn’t rush to say yes. In fact, you should decline any requests to give over the phone, says Leonie Giles, a senior program analyst for Charity Navigator, which evaluates and rates charities. Telemarketing companies that solicit donations on behalf of charitable organizations often keep a significant portion of the funds they raise. If you ask, professional fundraisers are required by law to tell you what percentage of your donation they get and what percentage actually goes to the charity – but Giles says that, in her experience, they don’t always know. You’re better off skipping the middleman and contacting a charity directly (by phone or through its Web site) to make a donation.

Don’t wait for charities to come to you. To avoid feeling the pressure to give to an organization that reaches out to you, figure out what causes are important to you, Giles says. Then find charities that are addressing those causes. You can browse charities that have been evaluated by Charity Navigator by category – such as education or human services – to identify groups you want to support. Having a giving plan will make it easier to avoid making impulse donations, Giles says.

Research before you give. The FTC charges against the four cancer charities shows that just because an organization claims to do good doesn’t mean it actually does. That’s why it’s important to find out as much as you can about how an organization will use your donation before you give. You can start with third-party evaluations and ratings at sites such as the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator and Charity Watch, which examine charities’ finances, governance and effectiveness.

Giles says that the majority of organizations evaluated by Charity Navigator spend at least 75% of their funds on programs and services. Be wary if an organization is spending more than 25% on overhead. You also can do your own research into how a charity allocates its money by checking its IRS Form 990, which most nonprofits are required to make public. GuideStar has a searchable database of those documents, and charities should provide Form 990 on their sites – as well as independent audit reports, Giles says. Or call charities directly to ask them how your donation will be put to use and how they allocate their funds. If they’re not willing to take the time to answer your questions or mail you the information you request, it should be a red flag.

Never send cash. The FTC recommends making donations by check or credit card for security and tax purposes. Ask for a receipt showing the amount of your donation and stating that it is tax-deductible.

Preventing telemarketers from buzzing you at dinnertime takes constant vigilance. So here are some tips that might help you evade telemarketers or at least get some of the ringing out of your ear.

By Thomas M. Anderson

The first entries into the National Do Not Call Registry are set to be expunged in the summer of 2008 because the 2003 law stated that all numbers would expire after five years. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is holding off deleting numbers until Congress weighs in. "People shouldn't have to re-up every five years, especially because they get no notification that their names are being taken off the list," says Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), who is sponsoring legislation that would make numbers on the list permanent.

If you're not on the registry yet, call 888-382-1222 or register online at www.donotcall.gov

Fourteen states -- among them Florida, New Jersey and Texas -- maintain their own registries, and some of those lists are tougher on telemarketers than the feds are. But states that have their own programs may boot you off after five years.

That is the case in Pennsylvania, where officials are pruning phone numbers of residents who fail to renew. Nearly 1.2 million people have re-registered their numbers to prevent them from expiring after a state ad campaign warned about the list purge.

State and national do-not-call lists permit phone pitches from charities, survey researchers and political campaigns. This presidential election year, so-called robo-calls from candidates are inevitable, and resistance is futile.

All you can do is routinely check caller ID and let such automated messages go directly to voice mail -- then delete them. "Political calls are not covered because they are not trying to sell you anything," says Lois Greisman, the FTC associate director who enforces the national registry.

Under the National Do Not Call Registry, any company you've done business with in the past 18 months can hassle you by phone. Ditto for companies to which you've given written consent (often buried in the fine print of sweepstakes entries) to remain on their call lists.

To stop spiels that get past your phone firewall, request that your number be put on the company's internal do-not-call list, which every business is required to have.

With more than 145 million phone numbers out of bounds to telemarketers, some of them are using spam and junk mail to reach potential customers, says Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires e-mail solicitors to give you the option to "unsubscribe" by clicking a link in the promotion. To stem the tide of junk mail, register with the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service ($1; call 212-768-7277 or go to www.dmachoice.org and click on "Consumer Assistance"). The DMA also offers other do-not-contact lists.

Federal regulators rely on consumer complaints to enforce the do-not-call lists, the FTC's Greisman says. Since the National Do Not Call Registry was established, the FTC and Justice Department have filed 34 enforcement actions against individuals and companies they claim have violated the list.

In total, the feds have collected more than $16 million in civil penalties -- the largest of which was $5.3 million from DirectTV in 2005. Plus, consumers have won $8 million in restitution against telemarketers who broke the do-not-call rules. To file a complaint, go to the registry Web site.