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FBI warns scammers now impersonate refund payment portals

Bleeping Computer: “The FBI warns that tech support scammers are now impersonating financial institutions’ refund payment portals to harvest victims’ sensitive information and add legitimacy. In today’s public service announcement, the federal law enforcement agency said that the fraudsters trick victims (generally someone from within the elderly population) via email or phone calls into giving them access to their computers by impersonating representatives of technical or computer repair services. “Within the body of the email, the scammers will indicate the specific service to be renewed with a price commonly in the range of $300 to $500 USD, provoking a sense of urgency in the victims to contact them and provide information for a refund,” the FBI said. “In this case, the scammers claim to aid in securing a refund through remote access to the victim’s computer.” While tech support scams have been around for years, the FBI added that since as recently as October 2022, the scammers are using scripts (Windows batch files) designed to display what looks like the user interface of refund payment portals in a command prompt window…”

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