ClearCheckbook News & Updates

Financial scams are ever-evolving, with scammers using sophisticated methods to exploit people’s trust, create urgency, or take advantage of confusion. We’ve been hearing a lot of first hand accounts from our customers about various financial scams and wanted to post this to help others be aware of them.

Here are some of the most common scams to be aware of, including details on how they operate and tips to recognize and avoid them:

1. Advance Fee Scam (also known as “419 scam” or “Nigerian Prince Scam”)

• How it works: The scammer contacts the victim, often with a story about needing a small payment (an "advance fee") to unlock or release a large sum of money. They might claim that this money is an inheritance, a charitable donation, a lottery win, or even an investment return. The scammer will usually provide a fake backstory or show fake screenshots of a bank account, payment slip, or deposit that supposedly holds the large sum. They’ll say that if the victim pays a small fee—often for "processing," "taxes," or "administrative" reasons—they can release the funds. After the victim sends the initial "small fee," the scammer might disappear, or they may come back with additional demands, asking for more payments under various pretenses before releasing the funds, which, of course, never arrive.
• Spotting it: Someone reaches out to you through unofficial means, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Whatsapp, Snapchat, email, or other social media apps saying they have a large sum of money for you. You may or may not have ever heard of the person or business before.
• Prevention: Be skeptical of “too good to be true” offers, verify the legitimacy of the claim independently by not relying on screenshots or images as proof and don’t pay any fees upfront. Legitimate businesses, especially banks or reputable institutions, do not require small upfront payments to release money.

2. Phishing Scams

• How it works: Phishing scams typically arrive via email, text, or phone calls, with scammers posing as legitimate entities like banks, tech companies, or government agencies. The goal is to trick the target into providing sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card numbers, by clicking a link that leads to a fake website resembling a genuine one.
• Spotting it: Look out for unusual URLs, misspelled words, or generic greetings like “Dear Customer.” Genuine organizations will usually address you by name and avoid pressuring you into immediate action.
• Prevention: Avoid clicking links or downloading attachments in unsolicited messages. Use multi-factor authentication and regularly update your passwords.

3. Investment Scams

• How it works: Investment scams involve fraudsters convincing individuals to invest in bogus schemes, such as Ponzi schemes, fake stocks, or non-existent projects, by promising high returns with little to no risk. They often target inexperienced investors but can prey on anyone.
• Spotting it: Promises of “guaranteed returns” or pressure to act quickly are major red flags. Legitimate investments rarely, if ever, guarantee returns, especially high ones.
• Prevention: Research investments thoroughly, consult with financial professionals, and be skeptical of deals that seem too good to be true.

4. Tech Support Scams

• How it works: Scammers posing as tech support representatives from well-known companies, like Microsoft or Apple, contact victims claiming their computer has a virus or some other issue. They may ask the victim to install software that gives the scammer remote access to the device, allowing them to steal information or install malware.
• Spotting it: Real tech companies typically won’t reach out unsolicited to report issues on your personal device. Also, be cautious if asked for payment in unusual forms, like gift cards.
• Prevention: Hang up or ignore unsolicited tech support calls. Don’t give control of your computer to anyone unless you’ve verified their legitimacy.

5. Romance Scams

• How it works: Romance scams often occur on dating websites or social media. Scammers create fake profiles and build relationships with victims over time. Eventually, they ask for money for an “emergency” or a personal crisis, often appealing to the victim’s emotions to manipulate them.
• Spotting it: Be cautious if an online acquaintance quickly professes love or has excuses to avoid meeting in person. Requests for money, especially in situations that prevent them from meeting or explaining in detail, are red flags.
• Prevention: Avoid sharing personal details or money with someone you haven’t met in person. Take time to verify the person’s identity and intentions.

6. IRS or Tax Scams

• How it works: Scammers impersonate tax authorities like the IRS, claiming the victim owes back taxes and demanding immediate payment. They often threaten arrest, deportation, or other legal action if the victim doesn’t pay right away, usually through wire transfers or prepaid debit cards.
• Spotting it: Tax agencies generally communicate through official letters, not phone calls or emails, and they won’t ask for payment via unconventional means like gift cards.
• Prevention: Never provide personal information or payments over the phone. If in doubt, contact the IRS or relevant authority directly using an official number.

7. Lottery or Prize Scams

• How it works: Scammers tell the victim they’ve won a large prize, but to claim it, they need to pay a fee or provide personal details. These scams aim to either get the victim to hand over money or gather information for identity theft.
• Spotting it: If you’re asked to pay a fee for a prize or if you never entered the lottery or contest, it’s almost certainly a scam.
• Prevention: Legitimate lotteries don’t require fees to claim winnings. If it sounds suspicious, avoid providing any information.

8. Charity Scams

• How it works: During times of crisis, scammers exploit people’s goodwill by setting up fake charities or impersonating real ones. They may solicit donations for fabricated causes or disaster relief efforts.
• Spotting it: Look for vague organization names or lack of information about how funds will be used. Be cautious if contacted through email or social media rather than official channels.
• Prevention: Verify the charity’s legitimacy through platforms like Charity Navigator or the IRS website before donating.

