PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Better Business Bureau issued a new scam alert where imposters pose as the non-profit in an effort to steal information and money from consumers and businesses.
“Sometimes these bad actors can look to threaten people and businesses in the community by saying we’re a government agency, when we are in fact a non-profit organization not a government entity,” said Logan Hickle, with the BBB Great West and Pacific.
On the consumer-side, Hickle says scammers pretend to offer loans or credit repair programs in an attempt to gain personal identifiable information such as Social Security numbers and bank information.
Hickle warns, “even if they’re not asking for money now, it may open you up to scams further down the road. Anything they can get a hand on is valuable to them.”
The scammers will target businesses by saying, for example, there’s a new customer review or complaint on their BBB business profile, Hickle said. The scammer may then send a link or a PDF with malware.
Hickle points out the BBB does reach out to individuals in some cases such as a consumer complaint or if someone files a report through the organization’s scam tracker. Hickle says the difference is the BBB would never ask for passwords, access to devices or personal identifiable information.