Greg's Corner

New email scam tries to get your stimulus money

With the second round of economic impacts in the process of being paid and a third round possibly on the horizon, you might think that taxpayers should now be pretty immune to stimulus scams. However, that hasn’t stopped scammers from trying to get their hands on yours. It also appears that the scams are becoming even more elaborate to try to steal from you.

The Federal Trade Commission is warning taxpayers about emails that claim to be from their agency discussing the stimulus payments. The emails even claim to be sent directly from the outgoing chairman of the FTC. According to reports, the email demands that you pay money to receive your stimulus payment. It even includes an official looking ‘certificate of approval’.

If you make any motions towards actually making a payment to the scammers, you’ll be told that the payment is for a State Department certificate that proves the funds are not related to any terrorist activity. That may sound made up, but the FTC is assuring us it isn’t.

If you receive one of these emails it is recommended that you just delete it or mark it as spam.

The indicators that this email is a scam are numerous. The first is that the FTC has nothing to do with economic impact payments. That is all handled by the IRS, and they’re not emailing anyone asking for money either. One of the other indicators is that you don’t have to pay for your stimulus payment. The majority of taxpayers just have to keep an eye on their bank account if they have direct deposit, or their mailbox if they don’t. Even if you’re a non-filer and received the initial stimulus payment, you should receive this one the same way.

If you have any further questions about how the economic impact payments are being made, we recommend going to the IRS’s Get My Payment website.