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Payment App Scams - TPR's In Focus - August 11, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Janice Hawkins Cultural Arts Park on
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  the main campus of Troy University, featuring the International
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  Arts Center, the Fred Nall Hollis Museum,
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  and the Hua Bao Zhu Gallery. More information at troy.edu/artspark.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In
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  Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. The Alabama
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  Securities Commission is alerting people that scammers are using payment
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  apps to defraud consumers. Amanda Senn,
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  ASC Director, tells us how they operate.
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  Amanda, welcome back to The Exchange on In Focus.
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  Thank you, Carolyn. Always a pleasure to be with you. Amanda, you are
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  known far and wide as a fraud fighter. Thanks to
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  your program, you know, we're creating new fraud fighters by the minute.
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  So what's the latest fraud that has you concerned? These are
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  frauds involving payment platforms like PayPal, Cash App,
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  Venmo. These platforms are becoming widely used
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  by all age groups, but we're seeing a large amount of fraud
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  being perpetrated on the platforms. And so our public is concerned.
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  They're being contacted by fraudsters and they're not sure how to tell
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  which payment requests are real and which ones are fraudulent. And so
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  we don't want to continue to lose money and we certainly don't want to lose
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  money to fraud when it comes to payment platforms. How do you compare
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  that with a fraudulent check? Checks are still being used.
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  There's a large concern that they will be stolen out of the mail.
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  I'm sure y'all read about the number of checks that were stolen and whitewashed
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  or written over and then cashed in a fraudulent manner.
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  So these are all payment instruments that can be negotiated
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  in person. Well, the payment platforms take out the physical
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  nature of the financial transaction, and you can conduct everything
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  through your cell phone. You can go to Apple Pay,
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  you know, you have a PayPal app on your phone, or you can download
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  Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, and merely
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  link your bank account and hit a little green button that says pay this,
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  and it's automatic, it's transmitted. And some people get so carried away
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  that they have multiple payments on purchases they wish they had never made.
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  I hear stories all the time. It was so easy just to click the button
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  and I bought all these clothes or services on my phone and
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  just a very different form of payment and a convenience
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  that a lot of people appreciate. So before we leave the subject of
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  checks, Amanda, there is a type of pen
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  that the ink cannot be erased. And so the
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  listeners who do write checks can look into that at their local office supply store.
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  But back to what you're saying, how do these
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  apps get open to these scams? Well, the payment
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  processors, you know, are an online service,
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  and as with any service that's linked to the internet, there will be
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  cybersecurity risk. Some common scams
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  that occur on these payment platforms are money flipping scams,
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  where scammers say, if you give us $20, we can
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  turn it into $100 if you go ahead and send the money to me.
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  These are like communications on the platforms ahead of time.
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  Or messages on your phone.
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  Impersonation scams. We see lots of cases
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  where fraudsters pose as, for example, PayPal representative
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  would contact you and say, hey, we noticed that there was a
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  payment that you haven't approved yet on your account.
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  Can we go ahead and approve that and we'll transmit it to your online
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  account or your digital wallet? There's accidental payments,
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  phone calls from people who say, oh my gosh, I accidentally sent you a payment.
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  To your account on PayPal or Venmo, and I intended
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  it for someone else. Can you help me reverse that? And they seem so friendly,
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  but they get you to send a payment back that wasn't a mistake.
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  And so they're just stealing money from your account instead. And then there are accounts
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  that have just been hacked. It's so easy now for fraudsters
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  to get your personal information on the dark web related
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  to these accounts. For example, you had a Cash
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  App account that said You know, Kayak 21. Well,
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  a fraudster could create an account that says Kayak 22
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  or Kayak 12. Let's just say I owed you money. You know, I've given you
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  all this money and I sent it to— I think your account is Kayak
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  22 or 12, and I actually sent it to the wrong account.
