Greg's Corner

Updates from January, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 3, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: cryptocurrency ( 51 ), FTX, recovery scam ( 6 ), recovery service ( 8 ), Scams ( 1,362 )   

  Crypto scam victims continue to be victimized 

  

  By Greg Collier

  If you follow the news, you’ve no doubt heard about the FTX scandal. FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange company that sold its own cryptocurrency called FTT. FTX is accused of allegedly falsely inflating the value of FTT. When this was discovered, not only did the value of FTT Crash, but many investors tried to cash out while they could, leading to a run on FTX’s liquidity. This is one of the largest cryptocurrency crashes of all time, possibly affecting one million investors.

  Now, you may think that FTX investors were all wealthy and can afford to take the loss. However, keep in mind that FTX advertised itself as the crypto exchange for everyone. Many investors into FTX were probably first-time crypto investors, who may have put a little too much of their money into FTX. And these are the victims who continue to be preyed upon.

  The State of Oregon has issued a warning to those who may have lost money in the FTX crash. Scammers are said to be running a phony website that appears to be run by the US State Department. The website claims it can help investors who lost money in the crash get their money back.

  This is a ploy we’ve seen used by scammers before, who prey on scam victims. What the scammers are looking for are a victim’s personal information and probably some of the victim’s money under the guise of being a recovery service. These scammers are preying on desperate people who’ve already lost money and are dangling the promise of recovery in front of them to take more from them.

  The reason this story should be important to the average consumer is that this scam isn’t limited to cryptocurrency. It can be done following just about any scam. In the past, we’ve seen it used against victims who have had their car stolen. We’ve also seen it used against victims of the grandparent scam.

  There are no scam recovery servicers. Once money is lost to a scam, 99% of the time it’s gone for good. That doesn’t mean a service can get it back for that other 1% of the time. Anyone promising they can get a scam victim’s money back is just trying to further scam that victim.

   

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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 2, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: advance fee scam ( 45 ), job scam ( 79 ), lottery scam ( 13 ), parking scam ( 2 ), police impersonation scam ( 64 ), police scam ( 37 )   

  Scam Round Up: Parking ticket scam and more 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Today, we’re starting off the New Year with a handful of new scams.

  ***

  Now, the police impersonation scam is nothing new. This is when scammers pose as law enforcement and threaten a victim with arrest if they don’t pay a made up fine. However, a new variation of that scam has turned up in an East Texas city.

  Residents of Navasota, Texas, have received emails that try to imitate the city’s Chief of Police. The emails are coming from a Gmail account, which should be a tip off the emails are part of a scam. The strange part of this scam is the emails are asking residents to become collection agents for the city.

  While the news report doesn’t go into great detail about the scam, we imagine that the typical police impersonation scammer is looking for money mules to do their dirty work. It seems the scammers are looking for unwitting participants in their scam to collect the phony fines from victims.

  Always be wary of unsolicited job offers. With any job offer, if an email comes from a Gmail address rather than a business address, there’s a pretty good chance the offer is a scam.

  ***

  In a small Indiana county, residents have been receiving phone calls telling victims they’ve won a prize from the Mega Millions lottery. Victims are being told they’ve won money and a truck from the nationwide lottery. It’s with the truck where the scam begins. Victims are being told they need to purchase a $500 gift card to pay the driver who is bringing the truck. Since the victim may think they’ve won a large sum of money, $500 isn’t much to pay to get a new truck. This is the advance fee scam. It is illegal to make a lottery winner pay for their prize outside of the initial ticket purchase and subsequent taxes. That’s not even taking into account that most lotteries do not give out trucks as prizes.

  According to the Mega Millions website, no representative of Mega Millions would ever call, text, or e-mail anyone about winning a prize.

  If someone is asking you to pay for a prize you supposedly won, the chances are there is no prize.

  ***

  Lastly, if you receive a parking ticket on your car, make sure it’s from the city before making any kind of payment. In Scottsdale, Arizona, residents there have been finding parking tickets on their cars. The ticket states that you can pay the fine by scanning the QR code on the ticket. After scanning the code, victims are taken to a payment website that no doubt puts the money in to the scammers’ pockets.

  According to Scottsdale police, the fake tickets do not contain what parking law has been supposedly broken. Nor do the tickets have any kind of citation number.

  This is becoming an issue around the country as these parking ticket scams have been popping up all over, including a recent arrest in Santa Cruz, California.

  If you receive a parking ticket with a QR code on it, call the city to verify whether the ticket is bogus or not.