The Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) scam tracker reports more than 16,600 scams have been reported to the BBB since 2021.
Thieves steal passwords, social security numbers and even driver license info to commit fraud.
To help protect yourself, the BBB advises you to do the following:
- Do not share personal information with unverified sources.
- Use multi-factor authentication
- Run regular credit checks
- Be cautious of suspicious links and texts
A BBB spokesperson also suggests changing out any critical passwords, including for your bank.
“You know, any kind of, you know, like government program that you're in. Like if you're in Medicare or something or a section 8 housing voucher or anything like that, you know, those are ripe for scam artists to come get, and therefore they're worth changing as often as you can and do the dual verification,” he said using generated passwords can be helpful.
He adds that if your account does get broken into, act fast and reach out to your account provider immediately.
