Is Your 2K Trump Dividend Check on Its Way? Not So Fast — 3 Scams To Avoid
Written by
Nicholas Morine
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
Commitment to Our Readers
GOBankingRates' editorial team is committed to bringing you unbiased reviews and information. We use data-driven methodologies to evaluate financial products and services - our reviews and ratings are not influenced by advertisers. You can read more about our editorial guidelines and our products and services review methodology.
20 Years
Helping You Live Richer
Reviewed
by Experts
Trusted by
Millions of Readers
President Donald Trump’s much-discussed dividend checks, to potentially be paid to lower- and middle-income Americans as a result of incoming tariff revenue, have as yet not materialized.
That hasn’t stopped bad actors from capitalizing on the confusion surrounding Trump’s planned dividend payments to Americans, however. Scammers have leveraged the headline-grabbing and high-profile nature of the president’s plan to line their own pockets, preying on the unsuspecting via a variety of means. Learn how to prevent them below.
Email Scams
In late January 2025, WRAL News profiled a scam, circulated by email, in which the false claim that Trump’s $2,000 dividend check “was live, but you must act” was advanced.
An investigation by PolitiFact discovered that Major Gross Profit, the entity behind the scam, listed Finance and Investing Traffic, LLC (allegedly based in Delaware) as its parent company. That company isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau and a litany of complaints related to spam emails have been publicly filed by concerned citizens against it.
Experts cited on the subject noted that those who fall prey to this scam could expose themselves to significant malware intrusion, as well as the surrender of their private data.
Text Scams
As December 2025 drew to a close, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador issued a warning to Idahoans over the proliferation of text messages indicating that recipients must act to claim the $2,000 rebate checks.
Labrador’s statement noted that these texts sought to establish credibility, created false urgency and promised free money or contained threats of lost opportunity in order to incite targets to click.
Scammers can cheaply distribute billions of fraudulent text messages across telecom networks each month, counting on a few recipients to fall for them, Labrador said.
The most effective defense is learning to recognize potential scams early and reporting them to the Consumer Protection Division, the Attorney General added, just as the Idahoan did in this case.
Websites Scams
In a breakdown of scam activity immediately following Trump’s Nov. 17, 2025 announcement tied to the planned tariff dividend checks, Thomas Orsolya, editor for MalwareTips reported that dozens of websites immediately popped up in an attempt to steal data from unsuspecting visitors. Victims were also often led through advertising or lead-generation funnels without their knowledge.
These websites, Orsolya explained, frequently aped the visual aesthetic of reputable government portals. Lines such as “Check your eligibility for Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend now,” “Official tariff dividend stimulus check application center” and “Free eligibility verification for the Trump tariff dividend program” were deployed to fool potential victims.
He said there are dozens of these websites that are all similar — offering official, yet vague language. Once the user clicks on the call-to-action, their informaiton is compromised, Orsolya added.
Editor’s note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
More From GOBankingRates
