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  Greg Collier 10:37 am on January 10, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Dallas Cowboys, NFL ( 10 ), OfferUp ( 23 ), Scams ( 1,663 ), tickets ( 17 )   

  Man loses close to $1000 on fake Cowboys playoff tickets from OfferUp 

  

  With the NFL season getting ready to draw to a close a number of teams still in the hunt for that elusive Super Bowl Championship. One of those teams is the Dallas Cowboys who came out victorious against the Seattle Seahawks this past weekend. Tickets for the NFL playoffs game are selling at a premium no matter which team you may be rooting for but as one Cowboys fan found out not all ticket sellers are legitimate.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi0Uwj1TlDA%5D

  While many Cowboys fans were watching America’s Team beat the Seahawks this past Saturday, one man and his girlfriend were turned away the gate of AT&T Stadium for having phony tickets. The man had purchased the tickets from a seller he had found through the marketplace app OfferUp for $900. The seller was said to have not only produced legitimate looking tickets to the game but also produced a receipt and credit card that had numbers matching those used to originally purchased the tickets. Sadly, as we posted about at the beginning of this NFL season, this scam has become all too common. More than likely the scammer purchased the tickets using a stolen credit card before the card was reported stolen. The tickets are then issued before the credit card is reported stolen and once the card is reported stolen the tickets are made null and void. However, since the tickets appear to be the genuine article fans looking to get into a high demand game are being taken for a fortune.

  Much like any other item you may purchase through a classifieds site or app, there are steps you can take to prevent yourself from being swindled. For example, you can ask the seller to meet you at a local police station since many stations have areas set up for just such a transaction. You can also try to take a picture of the seller prior to the transaction. If the seller protests at any of this then the tickets advertised may not be your best bet. In the long run, don’t let your passion for your favorite team cloud your judgment when it comes to buying expensive tickets. Most times you’re better off buying the tickets from the box office or authorized resellers.

   

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  Greg Collier 10:40 am on January 9, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android ( 8 ), Facebook ( 182 ), Samsung ( 4 ), smart phones ( 14 )   

  Many Android users can’t delete Facebook even if they wanted to 

  

  Nothing is more frustrating to an android user than when you have limited storage space and there are bloatware apps on your device that can’t be deleted. A number of phone companies include these indestructible apps in order to make money through various partnerships by nudging their customers into using these apps. However, unlike a computer where you can delete just about anything, many Android users are locked into these apps for the life of their device. Now, it’s being reported that a company not known for its security or privacy is allegedly paying at least one major phone manufacturer into making its app irremovable.

  Bloomberg has reported that Facebook is not only coming pre-installed on many of Samsung’s flagship phones but that the Facebook app can’t be deleted as well. While the app can be put in a disabled app that hasn’t stopped Samsung customers from being concerned about what personal data may have been sent to Facebook. Considering Facebook’s less than stellar year when it came to privacy and security, this seems to be a valid concern. Facebook claims that when their app is in disabled mode that it’s the same as if the app had been deleted. That’s not reassuring to many users who want the app off of their phone for good which puts Samsung in an anti-consumer light even though Samsung has said they’re trying to give consumers the best out of the box experience.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWyv3AEX_Lg%5D

  Unfortunately, Samsung isn’t the only manufacturer that includes permanent apps and Facebook isn’t the only company pushing them. Most cellular carriers include apps for their various services that can’t be deleted as does Google who created and maintains the Android operating system. While Facebook may be taking the brunt of criticism right now it’s just a symptom of a larger problem where consumers do not have the freedom to do what they want with the phones that they’ve paid for. Considering how expensive some of these devices are shouldn’t the choice of whether or not the customer wants to have Facebook on their phone be left up to them?

   
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  Greg Collier 10:00 am on January 8, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apple ( 35 ), iPhone ( 16 ), phishing ( 92 ), Scams ( 1,663 )   

  iPhone users receiving spoofed calls from Apple in latest phishing attack 

  

  Another sophisticated scam seems to be targeting Apple users once again. In the past few weeks, we’ve posted about how one phishing attack targeted Mac users by directing users to log into a site that looks like Apple’s website but then steals your Apple user ID and Password. Then we posted about another scam where a phony app from the iOS App Store posed as an app to help you get an Amazon Echo activated but instead asked you for more information than such an app needed. Now, an even more insidious scam is targeting iPhone users once again.

