Greg's Corner

Scam Round Up: Funeral scammers and more

By Greg Collier

It’s been a while since we had a scam round up. To any new readers, this is where we bring you a number of short scam stories. These stories usually can either be told quickly or are reminders of past scams.

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Earlier this month, we posted a story warning victims of floods to look out for scammers posing as FEMA agents. We also warned that scammers might also file FEMA claims in the victim’s name, while claiming any financial assistance for themselves.

A report out of Kentucky, where floods recently devastated a portion of the state, says that flood victims are starting to see FEMA agents show up to their home when they never filed a claim. One victim had a FEMA claim filed under her maiden name and had FEMA agents show up to her home looking to make an inspection.

If you think a FEMA claim might have been filed in your name, contact the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362.

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Speaking of government agencies, Medicare is probably the most targeted agency when it comes to scammers. What makes it worse, is that the scammers need someone enrolled in Medicare to scam the government.

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about the latest Medicare scam targeting recipients. Scammers are calling Medicare recipients and offering them free COVID-19 tests. Scammers actually want the recipient’s Medicare information, so they can fraudulently bill Medicare for a service or item the insured never receive.

Please keep in mind that free COVID tests are easily available through the USPS website and are available to anyone.

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Lastly, we think this story might just be the lowest we’ve ever seen scammers stoop, and that covers a lot of ground.

Recently, a family from Illinois had to deal with the tragic loss of their 16-year-old son. When a tragedy like this makes the local news, it’s almost a guarantee that the GoFundMe scammers come out of the woodwork, and that’s exactly what happened. Fake GoFundMe pages started springing up claiming to be collecting for the family. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened.

According to the family, there were scammers who were physically at their son’s funeral collecting money from mourners, stating that they were collecting for the family. Thousands of dollars were allegedly collected by the scammers at the funeral.

GoFundMe is actually pretty good when it comes to cracking down on scammers once notified. They’ve stated that the money given to the phony GFM pages has not been released to scammers and can be returned to anyone who donated.

It’s a travesty that a family dealing with the loss of a child had to deal with such a disregard for human decency.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a recommendation on how to keep scammers out of funeral. It seems like such a grim thought to think that a funeral might need security.

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