Greg's Corner

If you've been scammed once you can be scammed again

If there’s one thing that con artists like most it’s an easy mark. The odds are that if you’ve been scammed once you could be scammed again. Or at least you’ll continue to be targeted by scammers.

This happened to a woman in Memphis. Last year, she was taken in a grant scam. She received a Facebook message that she thought was from a friend. The message said that her friend received money from a government grant and that she probably qualifies for the grant too.

The message actually came from a Facebook account that had been compromised by scammers. When the woman went to apply for this phony grant she was told that she would have to pay $1000 to receive the grant money. As you can guess, she never received the grant money and was $1000 poorer.

She never came forward about losing money because, like many scam victims, she was too embarrassed. However, that initial scam experience was able to help her from being taken a second time. More recently, the woman was approached by someone who claimed to be the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. While the report doesn’t go into greater detail, we can hazard a guess that it was probably another grant scam.

Some victims may not be so lucky as scammers often trade or sell the information on their victims between each other. Or the scammer will try to fleece the victim again with a different scam if they were successful in the past.

If you ever become the victim of a scam, you should report it to the police immediately. While the scammer may never be apprehended, it will help warn others from falling for the same scam.