  In this latest attack, iPhone users are reporting receiving calls that appear to come from Apple’s official support number. An automated message then informs the iPhone user that Apple user IDs have been compromised and directs the user to call a different toll-free number. The additional phone number appears to go overseas and may be connected to a team of scammers who may be trying to obtain personal information, money for ‘fixing’ the problem, or both.

  As can be expected with these types of scams, Apple has said that they never call their customers out of the blue like this. With the ever-increasing advent of spoofed phone numbers and robocalling, these scams are becoming more prevalent by the day> many of these scams seem to be disproportionately targeting Apple users since Apple devices can be rather expensive which in turn can make Apple users lucrative targets. If you’re an iPhone user and you receive a call like this, call Apple back directly and do not call the number from the automated message. You worked hard to be able to afford that iPhone so why let someone take advantage of you?

   
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  Greg Collier 10:00 am on January 7, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: check scam ( 85 ), gift cards ( 108 ), Scams ( 1,663 ), secret shopper ( 15 ), shimming, white van scam   

  Shimming, white vans, and employment scams 

  

  Today, we’re bringing you three scams from around the country that may also affect you in your area.

  The first is what’s called shimming. If you’re the type that wiggles the card slots at gas pumps and ATMs to check for card skimmers, you have a new concern about your credit card. Much like skimming, in shimming the scammers place a device in the card reader that reads the new security chips on credit and debit cards instead of the magnetic strip. If you’re thinking the new chips were supposed to make cards more secure you are correct, however, the scammers were quick to crack the chip. One of the ways you can tell if a card reader you’re using has been shimmed is if the card feels too tight when put into the card reader. If so, cancel the transaction immediately.

  [youtube https://youtu.be/5PXhE0yP18M%5D

  The second scam we have today is a scam that predates the internet but is still going on today. It’s called the white van scam and usually involves knock off or stolen electronics. Back in the pre-internet era, this scam would involve someone trying to sell you stereo components at a steep discount but now the scam usually offers discounted ‘high end’ TVs or other modern electronics. The scammers will claim that they work for a legitimate retailer or company and say that they have too much inventory and need to sell these units at a discounted price. As with most scams, they will try to pressure you hard into purchasing one of the items from their vehicle. These scammers tend to target their victims in strip mall parking lots and other locations near ATMs.

  Lastly, the secret shopper employment scam has made the news again. While many retailers do employ secret shoppers to review the work retail staff, these jobs aren’t as readily available as the internet may have you think. Recently, a woman from Greensboro, North Carolina, almost fell for this scam. The so-called secret shopper service sent her a check for thousands of dollars and asked her to use the money to buy gift cards at retailers. She was then supposed to send the gift cards back to the secret shopping service and keep some of the money for herself as payment. Of course, there are two red flags that the woman noticed and that was the fact of the scammers asking her to deposit a check and send them gift cards. Both are well-known scams as if she had deposited the phony check and spent the money she would have been responsible for the money owed to her bank. Not only that but the scammers would have received the gift cards and used the fraudulently purchased gift cards as they saw fit.

   
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  Greg Collier 10:06 am on January 4, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: crowdfunding ( 3 ), gofundme ( 10 ), New Jersey ( 7 ), Scams ( 1,663 )   

  NJ proposes crowdfunding scam law after GoFundMe debacle 

  

  If you’ll recall, you may remember hearing a story in the news about a New Jersey couple who raised close to $500,000 on crowdfunding site GoFundMe in order to help a homeless veteran that they claimed showed them kindness in a time of distress. The story made national headlines and even resulted in the trio being interviewed on several national news reports. Then as the months went by after the story was initially reported it was discovered that most of the story was fake. The man was a homeless veteran but he was talked into the scam by the couple. Now, all three are facing charges of fraud. GoFundMe has stated that there is very little fraud on their platform and have refunded donors to the fraudulent campaign and vow to assist law enforcement when it comes to phony campaigns. Now, one New Jersey legislator is trying to make it so it never reaches that point.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sTxXEzPrxI%5D

  New Jersey State Assemblyman Ron Dancer has introduced a bill that would increase the penalties for crowdfunding theft in the Garden State. The bill calls for a $500 fine for each fraudulent contribution collected. Considering how many people donated to the fraudulent campaign that could rack up a very hefty fine in no time. The bill also suggests that the money collected through fines could be used to assist New Jersey citizens who are in danger of losing their homes. While the law is noble in its intentions could it have unintended consequences? Could it be applied to failed campaigns on sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo if the campaign failed to deliver its promised product? If so then the bill would definitely need some fine tuning.

