Overview
The victim expects to engage a service that will settle or otherwise reduce their actual debt repayment obligations, or will remove negative information from their credit history.
How It Works
The scammer will charge consumers a large upfront fee, but then fail to help them settle or lower their debts to the promised level (if they provide any service at all).
Includes mortgage relief scams, student loan scams, medical or healthcare debt scams, credit card debt relief scams.
Note that these scams are distinct from the 5.2 Debt Collection Scam, in which there is no actual debt owed by the victim.
Note that these are also not necessarily 'windfall' scams, as the victim typically just wants a lower interest rate or consolidated bills, not the deletion of their debt entirely.
Related Articles
Scam Artists are Preying on Student Debt Holders and Google is Helping, The Century Foundation
Synthetic Examples
2.2.6 Sample Data 1 - count: 379. With fake phone numbers and urls
2.2.6 Sample Data 2 - count: 379. Same as Sample Data 1, but with [phone] and [url]
2.2.6 Sample Data 3 - count: 300. With random, fake phone numbers
Related Crime Schemes
A particular instance of this scam may embed one or more of these related schemes.
Advance Fee Scheme: In an advance fee scheme, the scammer asks for a small upfront fee in advance of providing a larger payout later. In reality, the larger payout never arrives.
Bait and Switch: A bait and switch is a scheme that makes a promise of one item but delivers a different, lesser-valued item.
Data Loss or Theft: Any scheme that results in victim losing data/scammer stealing data. Data in this context can mean login credentials, credit card details, or other personal or corporate information.
Victim Targeting Context
The scammer may use one or more of the following techniques to reach the victim.
Advertising: The scammer uses advertising to passively reach the victim.
Spray and Pray / Scattered: The scammer approaches many victims at once such as through bulk email or SMS.
Social Engineering: Psychological Manipulations
The scammer may use one or more of these psychological techniques to accomplish the scam.
Authority: The scammer employs an abuse of a position of authority to convince the victim to go along with the scam.
Codes or Jargon: The scammer uses official-looking codes or technical jargon as part of the scam to increase appearance of legitimacy or to confuse the victim.
Easy Money: The scammer promises easy money or makes appeals designed to leverage victim's greed.
Urgency: The scammer employs urgency to increase the likelihood that the victim will take action.
Social Engineering: Impersonation Techniques
The scammer may impersonate one or more of the following groups as part of the scam.
Banking / Finance: The scammer impersonates a banking official or financial institution.
Business or NonProfit: The scammer impersonates a business or nonprofit.
Catfishing: The scammer creates a fictitious online profile or persona.