Updates from September, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 7, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    FBI twist added to sweepstakes scam 

    FBI twist added to sweepstakes scam

    By Greg Collier

    Police in Oregon are warning about a new rash of sweepstakes scams or advance fee scams, as they’re sometimes known. In this scam, the scammers pose as a sweepstakes company, usually Publishers Clearing House since they’re the most well-known. The victim will receive a call, text or email telling them that they’ve won a big jackpot, except they need the victim to pay them taxes or a processing fee. Also, the victim needs to keep this matter private, so the local media supposedly doesn’t find out. These scams often target the elderly and when a victim pays once, the scammers will keep coming back for more. Now, scammers are using a new tactic to make sure the victim keeps paying.

    According to a report out of Oregon, the sweepstakes scammers make the victims pay by check. Once the scammers receive that check, they’re calling the victim back, posing as the FBI. The phony investigators tell the victim that the check they wrote was fraudulent. The scammer then threatens the victim with arrest if they don’t make another payment. Essentially, the scammers are combining two scams into on, the advance fee scam and the police impersonation scam. As you probably surmised, the police impersonation scam involves scammers posing as police, usually telling the victim they have a warrant out for their arrest, and that the victim needs to pay over the phone to make the warrant go away.

    Please keep in mind that you can’t win prizes from a sweepstakes you never entered. Plus, it’s also illegal for any sweepstakes to make you pay for any prize. As far as the FBI goes, no law enforcement agency will call you on the phone asking for money and threatening you with arrest if you don’t pay. The report from Oregon gives a great tip when it comes to police impersonation phone calls. Ask the caller for their phone number and tell them that you’ll call them back after speaking with your attorney. If they try to pressure you into staying on the phone, it’s more than likely a scam.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 3, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    New job scam steals your identity 

    New job scam steals your identity

    By Greg Collier

    With so many job scams out there, it’s often hard to discern between a legitimate job offering and a scam. More often than not, there is usually a red flag somewhere along the line in the application process. For example, if you’re asked by the potential employer to pay for things like application fees or background checks, that’s a good indicator that the job could be a scam. Even if you get hired, there can still be red flags, such as being asked to deposit a check used for business expenses into your own bank account. But what if scammers were able to mimic a legitimate company while offering a phony position. According to the Better Business Bureau, that’s exactly what is happening.

    A woman in Rhode Island received an email that said she was eligible for a position after the company found her information on a state employment website. She was asked to reply to the email if she was interested in the position. The email appeared to come from a legitimate company in the region and even used the name of an actual company employee. The victim interviewed for the job. The report doesn’t say how she was interviewed, but it’s probably safe to assume it was a virtual interview.

    The scammers sent her a bunch of normal-looking paperwork to fill out and instructed her to verify her identity at a legitimate web portal used by many employers. After she signed in to the portal and gave all her pertinent information, she received a notification that her information was being sent to the California unemployment office. Essentially, the scammers stole her identity out from under her to apply for unemployment benefits in her name.

    If you’re unsure if a job offer is legitimate or not, check the email address the offer was sent from. If the email is from a free service like Gmail or Outlook.com, there’s a good chance the offer may not be real, as most legitimate employers have their own corporate email addresses. You can also go to the company’s website to see if the position you’re being offered is even open.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 2, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    Your Venmo friend may not be your friend 

    Your Venmo friend may not be your friend

    By Greg Collier

    Payment and wallet apps like Venmo have been a great convenience for consumers. They can allow you to make payments to friends or make purchases without having to carry cash or a card that could be easily lost. As a modern society, we seem to be more protective of our phones than our methods of payment. However, we also sometimes seem to forego security over convenience, which has led to a number of these apps being used in scams. Venmo is not a stranger to these scams, but a new scam has emerged which may have Venmo looking at one of its features.

    In our opinion, the major drawback to using Venmo is that by default, your purchases and transactions are available on a public feed. That means anyone who knows your Venmo username can see who you’ve paid and where you’ve shopped. Scammers are well aware of this and are now creating Venmo accounts that look exactly like one of your friends’ accounts. The scammers will then contact their targets asking for money, and once that money leaves your Venmo account, it’s almost impossible to retrieve. Why this public feed is considered a feature on Venmo is beyond us.

    There are steps you can take to make your Venmo account more secure. The first thing you should do is make all your transactions private, which you can find the instructions for here. The second thing you can do is verify with your friends if they’re the ones actually asking you for money. That may require an awkward conversation depending on the situation, but that’s better than losing your money. You should only use apps like Venmo with people you know and verified merchants. Anybody else could be a security threat. Enable two-factor authentication to keep opportunists out of your account if they become in possession of your phone. Lastly, if you have the ability to do so, link a credit card to your account, as it will give you more protection than these apps offer on their own.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 1, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    Your church isn’t calling to arrest you 

    Your church isn't calling to arrest you

    By Greg Collier

    One of the more common scams is the police impersonation scam. As you can probably guess, this is when scammers spoof the police’s phone number and try to convince you that there’s a warrant out for your arrest. The scammers will then pressure you into making a payment over the phone that they claim will make the warrant go away. Usually, they’ll ask for payment in nontraditional and untraceable means, like gift cards or cryptocurrency. It seems that people aren’t exactly picking up phone calls that purport to be from their local police department as much as they used to. Recently, scammers have changed one of their tactics to get their victims to answer the phone.

    In the Springfield area of Missouri, scammers have taken to spoofing the number of a local church to try to get their targets to answer the phone. Churches are no stranger to being used as part of a scam. Often, scammers will send out emails posing as a priest or pastor asking their congregation to buy them gift cards. However, in this instance, the scammers are still posing as police to threaten victims with arrest. While police are allowed to use a certain level of deception when conducting an investigation, It would be a huge PR nightmare for them if they posed as a church to make threatening phone calls.

    The arrest warrant scam at its heart preys on people’s lack of knowledge on how arrests actually work. No law enforcement agency is ever going to call you on the phone if you have a warrant out for your arrest. You might receive a notification in the mail, but more than likely you’ll be visited by the police in person. So, even if your church seems to be calling you, you can’t be arrested over the phone.

    We wonder how long it will be before scammers are able to spoof the numbers of your immediate family members. Once they can do that, almost no phone call will be able to be trusted.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 31, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    Bail bond scam adds insult to injury 

    Bail bond scam adds insult to injury

    By Greg Collier

    Getting a phone call telling you that a loved one has been arrested can be one of the most harrowing experiences you can possibly have. For people in lower-income families, this is especially true, as it puts another financial burden on an already overburdened family. Even the most minor of offenses can set a family back months when it comes to paying the bills. Now imagine getting that call and losing the money you scraped up for bail to scammers.

    If you’re a regular reader, you may think we’re talking about the grandparent scam once again. That’s where scammers pose as a loved one pretending to be in jail and ask for bail money. However, this time, we’re talking about a different scam where the loved one has been actually arrested. In Florida, a man had been arrested for DUI. Since most arrests are publicly available information, scammers called the man’s mother, posing as a bail bonds agency. The scammers told the woman that her son told them to call her and that she needed to pay $900 to bail out her son. The payment was requested in prepaid debit cards. When the woman went to get her son out of jail, she discovered that the bail bonds agency didn’t even exist. She had to go to another bail bondsman to get her son out of jail.

    No matter what you may think of this man’s alleged crime, a family doesn’t need to be victimized like this during what is potentially one of their lowest points. While your family may never have to experience something like this, it’s still better to know what to actually do in such a situation. Keep in mind that bail cannot be paid over the phone, and no bail bondsman will ever call you to make a payment. Your loved one will not receive extra time in jail or further punishment if you take your time to verify their story. Lastly, always work with a licensed bail bondsman. Anyone can call, claiming there a bondsman, but do your research before committing any money.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 30, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Gulf Coast, , hurricane ida, , ,   

    Price gouging, a concern in wake of hurricane 

    By Greg Collier

    With Hurricane Ida touching down in Louisiana, states of emergency have been declared in several Gulf Coast states. Typically, when a state of emergency is declared, laws go into effect that are designed to prevent price gouging. This is when vendors overcharge for products or services in order to maximize profit during a crisis. Historically, you might have seen gas stations and motels charging outlandish prices leading up to or in the wake of a hurricane. Some hardware and grocery stores have also been offenders of this practice in the past.

    Thanks to consumer protection laws in most storm-prone states, price gouging isn’t as much of a problem as it used to be. That’s not to say it still doesn’t happen. For example, if you were to travel to a state that’s not in a state of emergency to ride out the storm, you might encounter price gouging in the safe location. That’s also not to say that some vendors in the emergency areas won’t defy state law and try to gouge customers anyway.

    If you do happen to encounter price gouging, be sure to document it as well as you can. You can then report it to either the local police or the state’s Attorney General’s office. Some states even have price gouging hotlines that you can call if you’ve been victimized by a vendor. A quick web search should show you where price gouging can be reported in your area.

    We hope everyone who is living in the affected storm areas stays safe.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 27, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Vance County   

    County Sheriff fooled by scam 

    County Sheriff fooled by scam

    By Greg Collier

    We often try to warn our readers that anybody can fall for the right scam. Your education and socioeconomic status don’t matter when it comes to con artists. You could be a CEO with a PhD raking in billions of dollars and still fall prey to a virtual kidnapping or romance scam. You could be a CPA and fall for the fake check scam. We’ve even discussed a time when someone from the Better Business Bureau, whose job it is to warn about scams, falling victim to a banking scam. Everybody has a scam with their name on it. If the circumstances are just right for the scammer, just about anybody can be fooled.

    This is exactly what happened to the County Sheriff of Vance County in North Carolina. Vance County is part of the greater Raleigh-Durham metro area, so we’re not talking about some remote and rural county. The Sheriff was at the hospital where his wife was recovering from a major surgery when he received a phone call that was supposedly from his electric company. They told the Sheriff that he was behind on his account and if he didn’t make a payment right then and there, the electric company was going to turn off his power in 30 to 45 minutes.

    Besides being concerned about his wife, the Sheriff was also worried about his dog who was at the house, and the Sheriff didn’t want his dog to fall victim to the extreme Carolina summer heat. With everything that was on his mind, the Sheriff gave the caller his credit card number to ensure that the power going to his home wouldn’t be turned off. It wasn’t until later when the Sheriff was able to gather his thoughts that he realized he had been scammed. He was able to cancel his credit card before the scammers could do anything with it. Thankfully, the Sheriff’s wife is said to be recovering nicely.

    The Sheriff went on to say that because the situation was so stressful, it made him vulnerable to the scam. He added that he’s been warning county residents for years about such scams and wanted his residents to learn from his mistakes and not fall for the scam.

    The majority of power companies in the United States, if not all of them, will not call you to threaten you with termination of service for failure to pay. You’ll receive written statements in the mail letting you know that your account is past due. In the case that someone is unfortunate enough not to be able to make payment, you’ll also receive a written statement letting you know when your power is scheduled to be turned off.

    Again, it only takes a moment for scammers to fool even the most wary of us. Even if it’s an extremely stressful situation, which scammers thrive on, try to take a moment to step back and logically assess the situation before making any kind of payment.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 26, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Donda, Kanye West, , , , unclaimed reward,   

    Scam Round Up: House Deeds, Kanye, and more 

    Scam Round Up: House Titles, Kanye, and more

    By Greg Collier

    We’re back again with a handful of scams that may require your attention. This week, we’re bringing you four scams that have popped up around the country.

    ***

    If you own a home, and you want a copy of your home’s deed, you shouldn’t have to pay to get it. In most counties, you can get a copy of your deed for free at your county’s Register of Deeds’ office, or your county’s equivalent. If there is any cost attached to obtaining your deed, it should only be for the copier and not cost $95. In Tennessee, residents have been receiving letters saying they can get their deed for a $95 fee. Deeds are public records, and the scammers wait for changes to be made to them before sending out the letters offering their service. While not necessarily illegal, if you get one of these letters, shred it and toss it in the recycling.

    ***

    We’re not sure how many of are readers are fans of Kanye West, but he’s been teasing a new album drop for a while now. Scammers are quite aware of this and are using the new album to their advantage. Scammers are setting up websites where they claim you can download Kanye’s new album entitled ‘Donda’. As you might expect, the files you end up downloading contain malware, which can do any number of malicious things to your device. As with any popular media, if you’re purchasing it online, stick to reputable distributors like Apple and Amazon and avoid the shady bootleg sites.

    ***

    Police in Hillsboro, Texas have reported a significant increase in virtual kidnapping calls. Residents there have been receiving phone calls that tell them a loved one has been kidnapped. They’re then instructed to go to Walmart to await further instructions. The scammers will then have the victim send the ‘ransom’ through a money transfer service like MoneyGram that is untraceable once the scammers have their money. If you ever receive a call like this, try not to panic. Instead, reach out to the supposed kidnap victim, and you’ll probably find that they’re ok. You should also notify your local police as well.

    ***

    Lastly, from North Carolina, we have a scam where a man received a letter in the mail that said he had an ‘unclaimed reward’ that was worth $100. The man called the number in the letter and was asked to confirm his identity. He was then asked for his credit card number to pay to have the reward shipped. Thankfully, the man didn’t fall for the scam, but it only takes a handful of people to fall for the scam before it becomes profitable for the scammer.

    ***

    The more people are aware of scams like these, the better prepared they are to prevent them. Please consider sharing this and any of our posts with your friends and family.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 25, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    Military families are often targets of scammers 

    Military families are often targets of scammers

    By Greg Collier

    When we think of scamming victims, we often think of the elderly without a lot of online knowledge or maybe young people with not a lot of real-world experience. Who we may not think of is the immediate family of military members, specifically their spouses. While our men and women of the armed forces are being deployed, it’s up to their spouses to keep everything running as smoothly as possible on the home front. This is made even more difficult if the family has any children. Because a military spouse may be spending a lot of time at home without their partner, it could leave them vulnerable to various scammers.

    For example, the wife of a deployed soldier in Alaska recently found herself the victim of a work at home scam. She was looking to earn extra income for the family and looked online for a position that would allow her to stay home with her children. She found a position in a local Facebook group that ticked all the right boxes. It was an online work from home job that started at $15/hr where you could set your own hours and work would be available for 45 hours a week. After training, the salary would be increased to $20/hr.

    The victim was then sent a check, so she could order supplies. She was given a list of supplies to order and where to order them from. She was told to deposit the check in her own account and when she voiced her concerns about that she was told that this was standard practice.

    The check turned out to be fraudulent after she had spent the money. The family’s bank account was then locked, and now the family finds themselves in $15,000 debt to the bank.

    Please keep in mind that no legitimate employer will ever ask you to deposit company funds into your own bank account. Real employers have accounting and purchasing departments to handle such transactions. If an online employer asks you to deposit a check for business purposes, it’s almost guaranteed that the check is fake.

    This is only one of many scams that military families are vulnerable to. A good rule of thumb not just for military families but for all of us is not to send or receive money from anyone you don’t know.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 24, 2021 Permalink | Reply
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    New moving scam dumps your belongings 

    By Greg Collier

    It wasn’t too long ago that we discussed a moving scam that was taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina. In that scam, illegal moving companies would pack up a person’s belongings, but instead of delivering them to their destination, the con artists would hold the belongings hostage under the pretense of needing additional fees. Now, a similar scam has appeared in the Seattle area, but it seems that the scammers are more interested in quick cash than a long con.

    A woman in King County, Washington was recently taken in one of these scams. She was moving some of her items to another property in Austin, Texas. She had enlisted the services of a moving broker, bur right as she was about to board her flight to Austin, the broker switched to a new moving company. The woman had previously paid the movers with a cashier’s check. The woman arrived in Austin, but her belongings never did. Both the movers and the broker would give excuses before cutting off all contact with her.

    King County Sheriffs believe that her belongings may have been abandoned in a storage unit somewhere in the area. This gives the thieves the opportunity to dump their cargo, so they can immediately move on to another victim. Rather than extortion or trying to sell stolen goods, the illegal movers seem to be more interested in getting the payment more than anything. They tend to ask for payment in cash or cashier’s checks, so the money is virtually untraceable.

    Moving brokers may offer convenience in helping find a moving company, but they can also be just another fly-by-night company. If you’re going to use a broker, make sure they’re registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is part of the US Department of Transportation. Also, you should only use movers that are also registered with the FMCSA.

    If a company gives you an estimate sight unseen, they may also be trying to scam you. Always get at least three estimates from three different movers and get them in writing. Never make payment in full upfront, and make sure that the movers provide full-value protection insurance. Lastly, if anything feels out of the ordinary with your movers, don’t be afraid to go with another company.

     

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