Security News > 2022 > November > FBI warns scammers now impersonate refund payment portals
The FBI warns that tech support scammers are now impersonating financial institutions' refund payment portals to harvest victims' sensitive information and add legitimacy.
"Within the body of the email, the scammers will indicate the specific service to be renewed with a price commonly in the range of $300 to $500 USD, provoking a sense of urgency in the victims to contact them and provide information for a refund," the FBI said.
"In this case, the scammers claim to aid in securing a refund through remote access to the victim's computer."
While tech support scams have been around for years, the FBI added that since as recently as October 2022, the scammers are using scripts designed to display what looks like the user interface of refund payment portals in a command prompt window.
Even though the FBI has not revealed the names of impersonated organizations, BleepingComputer has found samples of these scripts that pretend to be Chase Bank, JPMorgan Chase's consumer and commercial banking subsidiary.
"The executable will generally run a command prompt made to look like a service screen," the FBI added.