Scammers are using a technique called "spoofing" to make their calls and texts appear to come from legitimate sources like banks, police agencies, and businesses. This is costing Americans billions of dollars every year.
"It's really easy for criminals and scammers to spoof any phone number that they want whether it be police agency, a bank, a business, anyone that they want to spoof. It can easily be done," said Sergeant Brian Kidd from Tempe Police. He investigates fraud and financial crimes for the department.
“It’s incredibly hard for law enforcement to track,” Sgt. Kidd added.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, more than a third of all fraud reported in 2024 started with someone being contacted by phone or text. Those fraud claims added up to $1.5 billion in losses.
The ABC15 Let You Know team hears from spoofing scam victims all the time, like Chris from Phoenix, who wrote to us that he lost a significant amount of money after being scammed by someone posing as his bank. Many victims express frustration that their banks cannot help them recover their stolen funds.
"Unfortunately, what we're seeing across the country today is a surge in fraud and scams against consumers," said Heather Hogsett, executive vice president and head of the technology policy division of Bank Policy Institute. BPI is a nonpartisan public policy, research, and advocacy group for banks across the country.
"Banks, unfortunately, just have the frontline view to witness the devastation that is both very emotional and financial for their customers, but it really is starting, you know, long before it gets to us," Hogsett explained.
The Bank Policy Institute is calling on telephone and social media companies, as well as Congress, to take action to prevent these types of scams.
"Banks cannot prevent fraud alone. We need social media and telecom companies to do things like verifying ad buyers, taking down fraudulent content when it appears online, and removing things like these, how-to forums where people can go to basically learn how to train and recruit new scammers," Hogsett said. "We also need them to authenticate callers to make sure they cannot impersonate a bank, because that's really how consumers are being tricked today."
Consumers can also help stop scammers by reporting any fraud they encounter to the FBI, their bank, or the Federal Trade Commission.
"These places help track and monitor what is happening out there, and they can really help all of us better protect consumers if we know what's happening, but if you don't report it, we really don't have a full picture of what's happening, how it's happening, and that is very useful information for those of us to have to better protect you," Hogsett added.
If you are the victim of a spoofing scam, you can report it to the FBI here and the Federal Trade Commission here. Those websites also have more resources on what you can do if you were scammed.
You can also Let ABC15 Know. Emai Consumer@abc15.com.
