Fraud

General Public Fraud Notification

• Over the last few months, Treasury has either received payments or been contacted about where to send payments, via personal checks and gift cards without solicitation. It was discovered that individuals were contacted and advised that they would be arrested or charged by Treasury if they did not submit the payments. The individuals were contacted via phone, email, and text messages.
• Treasury does not contact the public threatening to charge or fine individuals in this way.
• Treasury will never contact you requesting proprietary banking information.

• Identity theft is still one of the leading forms of fraudulent activity that Treasury encounters.
• Learn more about how to protect yourself and your information with resources provided by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/fraud/

• Treasury has been informed by our banking partners of the rise of “account takeover” fraud. This appears to be happening through pop-ups and unexpected token prompts. We have also seen this attempted “account takeover” happen at the state agency level.

Business Partner Fraud Notification

• Treasury is aware of increased mobile deposit fraud. This involves when recipients of legitimate Commonwealth payments that they cash them through mobile deposit then the same day attempt to cash the same check at a check casher. Treasury utilizes advanced fraud protection services on all of our bank accounts including Positive Pay, Positive Presentment, and AVS. Treasury also has disclosures on our checks and a Commonwealth Check Policy that encourages check cashers to contact Treasury before cashing any Treasury-issued check to ensure the check is still valid. Treasury will not cash any check twice.
• Unemployment Compensation checks are not legally allowed to be endorsed to another individual or entity, as such check cashing services should not accept them.
• With the advancing of technology, Treasury has seen an increase in fraudulent documents, including photo identification, Social Security cards, and proof of address (bank statements/utility bills). It is important that documents submitted to agencies are scrutinized for authenticity to prevent fraud.