Fraud Watch July 2025: The Danger of Authorized Push Payments

Fraudsters are constantly finding ways to manipulate, pressure, and deceive. This month, we’re highlighting three scams that are making the rounds: threatening extortion emails, convincing payment fraud tactics, and misleading home warranty notices.

Read on to learn what they look like, how to spot the red flags, and how to protect yourself.

Authorized Push Payment Fraud

Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud happens when a victim is manipulated into sending money to a scammer while believing the payment is legitimate; such as paying a fake vendor, investment opportunity, or “urgent” invoice.

Since the transaction is authorized, it’s much harder to reverse and recover the funds.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Verify payment requests using a known contact method, especially the higher the dollar or urgency for the transaction.
• Pause and check the details and receiver before sending.

Fake Home Warranty Letters

Scammers are sending official looking letters warning homeowners their home warranty is about to expire, noting that coverage may lapse if they don’t act now. These often include urgent language and personal information (including your mortgage lender) to trick you into paying for a fake service, or giving them your personal information.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Contact your actual home warranty provider or mortgage company directly using trusted contact methods.
• Don’t trust unsolicited mail with high-pressure messaging or vague or questionable names.

Extortion Scams

Extortion scams are designed to intimidate or pressure potential victims into sending money, usually in cryptocurrency, under false pretenses. Fraudsters claim to have compromising information and threaten to harm you or your reputation unless you pay what they ask. They often claim they’ve hacked your devices or include former passwords from a data breach to seem convincing.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Don’t respond or send money.
• Change your passwords if the email or text includes one you recognize, and turn on multi-factor authentication.
• Report the message to your email provider, cellular provider, or to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Source of this month’s scam information:

https://www.fico.com/blogs/what-authorised-push-payment-fraud

https://www.bbb.org/article/scams/28701-bbb-scam-alert-this-solicitation-looks-like-a-notice-about-your-mortgage-heres-how-to-spot-it

https://www.cmu.edu/iso/aware/dont-take-the-bait/email-extortion-scams.html