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  You know, a fraudster could set up that entire situation. They could say
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  my voice and they could call you and they could say, I've got a payment
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  for you. I'm going to send it, just accept. And then once you've accepted,
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  they have access to your funds or they get you to transfer money
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  to an account that's similar to someone you know. And they
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  can trick you in so many different ways, ways that fraudsters can
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  misuse those platforms or get you to misuse
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  them and fall victim to different types of scams on
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  the platforms. When we're creating accounts, you know, you have to be very careful about
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  setting up your information and keeping it private and
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  keeping tabs on those accounts. Check your balances, check your statements
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  regularly, and never accept payments from people that you don't
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  know and have not triply confirmed and verified. And Amanda, you have
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  given us precautions before now about the fact
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  that these fraudsters can literally copy your voice. How do you
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  prevent the fraud in the first place? Monitoring your accounts
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  regularly can detect an unusual transaction
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  or something unusual about your account. Just being so vigilant,
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  and it's hard to do because we're so busy and we have
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  cell phones, text messages, phone calls. A lot of our shopping
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  is done online and it's instantaneous. We've linked our bank accounts
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  to so many different platforms, but making sure you make the time to monitor all
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  of those accounts and verify before you transmit money,
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  and that may require an extra phone call to someone that
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  allows you to personally verify through the channels,
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  you know, whichever platform you're using, but pick up the phone. And then police
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  your bank account. Make sure that your bank account that's being used on these platforms
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  is secure. Make sure your privacy settings are maximized on
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  all of the platforms that you're on and continue to monitor.
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  It sounds like it might be a good idea to keep a
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  paper record of your transactions, to reconcile
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  with these online accounts? That is a method
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  that I would say yes, I prefer, and a lot of people still
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  do that. I write down transactions and compare them with
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  my credit card statements and my bank account. A lot
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  of people will use apps to help them with this, but again, if you
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  keep information stored through the internet or online,
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  you're exposing yourself to a cyber incident.
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  And now a lot of these platforms are very secure and they exercise
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  a great deal of caution when it comes to handling your personal
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  information. But I would find a method so that you can keep a record
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  of your transactions. And maybe it's an Excel spreadsheet on your computer,
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  printing it out, making sure it's backed up or on your phone. Some people
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  keep a notepad on their phone and that's backed up to the cloud.
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  And there are easier ways to protect your information that's stored on your
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  hard drive on your phone. People tend to forget.
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  Sometimes the electronics go down, and then what do
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  you do? Exactly. You know, I traveled to North Carolina
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  after the flood, and my family was there to take some supplies.
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  And during that period of a little over 2 weeks that the internet was entirely
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  down, no one could get service. So retailers were only accepting cash
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  or checks. You couldn't pay electronically because there was
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  no internet. So it's always a risk to put everything online
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  in perpetuity. But we even encourage our financial firms that
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  we audit to keep hard copies of certain
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  records in case the internet were to collapse.
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  Certainly, you can store documents on a server offsite,
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  but having a paper hard copy can be extremely
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  helpful, especially when you're filing a police report or
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  attempting to get money back in a cybercrime
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  or other types of crime. So finally,
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  if you do feel like you've been fraudulently
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  affected with your online accounts, what should you do? Make sure
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  you contact your bank first because that's where the money is being pulled from.
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  Let them know that you think your account's been breached. They can flag it,
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  possibly help you reverse it if it's not too late. All the payment
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  platforms now have customer service support. They'll do
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  their own internal investigation if they believe a fraudster has misused
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  their platform. But you'll have to continue monitoring.
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  At times you may need to close those accounts and open a new one.
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  That's the safest way to ensure that it isn't further breached.
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  But always monitor your credit reports, your bank accounts,
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  and the account statements on those payment platforms. Amanda,
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  thanks for joining us on The Exchange. Thank you, Carolyn.
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  Always a fun time to be on your show. Amanda Sinn, Director of the
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  Alabama Securities Commission, has posted information
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  on payment app scams on the asc.gov
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  Thanks for joining
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  us for In Focus, which is a podcast
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  wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to get in touch at infocus@troy.edu.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported
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  Troy Public Radio.