ATLANTA — College students, stay-at-home parents and retirees: Those are groups who are falling victim to a new, aggressive breed of cybercriminals.
Bill Tatters, 60, is on disability, but really wants to work. Earlier this year, he received a text about a job he could do from home.
“They said, ‘It’s simple. You test these apps for developers.’”
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The opportunity seemed to be a perfect fit.
“I did it a couple of times. I made $100 each time in two days, so I thought, ‘This is pretty good,’” Tatters said.
He was asked to transfer money from his bank account into a Cash App account, then purchase cryptocurrency.
“I got my money back the first two times.”
But by the time Tatters realized what was happening, it was too late. He was out more than $3,000, the result of an elaborate scam.
“It’s just so humiliating and makes you feel so violated,” Tatters told Greer.
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Tatters is just one of thousands of victims of employment scams nationwide.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says more than 15,000 complaints were filed in 2023 alone. These cases are on the rise, totaling an annual loss of more than $70 million nationwide.
There are schools to where these criminals go to school and learn. That skill, how to manipulate you either over the phone or through wording in an email,” said threat researcher Willis McDonald.
McDonald says fraud like this is a full-time job for the crooks.
“They don’t believe they’re criminals at all. They believe it’s your fault you fell for it,” he said.
Artificial intelligence is making it a whole lot easier for them to dupe you.
“It makes it very convincing. Properly formatted. Proper grammar. Message for you to be able to send to whoever you’re trying to target,” McDonald said.
He said the key to protecting yourself is doing your own research.
“Go to that company’s website. The one that you know is the legitimate website. If you don’t know that company and you don’t know that website, yeah, question why would why you would even be going to that site or that company,” McDonald said.
“It’s terrible and I’m not a rich person. I said, ‘You took everything I had.’ She said, ‘I didn’t take anybody’s money.;” Tatters said.
Another way to protect yourself is never send money to someone you don’t know via payment apps like Cash App, Venmo or Zelle. Once you do, it is most likely gone for good.
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