  As far as consumers go, should you be wary of crowdfunding campaigns like this? Absolutely. While GoFundMe maintains that fraud is low on their platform that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent. If a story sounds too good to be true or farfetched it probably is. You don’t have to donate to a campaign just because everyone else is. While it’s important to be charitable when someone is down on their luck it’s just as important to protect yourself from being fleeced by a phony sob story.

   
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  Greg Collier 10:19 am on January 3, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Ajit Pai ( 20 ), FCC ( 30 ), net neutrality ( 32 )   

  Ajit Pai celebrates bipartisan defeat of net neutrality, except that’s not what happened 

  

  If you’re old enough to remember the second Gulf War you may remember that Saddam Hussein had a spokesperson who would frequently appear in the media making outrageous claims about how the then dictator of Iraq was going to defeat the US Armed Forces while tanks were rolling into Baghdad. His statements were so outlandish that the American Media nicknamed him Comical Ali. Now it seems that FCC Chairman has taken a page out of his playbook.

  After Congress failed to reinstate net neutrality protections during their latest session, Pai released the following statement to the media…

  “I’m pleased that a strong bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulation,” Pai said in a statement. “They did the right thing — especially considering the positive results for American consumers since the adoption of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.”

  Except, that’s not even remotely close to what happened. While Pai makes it sound like there was unilateral support for his ironically named Restoring Internet Freedom Order that’s not what happened. As Ars Technica points out…

  The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules, but the repeal could have been reversed by Congress if it acted before the end of its session. Democrats won a vote to reverse the repeal in the Senate but weren’t able to get enough votes in the House of Representatives before time ran out.

  So, it wasn’t bipartisan support as much as it was the Democrats not being able to get enough votes in the Senate. That’s not bipartisan support, that’s just Congress voting along party lines.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhNV15CiULE%5D

  Sadly, this is just a symptom of a larger problem within this administration as the current regime seems to have an edict that if you tell the same lies long enough they’ll become perceived as truth. It’s hard to think of another administration that represents the dystopian future of George Orwell’s 1984 any more than the current one.

   
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  Greg Collier 10:15 am on January 2, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Amazon ( 114 ), make money on Amazon, marketing ( 3 )   

  It’s not that easy to make money on Amazon 

  

  Have you ever come across an ad online that poses as an employment ad promising that you can make money beyond your wildest dreams? Usually, these ads are for Multi Level Marketing schemes or MLMs. MLMs usually require you to buy a certain amount of the product they’re trying to sell and then you have to not only try to sell the product but you have to try to get your friends to become marketers too. What these MLMs don’t tell you is that it’s almost mathematically impossible to get people underneath you on the MLM ladder to recruit more marketers. Now there’s a newer ploy that borrows heavily from MLMs and involves the biggest online retailer in the world, Amazon.

  According to The Atlantic, there is a cottage industry of people who want to teach you how to make incredulous wealth by becoming a third-party seller on Amazon. These classes are said to teach you how to sell cheap products made in China on Amazon for a huge markup. These so-called Amazon entrepreneurs often display the money they’ve made off of Amazon and imply that you can make the same kind of money. In reality, they’re usually more interested in getting you to sign up for their classes which can be priced in the thousands of dollars. If you search YouTube for how to make money on Amazon, you’ll find scores of videos like this.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xbzdWNoAoQ%5D

  Much like the MLMs, these Amazon whisperers like to target people who are desperate to make a large amount of money quickly. Now to be fair, it is possible to make money on Amazon this way, however, it’s a very risky venture that could cause you to sink more money into the process and not see a lot of return. When dealing with any kind of financial investment you should never risk more than you can afford to lose since there are no guarantees that the investment will be successful. If you’re struggling to make ends meet then something like this is not for you as it requires a hefty initial investment of money that you probably can’t afford to lose. Remember, there really is no such thing as getting rich quick.

