The Better Business Bureau of Western Pennsylvania issued a warning regarding potential phishing scams related to the census.

The census, which determines how federal funds are distributed along with the number of congressional seats each state is allocated, has been sending emails encouraging people to respond to the once-a-decade survey as well as to participate in Household Pulse Surveys.

But scam emails try to impersonate those sent by the Census Bureau, potentially causing confusion, said Warren King, president of BBB of Western Pennsylvania.

“With the 2020 census happening at the same time as a global pandemic, both census takers and consumers have been put in an unprecedented situation,” King said. “Unfortunately, fraudsters are likely to take advantage of confusion and misconceptions regarding the census in order to obtain personal information that can be used to commit identity theft.”

To avoid scams, the Better Business Bureau suggests never giving out Social Security numbers or bank account or credit card numbers, money or donations. Links in unsolicited emails should not be clicked, which can direct users to websites that look official but may be infected with malware.

Census takers will never contact people on behalf of a political party and they will not hold back stimulus money if the census is not filled out. They are easily identified by a government identification badge with their photograph, a U.S. Department of Commerce watermark and an expiration date. The public can contact regional centers to confirm a census taker’s identity.

Emails coming from the census will be sent only from 2020census@subscriptions.census.gov.

Suspected fraud can be reported to a Census Bureau representative by calling 844-330-2020, according to the survey’s website. If an incident is determined to be fraud, local police departments should be notified. Scams can also be reported at BBB.org/ScamTracker.

Since February, a handful of scams related to the census were reported to the BBB tracker, although none were reported in Pennsylvania. The closest was a government grant scam near Morgantown, W.Va. Others were reported near Washington D.C.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Georgia, Alabama and others.

Phil Koch, executive director of The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County and member of the Westmoreland County Complete Count Committee, said he has not heard of any scams in the county.

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