The FTC's newest alert points at the tell that survives every disguise — how scammers ask you to pay — while a $45.9 million student-loan "forgiveness" operation faces a permanent ban from the debt relief industry.

A July 2026 FTC consumer alert distills the pattern that outlives every costume change: someone contacts you out of the blue about a problem or a prize, then insists the only way to pay is a bank transfer, wire, cryptocurrency, payment app, or gift card. The FTC says its report data shows that combination is a scam — and that last year people reported losing more than $4 billion in total to scams paid by bank transfer and cryptocurrency, much of it to imposters posing as government agencies or well-known businesses. In a June 2026 alert, the FTC also warns about scammers impersonating the FTC itself.

Student-debt-relief imposters remain an active, enforced-against threat: in July 2026 the FTC announced that an operator of the Superior Servicing scheme — which posed as the Department of Education and its servicers and took more than $45.9 million from consumers through an illegal upfront-fee debt relief operation — will be permanently banned from the debt relief industry and telemarketing under a proposed order. Enforcement removes one operation; the calls, and the copycats that follow forgiveness headlines, continue.