The FTC says scammers now pose as the agency and tell victims to buy gold to ‘protect’ their cash

Federal regulators are warning that con artists have added a new twist to a long-running fraud: they now claim to be from the Federal Trade Commission itself and instruct their targets to convert savings into gold bars or cash in order to “protect” the money. The pitch inverts the agency’s actual role, turning a consumer-protection body into the supposed authority behind an urgent demand for money. The tactic has proven especially costly for older adults, some of whom have handed over tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to couriers sent to collect the gold in person.

How the impersonation works

The scheme typically begins with a phone call, email, or text message from someone claiming to be an FTC employee, often using the name of a real staff member to appear legitimate. The impersonator tells the target that the accounts are compromised or under investigation and that the only way to keep the funds safe is to move them immediately, either by withdrawing large sums of cash or by buying gold and precious metals. A “courier” is then dispatched to the home to pick up the valuables, or the victim is directed to a Bitcoin ATM or wire transfer.

The FTC has been blunt about the tell that exposes the fraud. In a consumer alert about fraudulent gold-bar demands, the agency states that no genuine government official will ever direct a person to withdraw money, purchase gold, or hand assets to a stranger. The instruction to buy precious metals is, by itself, definitive evidence of a scam.

Why gold and cash are the ask

Fraudsters favor gold, cash, wire transfers, and cryptocurrency because those transfers are fast, hard to reverse, and difficult to trace once completed. Unlike a disputed credit-card charge, physical gold handed to a courier or cash dropped into a crypto kiosk generally cannot be clawed back. The promise to “protect” a target’s money is designed to override caution by manufacturing a sense of emergency, pressuring targets to act before they can consult family or verify the caller through official channels.

The agency’s guidance on avoiding government impersonation scams notes that real agencies do not threaten arrest, demand secrecy, or insist that money be moved to a “safe” account. Any of those pressure tactics is a signal to hang up.

The toll on older Americans

The financial damage has grown sharply. According to FTC data released in a press release on impersonation losses, reports from older adults who said they lost $10,000 or more to impersonation schemes rose more than fourfold since 2020. The steepest climb came at the top of the loss range: combined losses reported by older adults who lost more than $100,000 increased roughly eightfold, from about $55 million in 2020 to $445 million in 2024. Investigators attribute the surge partly to the shift toward gold and cash pickups, which allow scammers to extract far larger sums in a single encounter than gift cards once did.

What regulators tell consumers to do

The agency’s advice centers on interrupting the pressure. Anyone who receives such a call is urged to stop, resist the urgency, and independently verify the claim by contacting the agency or business through a known, official number rather than one supplied by the caller. Legitimate agencies communicate primarily by mail and do not conduct business through demands for gold or cryptocurrency.

Suspected impersonation attempts can be reported to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, where the complaints feed into the agency’s enforcement and public-warning efforts. Regulators also encourage families to talk with older relatives about the specific gold-bar and cash-courier scripts, since awareness of the exact tactic is one of the most effective defenses. The consistent theme across every warning is simple: an instruction to buy gold or move cash to keep it “safe” is not a security measure but the fraud itself, and the surest protection is to treat any such demand as an immediate red flag.

A tactic that keeps evolving

Investigators note that the gold-and-cash variant is part of a fraud ecosystem that continually shifts its methods to stay ahead of public awareness. As warnings about gift-card scams spread, criminals moved toward cryptocurrency kiosks, and as those drew scrutiny, they turned to physical gold and in-person couriers that generate larger single payouts and leave fewer digital traces. The impersonation of the FTC itself adds a layer of psychological leverage, since a target may believe an agency dedicated to fighting fraud would never be the vehicle for it. Regulators expect the specific props to keep changing while the underlying script stays the same: an urgent, authoritative demand to move money in a form that cannot be recovered. Consumer advocates also urge people to build a simple habit of pausing before acting on any unexpected financial instruction, since the delay alone often defeats a scheme built on manufactured urgency.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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