You’re minding your business and the phone rings. If you don’t screen and ignore it, you answer — and the caller says he’s Commissioner Noah Phillips from the FTC. (He’s not.) He gives you a badge number (it’s fake), says there’s a warrant for your arrest (there’s not), and demands that you pay up (nope).
Scammers — like the ones pretending to be Commissioner Phillips — then might demand access to your bank account, or tell you to pay them by loading money on gift cards, buying cryptocurrency, or using a money transfer service like MoneyGram or Western Union. They could say it’s a way to avoid jail, pay a fine, or settle up an unpaid Amazon balance. (It’s that fake Amazon balance story the scammer pretending to be Commissioner Phillips is using, at least as of yesterday.)