The holiday shopping season may be over, but scammers are still finding new ways to trick people out of their money. And they're turning to popular cash-sharing apps like Venmo or PayPal to do it. According to the U.
S. Federal Trade Commission, whenever there's an online data breach, fraudsters will line up to buy people's usernames and passwords. Then they'll try their luck at using those credentials to log into your cash-sharing app accounts, where you may have money stored.
RELATED STORY | US Treasury says China-backed hackers breached its computer systems Personal finance expert Jenny Groberg, CEO and founder of BookSmarts Accounting and Bookkeeping, says hackers will also sometimes use technology to help them guess your passwords. "[The technology] just keeps going through the code in minutes," Groberg explained to Scripps News. "It can use your login or your ID and just try different passwords.
So the code being able to crack your password is probably very high." In some instances where fraud is suspected, the companies that run those apps may send you an email alert to reset your passwords. However, the scammers often try to beat you to it by calling from untraceable numbers in an attempt to get you to punch in the security reset code.
RELATED STORY | This phishing scam uses text messages pretending to be USPS with a delivery It turns out that what many people are now experiencing is actually a pretty typical form of fraud that the FBI says has been growing exponential.