Fake 'FTC' Deactivation Calls Surge as Toll Texts, Crypto Scams Persist

Active now: fake "FTC official" calls threatening to shut off your phone

The Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert on October 22 describing callers who pose as FTC staff, claim your phone number was registered overseas and used in scams, and threaten to deactivate it unless you cooperate. The "FTC official" even reads off their badge ID (it's a fake badge), and if you don't cooperate, they threaten to deactivate your phone number. To keep the story sound real, the impersonator transfers callers to a fake police officer, or has them look up a police department's number online and call it themselves. The call ends with a demand to wire a "security deposit" to avoid arrest.

The FTC reiterated the warning through late October, confirming the pattern was still spreading. The Federal Trade Commission is warning Americans of a new scheme that tries to convince targets their phone number has been used in international phone scams and that they're facing jail time if they don't pay a security deposit. This fits the same playbook AVASC's own incident data has flagged for months: government-impersonation callers posing as the IRS, SSA, FTC, or police who threaten arrest or frozen accounts and demand immediate payment.

Toll-text scams: still circulating, now in Indiana

A fresh regional warning this week shows the nationwide fake-toll smishing wave hasn't slowed. The Indiana Toll Road is warning drivers about a text message scam circulating across northern Indiana, with fraudulent messages that claim recipients owe money for unpaid tolls and direct them to a website to make a payment. Officials say the messages contain several warning signs, including an incorrect Toll Road logo and color scheme. This mirrors AVASC's own data on a nationwide unpaid-toll smishing wave impersonating toll agencies, where mass text campaigns claim small unpaid tolls and link to look-alike payment pages harvesting card and personal data.

Crypto-romance fraud: an extradition lands as global takedowns continue

A notable enforcement milestone landed last week in a case that matches the romance-investment pattern AVASC has been tracking. Zheng Zhao was extradited to Los Angeles over an alleged Cambodian pig-butchering scam that took over $36.9 million from 174 US victims via USDT, landing on October 23, 2026. Prosecutors say the operation reached targets through social media and dating apps, building rapport first before investment pitches came later. It follows a larger coordinated effort: during a joint disruption week, private industry partners including Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Binance, and Coinbase collaborated with international law enforcement, reporting they removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages, and Groups and shared leads on over 30 suspected scam centers. AVASC's own database shows the same family of fraud hitting victims right now: syndicates using agentic AI to run thousands of simultaneous romance-investment conversations that funnel people into fake crypto platforms, with losses per victim frequently reaching five and six figures — and prior victims then getting re-targeted by fake "recovery" services or people impersonating the FBI/IC3 that falsely promise to retrieve the money for an upfront fee.