They are calling your parents.
Start here
Pick a word.
A voice can be copied now, from a clip off a video somebody posted. What cannot be copied is something only your family knows.
The family word
- Choose one word together. Not a birthday, not a pet, not anything on Facebook.
- Tell the people who would be called — parents, grandparents, whoever answers the phone.
- The rule: if someone calls in trouble and needs money, they ask for the word before anything else.
- No word, no money. Hang up and call the real person back on the number you already have.
It works because it does not depend on recognising a voice under pressure. That is the part that fails, and it is the part the caller is counting on.
The FTC’s advice on these calls is the same: “Don’t trust the voice. Call the person who supposedly contacted you and verify the story. Use a phone number you know is theirs.” — Federal Trade Commission
The one going around right now
If they say don’t hang up, hang up.
The call says it is your bank’s fraud department. Your money is moving right now. Stay on the line. Don’t tell anyone — we are trying to catch someone inside.
Every part of that is the scam. The urgency, the secrecy, and the part where they help you move your own money somewhere “safe.”
What to do instead
- Hang up. You are allowed to hang up on anybody, including someone who says they are the bank.
- Call the bank yourself — on the number printed on the back of your own card or on your statement. Never a number they give you.
- Tell one person you trust before you move a penny.
No real fraud department asks you to keep a call secret, and none of them need you to move your own money to keep it safe.
“No legitimate fraud department will tell you to keep the call a secret.” — Federal Trade Commission. “Hang up and call your bank directly using the number on your card or statement.” — Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector GeneralHow to spot one
Four things that are always true.
- Being rushed is the scam.A real bank, a real hospital, a real grandchild — none of them need it done in the next ten minutes. It is not the story that gives it away. It is the clock.FTC — unexpected calls that say your money is at risk
- Nobody official is paid in gift cards.Not the IRS, not a utility, not a court, not a hospital. If the fix involves a card from a drugstore, it is a scam, every single time.FTC — avoiding and reporting gift card scams
- Medicare does not call out of the blue to sell a plan.Especially between October and December, when the real mail is heaviest and the fake calls hide inside it.Medicare.gov — Medicare will never call you uninvited
- A stranger who can never video call.The camera is broken. The service is bad. He is working overseas. Three weeks of daily messages and not one live face.FTC — what to know about romance scams
What they look like right now
These are the ones going around.
The voice that sounds like family
A grandchild, an accident, a lawyer, an urgent need for money — and a voice that sounds close enough to right at two in the morning.
A month of good mornings
It never opens with money. It opens with hello, then good morning every day, until it no longer feels like a stranger asking.
The sticker over the QR code
On a parking meter, a payment terminal, a flyer. The real code underneath, a different one on top.
A text about a recall
Something is wrong with your prescription or your car, and the link is right there, and it is easy to tap before you think.
The second call, after the first one
Someone who says they are investigating what already happened to you, and can recover the money — for a fee. People who have been caught once get called again.
If it already happened
It is not a story about being foolish.
These are built by people who do this for a living, tested on thousands of calls, and aimed at the moment someone is tired and worried about family. Being fooled by that is not a character flaw.
Tell the bank first, and tell them today. Speed matters more than anything else here.
Report it. The Federal Trade Commission takes reports at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and the FBI takes them at ic3.gov. Reports are how the patterns get found.
Tell one person in the family. Most people never say a word, and the silence is exactly what lets the same thing happen to the next house.
Where this page comes from. Every line on it is a position held by the Federal Trade Commission, the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, or Medicare — each one linked above so you can go and read it yourself. Nothing here can stop a scam. It is a set of habits that makes one harder to pull off.
Free caregiver tools
Plain-English checklists for the people looking after somebody. No cost, no catch.
See the free tools