ALLEGANY COUNTY, N.Y. — Officials in Allegany County are warning residents about an increase in scams during the coronavirus pandemic.
Allegany County is telling residents to be leery of anyone asking for money, gift cards or other forms of currency. Officials are also telling people to be aware of other scams that are designed to trick you into giving away personal information such as passwords, account IDs or credit card details.
The county warns that most scams can come through the mail, phone and/or computer, as well as social networking websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Allegany County's insurance carrier has identified a few clues that can help you indicate whether a message is a scam. These clues include the following:
- The message uses subdomains, misspelled URLs, or suspicious URLs
- The recipient uses a Gmail or other public email address rather than a corporate email address
- The message is written to invoke fear or a sense of urgency
- The message includes a request to verify personal information, such as financial details or a password
- The message is poorly written and has spelling and grammatical errors
