Avoid political scams during election season

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) – Scammers like to use large events to trick people into giving up money or personal information.

With just three weeks until the 2024 general election, the Better Business Bureau’s Sydney Waters said it was high time for scammers to start sending phishing emails and text messages.

“When we talk about scams, we always talk about scammers looking for an event that really appeals to your emotions and makes you act quickly and not think,” Waters said. “Election season is the perfect time to do this.”

Whether it’s a call, a text message, or an email, scammers want to take advantage of people’s desire to be heard. They may send out fake polls or polls or attempt to convince their intended victim to donate to a campaign.

If someone claims to be a pollster but asks for sensitive information rather than just standard demographic data, that’s a sign they’re not who they say they are.

Scammers may also offer a reward for completing their fake survey. If it is online, there may be an external link that the intended victim can click on, which will take them to a page where the scammer steals their information.

Or the scammer asks for the victim’s payment information over the phone to send the reward – but the prize never arrives.

Scammers may try to steal payment information or funds by tricking someone into making a campaign donation to them.

This is harder to detect because links in messages from official groups and scams are often shortened or appended to the text as hyperlinks.

Therefore, all hyperlinks to donation pages should be checked by hovering over them to view the full link. Then navigate to the campaign page manually by entering the official address into the search engine and checking if the link there is the same as the one you received via email or SMS.

“If it’s the same, it’s probably a legitimate campaign asking you for a donation. If it’s different and has a lot of crazy letters and numbers, it’s probably a scammer,” Waters said.

People can also call the campaign directly to verify that the message received is the same as the one officials are sending out.

Waters said scammers may also try to trick someone into voting via text message. This way, a vote will never be counted in an official election.

“It’s a huge scam, and it’s the one that really upsets me the most because then you’ve missed your chance to vote because you think you’ve cast a vote,” Waters said.

Any unsolicited messages that help someone register to vote or cast a vote are likely to be invalid.

You can visit Vote.gov to check your voter registration status or see if your vote was accepted.

If someone believes they have been scammed by someone claiming to be affiliated with a particular campaign, they can report it to campaign officials, who may alert supporters that an illegitimate is trying to take advantage of them.

Finally, Waters said being well-informed goes a long way toward avoiding scammers.

“The best thing you can do is do your research in advance and stay on top of your cybersecurity tips during election season,” she said. “Knowing what they will ask for and what information is appropriate for you.”

You can visit bbb.org to report scams and learn more about them.

Copyright 2024 KFVS. All rights reserved.