SPONSORED CONTENT PRESENTED BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Payments fraud continues to grow and impact individuals and organizations alike. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud and scams in 2024, up 25% from the prior year. Additionally, check fraud was among the primary drivers of fraud events in 2024 despite declining check volumes, according to the annual Federal Reserve Financial Services Financial Institution Risk Officer Survey, also published in 2024.
Two online toolkits released by the Federal Reserve throughout 2025 can help educate your organization’s internal audiences about these important topics—and in turn, help you educate your customers. Increased awareness may help individuals and organizations better protect themselves against financial losses.
The Scams Mitigation Toolkit and Check Fraud Mitigation Toolkit are intended to support education and increase awareness about scams and check fraud, enable the payments industry to better identify and fight them, and foster industry collaboration on fraud and scams mitigation. (These newer toolkits complement a Synthetic Identity Fraud Mitigation Toolkit that was released in 2022.)
Each online toolkit contains insights, educational videos and downloadable resources on scams or check fraud, divided into modules by topic for ease of navigation. There also are “test your knowledge” quizzes in some modules for an interactive experience. Here are highlights of what you will find in these toolkits.
Scams Mitigation Toolkit
While scams may be defined in different ways, the Federal Reserve finds value in a common understanding of what they are within the payments industry. As a result, the Fed engaged with payments and fraud experts in 2023 to develop and publish an operational definition of scams: the use of deception or manipulation intended to achieve financial gain.
This growing, evolving threat impacts individuals, businesses and entire economies. Consequences include financial, emotional and psychological tolls. In some cases, the stolen money fuels global organized crime.
The Scams Mitigation Toolkit includes the following modules:
- Toolkit Module 1: Scam Basics — Explains what scams are, why you should care, and how and why scams occur.
- Toolkit Module 2: Scam Tactics and Impacts — Provides examples of how criminals fool us using technology (e.g., generative artificial intelligence, malware); force action through fear, threats and other tactics involving emotional manipulation; and use successful scams to perpetrate other types of fraud.
- Test Your Knowledge: Can You Spot the Scam? Test your ability to detect scams by reviewing three scenarios.
- Toolkit Module 3: Scam Prevention and Detection — Among other topics, summarizes scam prevention basics, defenses and considerations when seeking to detect scams.
- Toolkit Module 4: ScamClassifierSM Model — Highlights a voluntary classification structure that uses the agreed-upon scams definition as a basis to support consistent and detailed classification, reporting, analysis and identification of scams and related trends.
- Toolkit Module 5: Scam Scenarios — The ability to classify scams can help support consistent classification and reporting, assist with better identification of trends, and help improve detection and mitigation.
- Test Your Knowledge: Can You Classify These Scam Scenarios? Challenge yourself to accurately classify various types of scam examples using the ScamClassifier model, which uses a series of questions to differentiate and classify scams and attempted scams by category and type.
- Toolkit Module 6: Scam Information Sharing — Discusses how shared information on current scam trends, known bad actors, data or risk signals can help disrupt criminals’ schemes. This module includes a downloadable resource previously published by a Fed-led industry work group, Scams Information Sharing Industry Work Group Recommendations.
The toolkit also includes recommendations on how industry stakeholders can combat scams, from being both vigilant and skeptical, to understanding the technology and tactics criminals use—which, in turn, can help potential victims pause to question unsolicited messages and offers.
Check Fraud Mitigation Toolkit
Check fraud is a financial crime that involves the unauthorized use of a paper or electronic check. Its consequences include financial losses; operational disruptions; and eroding trust in financial institutions due to negative customer experiences and questions about whether fraudulent checks should have been prevented, cases resolved more quickly, or if safer practices by the payments issuer could have resulted in more timely, accurate payments.
The Check Fraud Mitigation Toolkit includes the following:
- Toolkit Module 1: Check Fraud Basics — An overview of check fraud methods, types and schemes (how the fraud is facilitated), all of which are important for prevention, detection, associate training, customer education and awareness.
- Test Your Knowledge: Can You Identify the Type of Fraudulent Check? Different types of fraudulent checks can be difficult to identify because criminals continue to become more sophisticated in their schemes. Review three common check fraud scenarios to see if you can identify the various types of fraudulent checks.
- Toolkit Module 2: Check Fraud Schemes — Check fraud could be the result of authorized party fraud, where the account holder willingly sends or writes a check for the purpose of committing fraud — or unauthorized party fraud, where criminals use stolen checks or account information for their own financial gain.
- Toolkit Module 3: Preventing and Detecting Check Fraud — Learn about how people, processes and technology can work together to mitigate check fraud and to become familiar with common practices for preventing and detecting fraudulent checks.
The toolkit also includes recommendations on how industry stakeholders can combat check fraud, starting with understanding potential check vulnerabilities and fraud scenarios. Possibly the most important of all: arming financial institutions’ employees, customers and external partners with proactive education and knowledge about check fraud to help prevent, detect and mitigate it.
Learn more
Join the FedPayments Improvement Community for the latest payments improvement news, announcements and opportunities to engage. Watch for more information and learning opportunities as the Fed continues to collaborate with the payments industry to address the growing threat of fraud.
These toolkits were developed by the Federal Reserve to help educate the industry about scams and check fraud. Insights for these toolkits were provided through interviews with industry experts, publicly available research and team member expertise. The toolkits are not intended to result in any regulatory or reporting requirements, imply any liabilities for fraud loss, or confer any legal status, legal definitions, or legal rights or responsibilities. While use of these toolkits throughout the industry is encouraged, their utilization is voluntary at the discretion of each individual entity. Absent written consent, the toolkits may not be used in a manner that suggests the Federal Reserve endorses a third-party product or service.
