New report warns of stimulus payment fraud

As the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service begin to disperse stimulus payments under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), an article from KrebsOnSecurity warns that the new website to help non-filers could make it easy for thieves to intercept some payments.

The agencies Friday launched a new web portal, the non-filer tool, to help those who don’t normally file a tax return register for the stimulus payments.

In the article, Krebs reports that the possibility of payments being intercepted is “very real” due to the “relatively lax identification requirements” of the non-filer portal and high number of tax refund fraud in years past.

“In this case, fraudsters would simply need to identify the personal information for a pool of Americans who don’t normally file tax returns, which may well include a large number of people who are disabled, poor or simply do not have easy access to a computer or the Internet,” writes Krebs. “Armed with this information, the scammers need only provide the target’s name, address, date of birth and Social Security number, and then supply their own bank account information to claim at least $1,200 in electronic payments.”

 

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