   
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  Greg Collier 10:13 am on December 31, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 182 ), privacy ( 46 ), Privacy International   

  Popular apps sharing data with Facebook without users’ permission 

  

  It only seems fitting that we close out 2018 with another story about Facebook’s questionable data handling practices. 2018 was a tumultuous year, to say the least. It all started with the Cambridge Analytica scandal and just went downhill from there. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress which ended up not leading to much after giving his robotic-like testimony. Then more data breaches became public knowledge which resulted in the potential exposure of millions of users’ data to third parties. Then that all was followed up with Facebook allegedly authorizing a smear campaign of its biggest detractors. Now a report has surfaced that only seems to compound Facebook’s privacy problems.

  A privacy watchdog group called Privacy International studied many of the most popular apps on Android devices. Their findings concluded that a majority of the apps they studied send user data to Facebook. While that’s not really surprising the surprising part is that not only are these apps sending data to Facebook the moment you open the app but you also don’t have to have a Facebook account for the apps to send data about you. Some of the apps in the study included travel apps Kayak and Trip Advisor but also fitness app MyFitnessPal. While Facebook may not have instructed these apps to send the data, they’re not exactly discouraging it either.

  If you’re concerned about Facebook using your personal information, The Detroit News has a great article about what you can do to limit Facebook’s access to your data. Some of these steps include reviewing the privacy permissions you grant your most frequently used apps and minimizing your Facebook presence. While it’s difficult in today’s digital world of keeping all your data out of the hands of companies like Facebook, it’s not impossible to limit that amount of information just by taking the time to stop and read what permissions you’re granting these services.

   
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  Greg Collier 10:00 am on December 28, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Alexa ( 4 ), Amazon ( 114 ), Apple ( 35 ), apps ( 15 ), Echo ( 3 ), Scams ( 1,663 )   

  Fake Alexa app invades Apple app store 

  

  If you were one of the scores of people who received the Amazon Echo for Christmas, you may want to make sure it was set up correctly. When you first set up your Echo device you need to use a smartphone or tablet app that is directly from Amazon itself. If you used a third-party app that wasn’t from Amazon you may have divulged a little more information that you should have and not to Amazon.

  It was reported yesterday that an app called “Setup for Amazon Alexa” rushed to the top of the Apple App Store’s popular apps after Christmas. The problem with this app is that not only was it not from Amazon but the app asked for much more information that should be given to a random app from the App Store, but you had to give it permission to collect all sorts of data from your iPhone or iPad in order to get your Echo to ‘work’. Of course, the app didn’t actually activate an Echo and received many complaints from Apple users.

  This is unusual for Apple as they have a very stringent process for allowing apps into their App Store. The app has since been pulled from the store but more than likely the damage has already been done to iOS users who already installed the malicious app to their Apple devices. If you are setting up any kind of device in your home that requires a mobile app to activate the device, always use the app from the manufacturer. If you’re having trouble finding it in the app store, go to the manufacturer’s website and they should have a link to the app you need. Below is a video showing you the proper way to activate your Amazon Echo.

  Beware the activation fee scam for new devices | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Greg Collier 10:00 am on December 27, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Christmas ( 16 ), gift cards ( 108 ), Scams ( 1,663 )   

  Gift cards may not be the greatest gift idea anymore 

  

  We’ve talked about gift card scams many times before, but usually, they were about how you should never pay for any online classifieds transaction using gift cards. The reason for that is once you give the fake seller your gift card numbers the scammers then empty the balance of the gift card and never ship the item. Now, with the Christmas holiday behind us and many of us giving or receiving gift cards, there’s a newer scam that consumers should be concerned about.

  If you received a gift card as a present this year, you may want to use it as quick as you can. With this newer scam thieves are getting the numbers off of the gift cards before they’re even purchased. The scammers then monitor the card numbers waiting for the cards to be activated. Once the card is activated the scammers are able to easily and quickly deplete the card of funds. In most cases, there’s little the card vendors or the store that sold them can do.

  While no tip is foolproof, there are ways to better protect yourself when purchasing gift cards. First, you should inspect the sticker or strip that covers the card number and make sure it hasn’t been tampered with and make sure the strips match those of the other gift cards on the rack. You can also try selecting a card from the middle or back of the rack as it’s more difficult for scammers to replace those cards. However, if you really want to give a last-minute gift that you don’t have to worry about, you can always give cash.

  Double craigslist scam and more | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments