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  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 6, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Romance scammer defrauds victim of $82,000 

    Romance scammer defrauds victim of $82,000

    By Greg Collier

    Romance scammers are some of the cruelest scammers out there. They take advantage of someone’s loneliness while stringing them along for weeks or months before leaving them with an empty bank account or worse.

    This is what happened to a woman from the Chicago area after meeting a man online. The 37-year-old woman met her scammer on the dating app Hinge. The scammer claimed to be an architectural engineer from Greece, who was currently working in America. The scammer also claimed that he had a five-year-old daughter who was living with his sister in Utah.

    The conversations moved off the Hinge platform and on to various other methods, including phone calls. The scammer acted like a man in love, while the victim thought she was in an authentic relationship.

    Six weeks into the phony relationship, the scammer started sowing the seeds of their master plan. He claimed he needed to get $500 to his sister to help pay for his daughter’s care. The victim sent the $500 to the sister through PayPal. To lull the victim into a false sense of security, the scammer actually paid back $500 to the victim. As we’ll see, $500 was a small price for the scammer to pay to get their ultimate payoff.

    The scammer sent the victim a check for $85,000. He claimed the money needed to go to his daughter, but he couldn’t get to his own bank. He asked her to deposit the check in her account before wiring $82,000 to the supposed man’s sister. The scammer even advised her to deposit the check through an ATM, probably so it wouldn’t draw any attention from bank employee’s. The check turned out to be fraudulent, leaving the victim with a negative balance of $82,000.

    When the victim messaged the scammer about the check, the scammer went dark. However, she did receive a Facebook message claiming to be from the FBI telling her that she had been scammed. This message was more than likely from the scammer as well.

    Anybody who asks you to deposit a check into your account to pay someone else is almost assuredly trying to scam you. Banks do not wait for the check to clear before making the funds available. There is a several day window where the scammers can strike. If the money is taken out of the victim’s bank account before the check clears, then the victim will be responsible for paying that money back to the bank.

    Dating apps typically do not do any kind of background check on their users. If you meet someone online, the first thing you should do is a reverse image search to make sure they’re not using pictures stolen from elsewhere on the internet.

    Lastly, if the person you meet claims to have a job that makes it difficult to meet in person, this is a good indicator of a potential scam. These jobs can include a military member stationed overseas, oil rig workers, and international business workers.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 5, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Lottery winners are not giving away money 

    Lottery winners are not giving away money

    By Greg Collier

    The lottery winner scam is reportedly making the rounds again. If you’re unfamiliar with this scam, scammers will claim to be someone who won one of the major lottery prizes in the country. The scammers will use the names of real lottery winners to make the scam seem more legitimate.

    The scammers will then text, email, or send a private message to their potential victims telling them that they’re giving away part of their winnings. Typically, the offer is for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The messages also include articles that show the news of the actual lottery winner.

    The scammers are usually after one of two things. The first is personal and financial information. They may ask for your banking information in the guise of sending you the money. They may also ask for identifying information, such as a copy of your driver’s license. This leads to either the victim’s identity being stolen or their bank account being hijacked.

    The other thing these scammers are usually after is your money. After promising victims all this money, the scammers will try to get money out of the victim by saying that some form of taxes or processing fees need to be paid first. This is known as the advance fee scam and is quite common when it comes to lottery and sweepstakes scams.

    While there are legitimate lottery winners who have been generous with their winnings, they do not hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars to random people. The logistics and legal wranglings of doing so would be a procedural nightmare to say the least.

    As with most giveaway scams, it’s good to keep two sayings in mine. ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’, and ‘If it seems too good to be true, it probably is’.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 4, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    College students still vulnerable to job scams 

    College students still vulnerable to job scams

    By Greg Collier

    College students and other young adults tend to be more technologically inclined than previous generations. Unfortunately, being more comfortable with modern tech can lead young people into a false sense of security. When it comes to finding a job, many of the analog ways of older generations are still in effect. Scammers will take advantage of the convenience of tech while using the anonymity it can sometimes afford them. This chicanery has become very prevalent in the job market. With many young people striking out on their own for possibly the first time, they could easily fall victim to job scammers.

    This recently happened to a college student in Texas. She was searching for a job online and more than likely had posted her resume on employment platforms. She received a text message that claimed to be from a textile company in Chicago, offering her a job. The position was a remote data entry position that offered close to $40/hr along with benefits and a 401K. All interviews and follow-ups were done through text or messaging app. The student never saw the face of anyone at the supposed company.

    She was hired almost on the spot. She was then told she would need equipment for the position. The student was then sent two checks that added up to $10,000. The company instructed her to deposit the checks and use the money to buy the equipment she needed. She was told to use specific vendors and that she could pay them through Venmo or Cash App. When payment wouldn’t go through on either of those apps, she was told to wire the money. The checks turned out to be fraudulent, which not only wiped out her savings but left her in debt to her bank.

    Those that are inexperienced in the job market may not be aware that businesses do not use apps like Zelle and Venmo to pay for business expenses. Even those who have years of job experience may not know that legitimate businesses, even those offering remote positions, do not send checks that the employee is supposed to deposit in their own bank account to use for business expenses. The fake check scam is one that has been duping job applicants for years now.

    If colleges and universities are not doing do already, scam awareness should be part of the orientation process. If you know a young person who is attending college, you may want to let them know about the scams that specifically target them, like this one.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 3, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , power restoration, ,   

    Scammers promise to restore power in wake of hurricane 

    Scammers promise to restore power in wake of hurricane

    By Greg Collier

    Hurricane Ian was one of the most devastating storms to ever make landfall in the US. In Florida alone, roughly 2 million residents are still without power. They may not see their power restored until later this week or possibly next week. And that’s with over 20,000 electrical workers working around the clock. Leave it to scammers though to make the worst out of an already bad situation.

    With so many Florida residents being without power, the scammers saw this as an opportunity. The scammers are posing as one of Florida’s major power providers and promising victims they can get their power restored faster if they make a payment. Victims are being sent barcodes or QR codes that appear to mimic the power company’s online payment system. Except, the payments are going to scammers rather than the power company.

    Power companies do not prioritize certain customers after an extreme outage like this. Typically, power is first restored to critical services like hospitals and emergency services. Then power is restored to customers in the quickest way possible. There is no way they can prioritize one customer over another on a house by house basis.

    While it may sound tempting in the moments after a natural disaster, if someone claims they can turn your power on sooner for money, they are trying to scam you.

    This is just one of many scams that can plague the victims of natural disasters. Typically, scammers may try to file a FEMA claim in your name before you can. If a FEMA representative shows up at your home before you’ve contacted them, a scammer may have filed a claim in your name. Then there are the phony contractors that chase storms like this looking for victims. The Cape Coral police have several tips on how to avoid these con artists.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 30, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    The hurricane hostage scam 

    The hurricane hostage scam

    By Greg Collier

    Whenever there is a hurricane or other natural disaster in the country, we typically warn our readers about the usual scams. For example, we warn our readers that if they ever experience damage to your home from a natural disaster, be wary of contractors who drive up to your home offering to make repairs. Often these contractors are unlicensed and are looking to make a quick buck with shoddy work. We also tell our readers to be wary of unsolicited calls from FEMA or insurance companies. They could be scammers looking to get your financial or personal information. Our readers from outside the disaster area also get warned to be aware of fake charities claiming to be collecting for the victims, as they could be scams as well. For the first time, we now have to warn our readers about scammers who claim to have found a family member in the storms.

    A retiree from Florida did not evacuate her home in the days leading up to Hurricane Ian making landfall. She had survived many previous hurricanes in her home, and the hurricane was predicted to miss her area. The predictions were incorrect. The retiree was on the phone with her daughter during the hurricane while showing her daughter video of the flooding taking place in the home.

    The call then went silent. The daughter, who also lives in Florida, called everyone she could think of to try to assist her mother. She called 911, the Coast Guard, and people she knew in the area her mom lived in. As a last resort, she took to social media, hoping someone could help her find her mother. She received a text from someone who claimed to have found her mother. However, the text sender said that the daughter needed to send close to $600 first to cover the cost of a hotel. The daughter knew something was suspect about the text and asked the person for her mother’s middle name. The person didn’t know it and stopped communication.

    Thankfully, some of the people in the area were able to find the retiree, who was relatively unharmed.

    If this scam sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s the same scam that targets the owner’s of lost pets. It’s disturbing to think that there are people out there who are just waiting for someone to ask about a missing loved one in a hurricane, so they can try to scam them.

    The daughter handled the scammer about as perfectly as anyone could. She asked a question that only her mother would know. When confronted with that kind of questioning, scammers usually disappear.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 29, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Scam Round Up: A trio of tricky check scams 

    By Greg Collier

    Checks have always been prone to a number of scams. Even before most people switched to electronic banking, there was always a way to manipulate checks to someone’s advantage. Now, that most consumers use debit cards and get paid through direct deposit, it’s not surprising there are people who are unaware of how checks can be used in a scam. Here are three check scams from recent news reports you should be aware of.

    ***

    Of course, there’s the fake check scam. This is where scammers will send you a check for any number of reasons. They want you to deposit the check into your own bank account and send some of the money back before your bank finds out the check is fake. While the fake check scam is mostly seen with job scams and online selling scams, it can affect businesses as well.

    For example, a home supply store in Ohio recently received a cashier’s check that was supposed to cover supplies for a home renovation. The check was written for $5000 more than the store was asking. The person who sent the check also included instructions that the difference should be sent to the home’s previous owner for some reason. Thankfully, the store owner felt like he was being scammed and contacted the police.

    If someone you don’t know personally sends you a check and wants you to send part of the money back to them or to a third party, that is almost assuredly a scam.

    ***

    Another check scam that has become more common lately is the check washing scam. This is when checks are stolen from outgoing mail that are usually designed to pay bills. The checks are then soaked in a chemical solution that removes the handwritten portion of the check. This allows the scammers to rewrite the check to themselves and cash the check without the account holder’s knowledge.

    If you pay your bills by check, the best way to protect yourself is to take any outgoing mail that contains checks and drop them off inside the post office. Mail has even been known to be stolen from the mailboxes that are outside the post office. There are also pens you can order that are resistant to check washing.

    ***

    Lastly, the NYPD is warning residents of Staten Island about a different type of fake check scam. One precinct there has received numerous complaints about scammers approaching people on the street asking for help cashing a check. The victim is asked if they could deposit the check at their ATM while withdrawing money for the scammer. Again, the bank won’t find out for a few days that the check is fraudulent, and the victim is responsible for paying that money back to the bank.

    It is recommended if you come into contact with someone asking you to help them cash a check to call 911.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 28, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Online sellers have to deal with this phone scam, again. 

    Online sellers have to deal with this phone scam, again.

    By Greg Collier

    Scams that involve online selling are a top priority for us, since Geebo.com is an online marketplace. Previously, we’ve taken the role of an anti-Craigslist, since we actually take steps to try to protect our userbase. One of those steps is educating our users in the ways scammers might try to take advantage of them. One of those scams has resurfaced in multiple news outlets lately, so we thought it’s a good time to remind our readers of this scam.

    If you’re not familiar with Google Voice, it’s a service provided free from Google that allows you to have a secondary phone number. For example, you can use Google Voice to have separate business and personal numbers while still only using one phone. Users are only allowed one Google Voice number per hone number. This prevents bad actors from having multiple phone numbers they can operate from. However, this does not stop them from trying, and the bad actors like to target online sellers in this scam.

    The scam starts when someone tries to sell an item online, regardless of the platform. While talking or texting with the seller, the buyer will claim that they need to verify that the seller isn’t a scammer themselves. The buyer will then claim that they’re sending a seller an authorization code to verify the seller’s integrity. The buyer will then ask the seller to repeat the code back to them.

    What’s actually happening is the buyer is setting up a Google Voice number under the seller’s phone number. The authorization code is sent by Google to make sure that a bad actor isn’t trying to use someone else’s number to sign up for Google Voice. If the seller gives out that authorization code, the scammer can hijack that Google Voice number and use it in additional scams. That way, if law enforcement attempts to trace the Google Voice number used in a scam, it will trace back to the seller.

    Thankfully, there is a surefire way to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this scam, and that’s to sign up for your own Google Voice number. While we are in no way trying to promote Google Voice, signing up for a Google Voice number can prevent you from having a Google Voice number signed up under your phone number without your permission. If someone has already signed up for a Google Voice number that’s linked to your phone number, you can follow the instructions from Google on how to reclaim it.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 27, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Loneliness leads to crypto scam 

    Loneliness leads to crypto scam

    By Greg Collier

    Loneliness is one of the greatest vulnerabilities someone can have. It can cause us to make rash decisions or ignore warning signs if we think it will help us be any less alone. Some of the more detrimental decisions people can make are made during bouts of extreme loneliness. Unfortunately, scammers are aware of this too. Lonely people, especially senior citizens who may have lost a partner, are a favorite target of scammers. This is especially true of romance scammers.

    Traditionally, romance scammers find a target online and foster a phony relationship with them. Once the scammer gains the target’s trust, the scammer will start asking for money for some emergency. Romance scammers often pose as military members serving overseas, oil rig workers who are constantly working offshore, or international business people. They use these occupations as excuses as to why they can never meet in public.

    However, there is a new type of romance scam that works a lot quicker than the typical one, as one man from Indiana recently found out. The man is a senior citizen who is on a fixed income. He met a woman going by the name of Elizabeth on a dating site. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth mentioned she worked for an investment company and could make the man some money. The man was told that if he gave her $500 in Bitcoin, he’d make a profit in 5 days. He sent ‘Elizabeth’ the $500 in Bitcoin.

    When it came time for the man to claim his profits, he contacted the supposed investment company. He was told that his initial investment had multiplied more than ten times its amount. When the man tried to cash out, he was told he would need to send an additional $2000 through Cash App to claim his windfall. The man refused and was then asked for his bank account information. It was at this point the man realized he had been scammed. This man probably got off easy, relatively speaking. While we’re sure $500 was a lot of money to this man, other victims to this scam have paid the additional fees the scammers have asked for and never see a penny of it in return.

    No investment is ever guaranteed to return a profit, and especially not cryptocurrency, as that market can wildly fluctuate. If someone you don’t know or barely know promises to invest in cryptocurrency for you, there’s a good chance that they’re trying to scam you. Also, no legitimate investment company will ask you to make any payment through apps like Cash App.

    If you’re lonely and looking for companionship online, please be very careful as there are any number of pitfalls out there that could leave you with a broken heart and an empty wallet.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 26, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Would you fall for this convincing scam? 

    Would you fall for this convincing scam?

    By Greg Collier

    A lot of like to think we’re scam-proof, that it’s impossible for scammers to pull one over on us. For example, I received a robocall the other day that said they were calling from Amazon and there had been a $1499.00 charge on my account. I hung up because I knew it was a scam. But just to be certain, I checked my Amazon account and credit card I use for Amazon purchases. Both had no record of any such transaction. Now, that’s a low-pressure scam if you know what to look for. But what if the pressure was intense and immediate. Would you be able to remain calm?

    We’ve discussed the virtual kidnapping scam, or ransom scam, before. This is when scammers call a victim to tell them that they’ve kidnapped a loved one and demand money. In reality, the scammers don’t actually have your loved one hostage. However, even if you might be familiar with the scam, scammers can make it so convincing that in the heat of the moment, you may question yourself.

    A man in Ohio recently received one of these calls. The number that came up on his phone belonged to his mother from Florida. After he picked up the phone, the man heard a male voice with a female voice screaming in the background. The caller stated he carjacked the man’s mother and would harm her if the man didn’t pay the caller. The way that we’ve phrased it, makes it sound so clinical. However, the language the caller used made it seem real. Here are some quotes from the conversation that the man recorded.

    Caller: “Man, guess what? I’m going to start beating your mom, I’m going to start beating her right now.”

    Caller: “If I see the police, I’m going to k*** myself too, but I’m going to take her (expletive) out.

    Caller: “Bro, I’m going to tell you one more time. She ain’t going to be all right if you don’t hurry the (expletive) up.”

    There were other explicit threats of violence as well that we’re leaving out for the sake of civility.

    The caller was demanding payment through Cash App and PayPal. Luckily, the man had trouble remembering his PayPal password. While he was trying to reset the password, he had his wife call his brother on her phone, since his brother lives near his mother. When he got word that his mother was in no danger, he hung up on the scammer. The man even admitted that he panicked and had no idea what to do, even though he made the correct action.

    Scammers will either find us at our weakest or try to put us in that state of mind. Can any of us say we wouldn’t be panicked if we were in this man’s shoes? This is just one of the many reasons we shouldn’t belittle scam victims. There are so many scams out in the wild that any one of us could fall victim to them if the right circumstances emerge. Instead, we should be thanking scam victims who come forward for making us aware of these scams.

    Again, what the man did in this instance was the right thing to do. If you ever receive a phone call like this, try to use a second form of communication to contact the person the caller has claimed to have kidnapped. Kidnapping for ransom is rare in the United States, but you still want to make sure your loved one is safe. Also, don’t be afraid to call the police, as they can be of great assistance in these matters.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 23, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , security code,   

    Man loses $7500 in new Zelle scam 

    Man loses $7500 in new Zelle scam

    By Greg Collier

    Next month, it will be a year since we started posting about Zelle scams. In that time, it doesn’t seem like much has been done on Zelle’s side to protect its users from scams. However, the scammers seem to have adapted the Zelle scam to continue stealing from their victims.

    For those who may be new readers, Zelle is a personal payment app that’s co-owned by some of the country’s biggest banks. It’s a competitor to apps like Venmo and Cash App. Zelle us only supposed to be used between family and friends and is not intended to be used for business purposes.

    In the previous version of the scam, scammers would send victims a text message posing as their bank’s fraud department. The text asks the victim if they recently made a large purchase and text back either yes or no. Once the victim texts back, that lets the scammers know that there is someone at that phone number.

    That text message is then followed up with a phone call to the victim. Still posing as the bank’s fraud department, the scammers tell the victim that their bank account has been compromised. The victim is then told that in order to protect the money in their account, the money needs to be ‘moved’. Instructions are given to the victim on how to move the money, but what’s really happening is the scammers are walking the victim through a procedure where their money is given to the scammers through Zelle.

    In the new Zelle scam, instead of walking the victim through instructions on transferring the money through Zelle, the scammers are now hijacking the victim’s Zelle account. The scammers do this by asking the victim for a security code that the scammers say they need for security purposes. What the scammers are actually doing is triggering a password rest on the victim’s Zelle account. The security code is needed to complete the password change. Giving the security code to scammers is essentially handing over your Zelle account to them.

    This recently happened to a man in Arizona who received an email about a fraudulent charge. When he called the number on the email to dispute the charge, he was told to pay himself the charge amount through Zelle to reverse the fraudulent charge. However, the ‘bank’ needed the security code to complete the transaction. This is being referred to as the ‘pay yourself scam’. After the scammers hijacked the man’s account, they took $7500 from him.

    Zelle has released a video on how to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this scam, as you can see below. But are they really doing enough to educate bank customers on how Zelle can be used to scam them. Part of the problem is that many of the banks that use Zelle make Zelle part of their own app. Many customers aren’t even aware that they have Zelle or how to use it. In some cases, Zelle can be used to access a bank account, whether that customer wants it to happen or not. Zelle needs to better educate and protect their customers before their name becomes synonymous with scams, if it hasn’t already.

     

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