What is the latest on-line scam involving Social Security?
The Social Security Administration has announced that Social Security recipients will be receiving a 3.3% increase for 2007, to cover the increase in the cost of living. The annual calculation of the cost of living increase is done from the Consumer Price Index (for urban age earners, referred to as CPI-W), which itself is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United State Department of Labor. This would be considered by most of us as a piece of good news. However, to the professional scammers out there, it was good news that could be used as the basis for a scam directed at seniors. How did they do this? The scammers took this piece of news from the Social Security Administration, announced by press release on October 18, 2006 and used it as the basis for a “phishing” scam. “Phishing” involves the creation of a website which looks identical to a legitimate website, which may be one of a financial institution or a government agency. The “phisher” then sends out thousands