9. Online Marketplace and Shopping Scams

• How it works: Scammers either pose as buyers or sellers on online marketplaces, offering fake products or sending counterfeit checks. In some cases, fake online stores lure people into purchasing non-existent items.
• Spotting it: Deals that seem too good to be true, requests for unconventional payments (like wire transfers), or sellers who avoid providing specific details about the product are all red flags.
• Prevention: Stick to reputable sites, and only make purchases or payments through secure, traceable methods.

General Tips to Avoid Financial Scams

• Stay skeptical: Question unsolicited communications, especially those that require urgency or secrecy.
• Verify: Independently verify any request by contacting the organization directly through official channels.
• Secure your devices: Keep security software updated, enable two-factor authentication, and create strong, unique passwords.
• Report suspicious activity: Report scams to local authorities, consumer protection agencies, or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S.

Staying informed and vigilant is your best defense against financial scams, which increasingly rely on social engineering and urgency to succeed.

Remember that ClearCheckbook will never reach out to you asking for any private information such as bank account or credit card numbers, or promising to deliver you money of any kind.

With Intuit shutting down Mint, we've had a lot of people find ClearCheckbook to replace their financial management software. We know it's always difficult transitioning from a software you're familiar and comfortable with to a new one, but we hope this blog post makes that transition to ClearCheckbook easier.

• Getting Started - This article walks through how our various accounts, categories, budgets, recurring transactions, etc all work together. This will help you familiarize yourself with how ClearCheckbook works compared to Mint.
• Adding Transactions - You can manually add transactions, import them, have them automatically synced from your bank or schedule recurring transactions. This article explains all these options.
• Transaction Register - Our transaction register is where you can see all of your transactions in one place. You can perform reconciliations, view specific types of transactions or transactions for specific accounts.
• Reconciliation Methods - We have two ways of reconciling your transactions and accounts. Which one you decide on will depend on what you're used to doing and what makes the most sense to you.

The term Jiving has been replaced with Clearing to help avoid confusion about the reconciliation process.

When ClearCheckbook was first founded back in 2006, we had used the term Jive (a homonym for jibe/gibe, to be in accordance), but over the years this has lead to a lot of confusion about what it actually meant and what the purpose was. To make things a little clearer, we're changing Jive/Jiving/Jived to Clear/Clearing/Cleared. This will make it more apparent what the term is and help make the reconciliation process easier for new customers.

Nothing has changed as far as the process for clearing your accounts and transactions go, it's just the naming that has been updated. If you're used to the jiving process, just keep an eye out for the updated terminology.

The website has been updated and we'll be working on getting the mobile apps updated soon.

We've updated the way you connect your financial institutions and authorize accounts for transaction syncing. This update improves connection reliability and makes it easier to authorize multiple accounts at one time.

Connection & Account Authorization Updates:

There are now two ways to make bank connections and authorize your accounts and which method you choose depends on whether or not you've already created the accounts in ClearCheckbook. This Choosing a connection method section of our knowledge base better explains the process.

The gist of the update revolves around how the bank connections and account authorizations are made. First and foremost you need to make a connection to your bank by entering your login credentials through the Plaid Link process. After that, you select which accounts you authorize ClearCheckbook to access. After that has been done, you can assign which authorized accounts are paired to which ClearCheckbook account.

This pairing process is handled in the new Bank Connections section in the Manage Accounts settings (more information on pairing can be found in Step 2 of the Connecting an existing account knowledge base article.)

Repairing Duplicate Connections:

If you have existing accounts connected to the same institution, you'll see a new alert that appears above your Accounts List in your Account Settings page. Because of the way we had been handling bank connections in the past, each account you authorized would create a new connection to that institution. If you had multiple accounts connected to the same institution, this caused duplicate connections since each account had a unique connection. This wasn't an issue until some institutions, namely Chase, would reject all but one of these connections.

By repairing the connection, you're combining all of the unique connections for that institution into one connection that contains access to all accounts. While it isn't mandatory at this time to repair these connections, we highly recommend doing so to prevent any interruptions to your syncing in the future.

To repair duplicate connections, all you need to do is click the green Repair Connection button next to the connection name. After authenticating with your bank, you'll be asked to select all of the accounts you authorize ClearCheckbook to access. Select the accounts you currently have connected and then finish the process.

Updating Legacy Connections:

If you've made connections prior to this update, they will most likely stay connected and continue syncing your transactions. However, we recommend repairing these "legacy" connections to ensure uninterrupted transaction syncing. You can easily repair these connections from the Bank Connections section in your Account Settings.

The legacy connections will appear under a "Legacy Connections" header and there will be a "Repair Connection" link next to each connection. Simply click on that link to reauthorize which accounts ClearCheckbook has access to. You only need to do this one time for each institution you've made a connection with.

New Feature - Connecting multiple accounts at one time:

This feature has been requested for quite some time and we finally got the implementation working correctly. You now have the ability to connect to a bank, authorize multiple accounts and then have all of those accounts created in ClearCheckbook. Once done, they will immediately start syncing transactions. This eliminates having to add each account one at a time which was a time consuming and repetitive process.

If you want to connect multiple accounts from a bank, you can follow the instructions outlined in the Connecting new accounts section in our knowledge base.

The Bill Tracker got a slight user interface update and we also added a new "Autopay" flag when adding and editing bills.

Bill Tracker Interface Update:

Autopay flag