Receiving Unwanted Phone Calls Appearing to be From GAO?

Some GAO phone numbers have been “spoofed”—that is, someone has disguised their phone number as a GAO phone number and is calling people to market goods or obtain personal information. Even though the number appears to be a GAO number, these calls are not from the GAO. Some of these callers may try to get you to consolidate student loans or attempt to get protected personal or financial information from you.

Please know GAO is aware of the problem and is working to address it.

E-Mail Scam Alerts

GAO does not distribute payments to individual citizens and does not send out e-mails asking citizens to provide information about their finances to obtain payments. Recently, GAO has received inquiries regarding various e-mails sent by third parties, falsely claiming that GAO determined that the recipient owes a debt to the government or another creditor, or may be entitled to a portion of funds recovered by the government. Neither GAO nor the Comptroller General and head of the agency, is affiliated with these messages. GAO encourages recipients of these messages to ignore or delete them, and to avoid clicking on any link within these messages. GAO has reported the scam to the proper authorities.

If you believe you may have been a victim of an Internet crime, please visit the Internet Crime Complaint Center. This website is maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It accepts online crime complaints from either the actual victim or from third parties.

For tips on how to protect yourself from Internet fraud, please visit Onguardonline.gov or consult with your internet provider.