Will Uncle Sam Pay Your Bills? Don’t Fall for It 8/25/17

Will Uncle Sam Pay Your Bills? Don’t Fall for It
Your Money Adviser
By   ANN CARRNS  AUG. 25, 2017


Who hasn’t fantasized about discovering a hidden bank account — perhaps funded by a kindly relative — that could magically help us pay our debts?

That’s part of the attraction of a persistent scam that is floating around on the internet. The pitch, however, is that the benefactor is Uncle Sam — and he is greedily hoarding piles of your cash that you can access any time to pay bills, if you’re in the know.

The scheme, promoted in online videos as well as through emails and phone calls, tells of “secret” government bank accounts that consumers can tap to pay their bills or make purchases electronically, using their Social Security number as an account number, combined with a Federal Reserve Bank routing number — a number used by the Fed to sort and process payments between banks.

In July, several regional Federal Reserve Banks, including the Atlanta Fed, home to the office that handles most payments involving checking accounts, issued statements warning the public.

“Any video, text, email, phone call, flier or website that describes how to pay bills using a Federal Reserve Bank routing number or using an account at the Federal Reserve Bank is a scam,” the warning from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.


The Atlanta Fed’s statement said, in part, that the Federal Reserve provides banking services only for banks: “Individuals do not have accounts at the Federal Reserve.”

“It is important for consumers to know that when making online or e-check bill payments, they cannot use Federal Reserve routing numbers,” the Atlanta Fed added.

So, no, there is no secret federal bank account. And if you pretend that you do have one, your payment will be rejected and returned unpaid.

From the end of June to Aug. 15, nearly 107,000 payments, totaling “in excess” of $100 million, have been reversed because of the scam, said Jean Tate, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Fed, in an email.
People who have tried to pay bills using the fictitious accounts may be charged penalty fees and late fees from the merchants they were trying to pay. The payments have been made to utilities and online merchants that allow customers to pay online using checking account information, Ms. Tate said.

The scheme has created an online duel of sorts. On one side are proponents of the scam who explain how to do it, in videos that feature authoritative voice-overs while displaying images of Social Security cards. (One popular version was removed from YouTube, Ms. Tate said, but has resurfaced.) On the other side are videos — often created by people who say they tried the method, only to end up having the payments reversed — warning people away from the scam.
It’s not clear what the ultimate goal of those promoting the payment scheme is; Ms. Tate declined to speculate on their motives. “To our knowledge,” she said, “the consumers who have attempted to make payments using Federal Reserve routing numbers and their Social Security numbers have not given their information to fraudsters.”
Still, consumers should be wary if they are contacted in any way about the scheme because any scam involving a Social Security number suggests that one motive may be identity theft, said Lois C. Greisman, associate director of the division of marketing practices at the Federal Trade Commission. “The unfortunate thing about scammers,” she said, “is that they’re creative.”

“Consumers should protect their confidential information and not fall victim to these types of scams that seem too good to be true,” said Jane Larimer, executive vice president and general counsel at the Electronic Payments Association. She said the scheme was akin to ripping a check out of someone else’s checkbook without that person’s knowledge, and using it to make a payment.

The New York Fed said that law enforcement agencies, including the F.B.I., had been notified and that the Federal Reserve banks were cooperating in the investigations. “Individuals who participate in such schemes could face criminal charges,” the New York Fed said.

The F.B.I. declined to comment on the investigation, but said it takes “all allegations of these crimes seriously,” and encourages anyone who has fallen victim or who has information to report it to the agency.
The Treasury Department has also noted a variation of the scam involving the use of routing numbers from different federal agencies.
At least one state, Michigan, warned consumers that they cannot pay their state tax bills using federal routing numbers.

Here are some questions and answers about payment fraud:

What if I tried to pay a bill using the account scheme and incurred fees?
If you tried to use the bogus payment technique and were charged a returned-payment fee, or ended up paying a late fee because your legitimate payment was then delayed, you could ask the billing company to reverse the fee, said Lauren Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center. But the payees may be unsympathetic.

Even if the scheme is not a “scam” in the classic sense, she said, it’s certainly “bad advice that’s going to hurt you.”

Where can I find information about identifying payment scams?
The Federal Trade Commission tracks various scams on its website.

Where can I complain if I have received an email, call or other solicitation about the scam?
The F.T.C. encourages consumers to submit complaints online.

:tup::tup::tup:


Though the hard core delusionists will just carry on.