Overview
The victim expects to receive money from some government-sponsored program or from an unexpected refund of government fees.
How It Works
This scam includes tax agency refund scams, disaster relief government grant scams, and government grant scams.
These scams often follow the news cycle or calendars (COVID relief, natural disasters, tax season).
The scam can be a front for an advance fee scam in the form of administration fees or application fees.
The scam can also be a front for a phishing page where the victim risks downloading malware, or they may have their personal data or financial data stolen. For example, the scammer may require the victim to enter bank account information to deposit the "grant" or "refund" money.
Related Articles
A Federal Relief Check Scam is Targeting US Consumers, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Synthetic Examples
4.2 Sample Data 1 - count: 400. With fake phone numbers and urls
4.2 Sample Data 2 - count: 385. With fake phone numbers and urls
4.2 Sample Data 3 - count: 385. Same as Sample Data 2 but with [url] and [phone]
Related Scams
2.2.3 Spoofed Or Phishing Interaction Scam: Versions of the prize scam that require the victim click a link to claim their prize are often phishing lures, and thus are related to generic spoofing or phishing scams
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.
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.
Fraudulent Platform: Any scheme that relies on custom built software that assists the crime. Includes fraudulent trading platforms, fraudulent clickworking platforms, and the like.
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.
Easy money: The scammer promises easy money or makes appeals designed to leverage victim's greed.
Timing: The scammer times the scam to coincide with events or a particular season in the victim's context or locale, in order to build legitimacy.
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.
Business or NonProfit: The scammer impersonates a business or nonprofit.
Government Official: The perpetrator impersonates a government official.