Anna Alvarado was skeptical when she received a text from a would-be employer telling her that he’d noticed her stellar marketing skills and wanted to hire her to market his company. It would be an online, remote position paying her more than $10,000 a month.
All she had to do was click on the link and submit her social security number and other personal information. The text asked for her bank routing and account numbers and a small fee to process her application.
Someone desperate for money and a job may have been fooled, but Alvarado caught on right away. She works as the education programs manager for CyberWyoming, a nonprofit focused on providing cyber security education and training for Wyoming citizens and business and easily spotted the scam.
In another instance, a scammer contacted Alvarado’s friend pretending to be a recruiter for Warner Bros., offering a part-time job of up to $50 an hour.
Employer-related scams like this are becoming increasingly more popular, according to the fifth-annual CyberWyoming scam report.
The report is compiled by Alvarado and her co-worker, Natalie Demple, based on scams reported by Wyoming citizens that are also published weekly in the nonprofit’s “Hacker’s Brief.”
Data collected for 2024 suggests that the majority of scams reported in Wyoming last year were “fakes.” A fake is a variety of scams involving hackers spoofing legitimate companies to steal personal data and credit and banking info. This might include sending emails or texts with fake delivery notifications, product or service renewals, or prizes among others.
The end game for all the scams is to trick the user into clicking on fraudulent links that might release malware onto their devices or steal their personal or banking and credit card info by filling out a form.
Getting Better At Spoofing Companies
Notable over the prior year, according to Demple, is that the scammers have gotten increasingly better at impersonating the intended company by stealing their logos, email addresses and other marketing materials to make them difficult to decipher from the legitimate companies, particularly in the age of AI-generated content.
Among the most common companies spoofed in Wyoming were PayPal, Amazon, USPS, McAfee, and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, according to the report.
Alvarado and Demple have gotten to the point where they don’t click on any links sent through email or texts but instead go to that businesses’ website and contact them directly about supposed fees that are owed or packages that need to be picked up.
The easiest way to avoid all these scams, according to Alvarado, is to not click on any links.
“I would always suggest verifying it with the company first before clicking on anything,” Alvarado said.
More Personal
Though the scams themselves aren’t necessarily new what’s changed over the past year is the level of sophistication on the fraudster’s part to make them more convincing and personal, Demple said.
A growing trend using AI to gather information about the intended target is making it even harder to detect the scam. The process is referred to as “spear phishing,” whereby scammers use emails, social media, texts and instant messaging to gather personal information to more easily encourage that person to engage.
For example, Demple said, a cybercriminal might scroll through a person’s social media to discover that person is a dog lover with a passion for rescues. The scammer might then target that person by spoofing an animal sanctuary or rescue in an email with a link to donate or sign-up to be on a mail list.
Because it’s more personal and in line with that person’s cause, they might be more prone to be tricked.
Psychology plays a huge role in scams, Demple noted, because scammers exploit vulnerabilities whether that be fear, emotions, quick fixes or life-changing opportunities that trick a person into quickly responding without first thinking it through.
Exploiting Fears
Nowhere is this more evident than in scams impersonating police officers threatening to haul a person off to jail for unpaid fees, warrants or missing jury duty. As noted in last year’s cyber report, this scam is particularly effective in Wyoming with a man in Gillette shelling out $11,000 in Bitcoin this week before realizing he’d been duped.
The 62-year-old man reported receiving a phone call from Sgt. David Morgan of the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office who told him that he had a warrant out for his arrest for missing jury duty and would be carted off to jail unless he paid the $11,000, according to Campbell County Undersheriff Quentin Reynolds.
The caller ID indicated it was the sheriff’s office calling, Reynold’s said, and the man told the sheriff’s office that he in fact thought he may have actually missed jury duty.
Though the man admitted that the impersonated officer sometimes fluctuated between being a captain and a sergeant and sounded “foreign,” he nonetheless had convincing reasons for why the payment should be in bitcoin.
It wasn’t until after he’d paid that he thought to ask the scammer to pronounce Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny’s last name – he couldn’t – that he realized he’d been scammed and reported it to the sheriff, Reynolds said.
Because cybercrimes fall under federal jurisdiction, his case was reported to the FBI, though the sheriff’s office does have one savvy computer investigator – as does the Gillette Police. Reynolds said his office will do what they can to help the man recover his money.
Reynolds warned people that law enforcement will not call to inform you about warrants or missed court dates, nor will they ever demand payment let alone in gift cards or bitcoin. Instead, before paying anything, he advised people to check with that law enforcement office or the court.
Big Business
The FBI has not yet released its Internet Crime Report for 2024 nor has the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, but in 2023, losses to individuals and businesses amounted to more than $13 million, according to the 2024 report.
Of this money lost to scammers, the three highest crime types were extortion with 117 victims at a loss of $36,077 in losses, 90 victims who fell prey to tech support scams for $890,496 in losses, followed by non-payment and non-delivery scams equaling $989,096 in losses.
In other words, it’s big business for fraudsters who are often operating in large-scale, highly coordinated multi-national groups whose livelihood depends on stealing money from unsuspecting victims.
And often, people are embarrassed to report they’ve been scammed or sometimes they don’t even realize it, according to Powell Police Chief, Jim Rhea.
Like Campbell County, Rhea said that similar scams involving law enforcement have plagued his area, too.
“It’s happened all over the state,” Rhea said, “but basically what happens is that happens is that someone calls identifying themselves as an individual with a local law enforcement agency and threatens them with arrest if they do not pay a fine.”
In many cases, the scammers targets the elderly, which according to FBI 2024 report, were disproportionately impacted with over 100,000 people 60 or older losing $3.4 billion to scams.
Finding Love In All The Wrong Places
These scams are effective, Rhea noted, and in an earlier law enforcement role in another Wyoming city, Rhea saw a person get scammed out of upwards of $100,000.
Along with law enforcement and IRS scams, another popular cybercrime in the Powell area is romance scams. Typically, Rhea said, this involves a person engages with a fake profile on a dating site believing they are in a developing online relationship and hands over money for various reasons.
Exploiting emotions is particularly effective, in Rhea’s experience, with some people refusing to believe they are being scammed even when presented with the proof.
“Some of them are willing participants in it,” he said, “And I mean, there have been individuals we've told ‘This is a scam, you have to stop sending them money.’”
In some cases, people have told him they know it’s a scam but don’t care.
In Rhea’s experience, both women and men – typically older – are uniformly impacted.
“It’s not just men,” he said.
Know Your Triggers
This goes back to the psychology of scamming. Preying on one’s impulses and vulnerabilities has proven to be effective, Demple and Alvarado said.
And with the onset of AI and evolving technologies that mimic voices, alter photos and continue to come up with more convincing crimes, the only defense is to be hyper vigilant and verify everything with that company, person or source.
The biggest takeaway for them is to slow down and not react. Instead, before clicking or responding to invoices, jail threats or companies demanding money, take the time to process the request.
That and knowing one’s own vulnerabilities and risk factors, Demple said.
No generation is immune, she noted.
“Everyone needs to be aware of all these types of scams,” she said. “The more aware you are, the less likely you’re going to fall for a scam.”
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
