Many companies have employees working from home during this Coronavirus Pandemic. This could create an even higher risk of people being targeted by scammers. The Better Business Bureau warns- people should be careful and be on the lookout for scams.
“There are a lot of different scams out there targeting people, especially while they’re working from home.”
“As you’re working from home it is a less secure environment and scammers know that.”
That’s Troy Baker with the Better Business Bureau serving Western Michigan. The BBB has issued an alert for those working from home as well as for those who’ve lost their jobs and are desperate for work.
“Those work from home scams where you can make good money just by doing it from home, really have ramped up a bit.”
But Baker says in the end, you may end up losing a lot of your cash. There’s also a high risk of people being targeted by scammers, especially through unsecured network connections and phishing emails. Grand Valley State University Cyber experts recently warned employees to watch out for phishing emails targeting GVSU faculty; the scammers use the address to impersonate real GVSU employees. Baker says that’s also happening at the state level.
“The attorney general herself was impersonated through an email that went to her entire staff asking them to buy gift cards. It looked like it was coming from Dana Nessel but in truth it was a scammer impersonating her email address. So, especially if you’re working from home, you need to be careful about emails you get and anything that doesn’t sound quite right.”
Experts also report Corona Virus related phishing attacks are up 600 percent! To protect yourself while working from home, the BBB offers a few tips including making sure you’re aware of unusual procedures and setting up work-from-home IT policies.
And as always, Baker says report any scam related issues to the BBB’s scam tracker at BBB.org/scamtracker.
