The IRS will begin issuing Economic Impact Payments on April 15th and the number of scams and fraud is already on the rise. We urge our members to be on the lookout for fraudulent calls and e-mail phishing attempts related to economic impact payments and COVID-19.
The IRS and Discovery FCU will not call, e-mail or text you asking you to verify or provide your financial information so you can get an economic payment faster. The IRS has recently reminded taxpayers that scammers may:
- Emphasize the words “Stimulus Check” or “Stimulus Payment.” The official term is economic impact payment.
- Ask you to sign over your economic impact check to them.
- Ask by phone, e-mail, text, or social media for verification of personal and/or banking information saying that information is needed to receive or speed up your economic impact payment.
- Suggest that they can get your economic impact payment faster by working on your behalf. This scam could be conducted by social media or even in person.
- Mail you a bogus check, perhaps in an odd amount, then tell you to call a number or verify information online in order to cash it.
Please use extra caution and have a heightened awareness of scams and fraudulent activity. Discovery FCU will never ask you for your personal account information via an unsolicited text message, e-mail, or telephone call. We also remind you to never give anyone, for any reason, your online banking login credentials.