Scammers Proceed to Target Illinoisans, BBB Warns – NBC Chicago

Identity theft ripoffs have ongoing to have an affect on Illinois residents and quite a few govt departments in the point out, the Improved Business Bureau alerted the general public Tuesday.

Scammers carry on to access consumers by textual content message, emails and telephone phone calls pretending to support them out with licenses, Condition ID renewals or filing unemployment benefits.

As a final result of the pandemic, a lot of Illinoians have experienced to wait around in prolonged lines to renew their varieties of identification. Scammers feed into the unlucky situations and entice men and women into their frauds, officers warned.

“Scammers follow the news and see cases that negatively impact folks as an option to get edge of them,” explained Steve Bernas, president and CEO of the BBB for Chicago and Northern Illinois. 

In a single of the phishing techniques, the scammers mail text messages posing as the Illinois Office of Transportation, the BBB claimed.

In the information, scammers say, “Illinois Department of Transportation Driver License Waiver Validation. Validate your specifics under.”

“This is common identification theft. The text needs you to offer your driver’s license range, day of birth, and Social Stability selection,” stated Bernas. “This is easily identifiable as a scam mainly because driver’s licenses are issued by the Secretary of State’s Workplace, not by IDOT.”

In accordance to the Secretary of State’s business office, they have been equipped to observe down  218 imposter sites affiliated with these frauds and shut down far more than 130 of them.

The Office of Employment Security has also been impacted. 

Scammers established faux IDES web-sites, textual content messages, emails and letters to trap Illinois residents, claimed the BBB. 

Links will immediate users to a web-site exactly where they need to fill out individual and monetary information in buy to acquire unemployment gains. With that details conveniently offered to them, they can then file for unemployment gains beneath the victim’s title. 

How to stay clear of getting a sufferer of identification theft, in accordance to the BBB:

• Delete email messages and texts that guarantee or supply entry to driver’s licenses or condition ID cards, and do not click on on any inbound links in the email messages or textual content messages. 
• Think about freezing your credit rating for much more protection if you are not now seeking any variety of loan. This safeguards you, the BBB states, and you can unfreeze your credit rating any time you like.
• Hang up on any phone calls, including robocalls, which ask you to consider fast motion or offer individual details. 
• Request to use other identifiers other than your Social Security selection, if it is requested. 
• Maintain computer software program and virus defense up to day. 
• IDOT, IDES and the Secretary of State’s place of work do not send textual content messages or e-mail requesting facts. 

For far more details stop by BBB.org.