Celebrating the Impersonation Rule that helps the FTC fight scams

They say April showers bring May flowers. April also marks the one-year anniversary of the FTC’s Impersonation Rule, which gives the FTC more tools to fight impersonation scams that cost nearly $3 billion in reported losses during 2024. Impersonation scams hurt people and legitimate businesses. Here’s what the FTC is doing to fight these scams.

Impersonators pretend to be someone they’re not to try to steal your money or personal information. Scammers might pose as a government entity or official and say you owe a fine or a toll. Or they may claim they’re from a well-known utility company, bank, or delivery services and say there’s something wrong with your account or package. Sometimes, they pretend to be from a known company offering tech support and ask you to call quickly to fix a problem or virus on your computer. These scams hurt the reputation of legitimate businesses and cause enormous financial harm to individuals.   

Year after year, impersonation scams are one of the top frauds reported to the FTC. In 2024, the FTC received nearly 850,000 reports of imposter scams. 

The Impersonation Rule gives the FTC more tools to fight these scams. Since the Rule went into effect, the FTC has filed multiple lawsuits against alleged impersonators, including phantom debt collectors and a scheme pretending to be affiliated with the Department of Education. The FTC has halted scammers that impersonated the FTC online — successfully asking domain registrars to shut down more than a dozen scam sites. These scam sites, for example, trick people who thought they were reporting fraud to the FTC into sending money or personal information to scammers.

FTC staff has also sent letters to several operators of websites that sell IRS Employer Identification Number (“EIN”) filing services discussing conduct that may violate the FTC Act and the Impersonation Rule, such as making their websites look similar to the IRS’s tool for obtaining EINs for free.

Here's advice to help your employees and customers steer clear of impersonation scams:

• Don’t give money or personal information to someone who contacts you unexpectedly. If you’re not sure if a call or message is real, reach out to the business, organization, or person using contact information you looked up yourself and know to be true.
• Don’t trust your caller ID. Your caller ID might show the name of a government agency or business, but caller ID can be faked. It could be anyone calling from anywhere in the world.
• Don’t click on links in unexpected emails, texts, or social media messages. Scammers send emails and messages that look like they’re from a government agency or business, but they’re really designed to steal your money and personal information.

Learn more about impersonation scams at ftc.gov/impersonators. And if you spot an impersonator, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.