CLEVELAND — Scams that try to steal your personal information show up online, but they can also come in the form of text messages, or sometimes even through the mail.
In fact, the Federal Trade Commission received 2.6 million fraud reports last year, with the most common being imposter scams. The FTC says among those reports, they saw a significant increase in government impersonators.
So when a 3News viewer from Akron got multiple letters in the mail, addressed to "CURRENT RESIDENT," and claiming to be from the U.S. Census Bureau, he reached out to us to VERIFY what those letters were asking of him.
THE CLAIM
The viewer told us: "I’m being asked to fill out a survey for a 'Census Household Panel.' To enroll in the panel they gave a link and it came with a PIN. Is this legit?"
THE SOURCES
To find out if this is a real thing, we went to the U.S. Census Bureau website, and reached out to their public information office.
THE EXPLANATION
Whenever you get sent a link that you’re not sure about, no matter how it's sent to you, one of the first ways to verify whether it is what it claims to be is to find the website yourself without clicking on or typing in the link that was sent to you.
So we went to the U.S. Census Bureau website. Right at the top, there's a link to check out their surveys and programs. When you click on it, it takes you to a page that lists all of their active surveys.
On that page, we found the Census Household Panel survey listed. When we clicked that link, we found that all of the information listed there matched what was sent out in the mail the our 3News viewer.
A representative from the U.S. Censure Bureau also responded directly to an email from us, confirming everything we saw on their website is accurate.
THE ANSWER
So we can VERIFY that if you got a letter from the US Census Bureau asking you to take their Census Household Panel survey, it is legitimate. You can visit the link included in the letter and use the PIN provided to take the survey, without being worried about your personal information being stolen.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For future reference, a U.S. Census Bureau representative also told us that if someone has questions about any survey request they've received, they can visit this page on the official website for help.
If you'd like a claim or question VERIFIED, you can email it to us at verify@wkyc.com or text it to us at (216) 344-3300.