Military Servicemembers and Families

Common Scams Targeting Military Members

Servicemembers and their families face unique challenges in protecting their personal identifiable information. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has identified the most common scams that target military members.

1. Identity theft occurs when someone appropriates another's personal information without their knowledge to commit theft or fraud. Identity theft is a vehicle for perpetrating other types of fraud schemes. Typically, the victim is led to believe they are divulging sensitive personal information to a legitimate business, sometimes as a response to an email solicitation to update billing or membership information, or as an application to a fraudulent internet job posting. 
2. Internet extortion involves hacking into and controlling various industry databases, promising to release control back to the company if funds are received or the subjects are given web administrator jobs. Similarly, the subject will threaten to compromise information about consumers in the industry database unless funds are received.
3. Sextortion is a form of cyber extortion in which criminals engage in online sexual activities with a victim and then demand money or favors in exchange for not publicizing potentially embarrassing information. In these "sextortion" scams, the extortionist will convince a servicemember to send a compromising photo or engage in a sexually explicit video chat, then threaten to send the compromising images to the servicemember's command, family and friends unless "hush money" is paid. The extortionists may demand additional payments, more sexual images, sensitive military information, or access to secure systems and facilities.
4. Phishing and spoofing are somewhat synonymous in that they refer to forged or faked electronic documents. Spoofing generally refers to the dissemination of email that is forged to appear as though it was sent by someone other than the actual source. Phishing, often used in conjunction with a spoofed email, is the act of sending an email falsely claiming to be an established legitimate business in an attempt to dupe the unsuspecting recipient into divulging personal, sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account information after directing the user to visit a specified website. The website, however, is not genuine and was set up only as an attempt to steal the user's information.
5. Money transfer schemes can take many forms, but they all end with the victim losing their money. It may be a monetary prize you have won but need to provide banking information or wire a payment for the taxes and processing fees. It may be a request to send money to someone in need. Worse yet, it can be a solicitation to have you act as a third-party receiver of funds, which not only can cost you your money but also open you up to legal actions against you. In some instances, scammers employ work-at-home schemes by posting work-at-home job offers on popular internet employment sites, soliciting for assistance from United States citizens. The subjects allegedly are posting internet auctions but cannot receive the proceeds from these auctions directly because their location outside the United States makes receiving these funds difficult. The seller asks the United States citizen to act as a third-party receiver of funds from victims who have purchased products from the subject via the internet. The United States citizen, receiving the funds from the victims, then wires the money to the subject. There is typically no way to reverse a wire transfer once it has been processed. Once it is gone, it is gone, and the chances of recovering it are slim to none.

How to Protect Yourself

The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) recommends that you be suspicious of a person who:

• Asks you for money for transportation costs, communication fees, marriage processing or medical fees. NEVER SEND MONEY!
• Asks you to send money or ship property to a third party. Oftentimes the company exists but is not part of the scam.
• Claims a lack of support or services provided to troops overseas.
• Communicates only via social media or email.
• Doesn't use an email address ending with ".mil." All military members have a ".mil" email address, so there is a high probability that a person is not in the military if they cannot provide one.
• Uses common spelling, grammatical or language errors.
• Speaks with a foreign or regional accent that does not match the person's story.

Additional Precautions

• Ensure privacy settings on all professional and personal accounts are set to the maximum.
• Put an active duty alert on your credit report if you are deployed and do not expect to seek new credit. The alert requires creditors to take steps to verify your identity before granting credit in your name. It lasts a year but can be renewed for the length of your deployment. Contact the fraud department of one credit bureau; they must contact the other two. Additionally, the credit bureaus will take your name off their marketing lists for prescreened credit offers for two years, unless you ask them to add you back on.

Impersonations

The practice of impersonating servicemembers for financial gain is common. When impostor accounts are identified, it is important to report the accounts to the host platforms. Twitter allows users to create parody, satire, newsfeed, commentary and fan accounts that mimic organizations if they indicate that they are “unofficial” or “fan” accounts.

Identifying an Impostor

Impostors are damaging not only to an individual’s reputation but also to that servicemember’s branch of the military. It is important to know the warning signs of a scam or the common identifiers associated with an impostor account.

• The account is not registered and/or verified.
• The account has very few photos.
• The photos are posted in the same date range.
• The account has few followers or comments.
• The account name and photos do not match.
• There are obvious grammatical errors.
• Key information is missing.

Official accounts will not send friend requests. If you receive a request from an account claiming to be a senior leader, report it.

The individuals or groups establishing impostor accounts can be clever, using different usernames, similar spellings, personal photos, official photos, and even changing the nametape on servicemembers’ uniforms.

Reporting Impostors

Servicemembers, especially leaders, are prime targets for identity thieves who will use images posted online to create the fake accounts. It is good practice to search sites regularly for impostors and even conduct a reverse image search on your own picture to be sure it is not being used fraudulently. Impostor accounts are violations of terms of use agreements. Most social media platforms have a reporting system that allows users to report an individual who is pretending to be someone else.