Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill is warning Hoosier consumers to beware of scams perpetrated by online posers in the wake of a recent Equifax settlement following the company’s 2017 announcement of a data breach affecting approximately 147 million people.
Scammers have been setting up fraudulent websites that imitate the appearance of an authentic site created to enable people affected by the breach to file claims.
The website equifaxbreachsettlement.com is authentic. (See the Federal Trade Commission’s recent post about this website.)
Would-be scammers, however, have begun setting up imposter websites – misspelling “breach” as “breech” in one URL, for example, and misspelling “settlement” in other web addresses.
Hill
“Anyone seeking to file claims at the new settlement website must absolutely make certain they are on the correct site,” Hill said. “Verify that you have received the proper website address from a trusted source such as the FTC. If you are typing the URL manually, be careful to enter the website address correctly.”
Online scammers imitating other websites are often engaged in “phishing” – an effort to get people to reveal such personal data as credit card numbers.
Consumers who believe they are the victims of scam attempts are asked to report them to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division by calling 1-800-382-5516 or going online at in.gov/attorneygeneral and clicking the “File a Complaint” box at the bottom of the page.