Recent Updates Page 39 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 25, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    Reporter’s home used in rental scam 

    By Greg Collier

    If you’re a rental scammer, the last house you want to use in your scam is probably one which belongs to a police officer. The second to last house a scammer would want to use would most likely belong to a reporter. But that’s precisely what happened to a TV reporter from the Hampton Roads, Virginia area.

    The reporter listed her home for rent on Zillow and only Zillow. After posting her home on Zillow, she received a text from a good Samaritan. The man who texted her said he found her home listed for rent on Craigslist. Not only did the Craigslist ad list the home for a cheaper rent, but the scammer was asking for an $80 application fee. The scammer had reportedly been talking to the man for two days before the man drove over to the property and called the number that was on the ‘for rent’ sign.

    Then the reporter did what reporters do, she began to investigate the phony listing. During her investigation, she also found her home listed for rent on Facebook Marketplace. As you might expect, she called the phone number listed in the phony ads. The scammer said he would meet with her to show her the home and would need $1000 for the security deposit. However, when it came time to meet, the scammer instead sent the reporter a link to the application and asked for the $80 application fee. The reporter even commented on how official looking the application was.

    The reporter called the scammer and asked him how long he owned the home, with the scammer replying two years. She then told the scammer she was both the owner of the home and a reporter. The scammer hung up the call, and when the reporter tried to call back, she only got the voicemail message.

    If you’re looking to rent or sell your home online, there’s not much you can do to prevent it being used in a scam. We have seen online listings where the seller states that the home is not listed on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. That may aid in discouraging renters from falling victim to a rental scam.

    We understand that there may be urgent situations requiring individuals to find a new home swiftly. However, regardless of the circumstances, it is crucial for potential renters to dedicate time to researching a property before making any financial commitments. One essential step is to determine the current rental rates for homes in the desired area. If a particular home seems remarkably affordable, exercising caution is advisable. Engage in a thorough web search using the property’s address to identify any other listings associated with different realtors and rental prices, as scammers often replicate legitimate real estate offers. Additionally, it is prudent to verify the true ownership of the property by consulting the county’s tax assessor office or website. By taking these precautionary measures, individuals can protect themselves from potential rental scams and ensure a safe and informed decision-making process.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 24, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    One more social media scam to watch out for 

    Two more social media scams to watch out for

    By Greg Collier

    Social media platforms have become an integral part of our daily lives. From connecting with friends and family to discovering new trends and ideas, these online spaces offer seemingly endless possibilities. However, amid the allure of likes and follows lies a dark underbelly of deception and exploitation. Social media has become a breeding ground for an untold number of scams. Here is one, which has garnered headlines recently, which you should be on the lookout for.

    There are a few different lost pet scams on social media. This one appeals to our humanity and our desire to help others. Scammers are posting pictures of what appear to be injured cats or dogs. Don’t worry too much. The pictures used in these posts were stolen elsewhere from the internet. We’re pretty sure scammers aren’t actually injuring animals deliberately, but we wouldn’t put it past them.

    Accompanying the pictures are pleas to help find the pet’s owner. There’s also a request to share the post if you don’t know who the owner is. Someone would have to be heartless not to share the post, right? That’s what the scammers are hoping for. Once the post reaches a certain number of shares, the scammers will edit the post to show something else, typically related to some kind of scam. Recently, reports have shown scammers changing the post to sunglasses they’re supposedly selling. In the past, we’ve seen cryptocurrency ads and bank scams replace the original post.

    So, how do you differentiate between a scam post and a legitimate post about a lost or injured pet? Before sharing the post, check to see if the post allows comments. If it doesn’t, that’s a good indicator it might be a scam, as scammers don’t want people telling others the post is a scam. Also check the profile of the person making the post. If their profile has very few friends or is relatively new, those are also good indicators the post may be a scam. You can also check the person’s profile for where they supposedly live. If they live nowhere near where the pet was supposedly found, they’re probably scammers.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 21, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , ,   

    Scammers hope you miss your flight 

    Scammers hope you miss your flight

    By Greg Collier

    If you’ve ever had to travel by air, then you’re probably familiar with flight delays and cancellations. Unfortunately, they’re an inevitable part of flying. Or maybe you got stuck in traffic and missed your flight. When this happens, what’s the first thing you do. For some, it’s to get on the phone with their airline to see if they can reschedule a new flight to get to their destination. But very few people have the customer service number memorized or saved to their phone. So, they’ll Google the airline’s number, and the next thing they know, they’ve paid five times the original ticket price and are still stuck at the airport without an updated flight.

    So, how does something like this happen? A couple of ways, actually. Typically, scammers will buy sponsored listings on search engines to have their fake phone number promoted over the official number. Or they pose as the airline and tell the search engine company that their phony number is the new customer service number.

    When a weary and frustrated traveler calls a scam call center, a scammer, posing as a customer service agent, will tell the traveler they can book them a new flight with no problem. Except, the new ticket costs multiple times more than the original ticket price. Then the scammers will either ask for your payment information, or they’ll ask for an unusual payment method like gift cards or cryptocurrency. As you can probably imagine, they’re not booking anyone a new flight, either.

    If you find yourself in this situation, don’t rely on search engines for phone numbers. Instead, go to the airline’s website and find their customer service number there. If you do call an unauthorized customer service number and the customer service rep doesn’t mention the airline’s name when answering your call, that could be a good indicator you’re talking to a scammer. Lastly, when flying, use a credit card whenever possible. Credit cards offer much more protection than a debit card.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 20, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , ,   

    Scam Round Up: Fake cops threaten tenants and more 

    Scam Round Up: Fake cops threaten tenants and more

    By Greg Collier

    Our first scam of the day comes to us from a warning from the New York City Police Department. The NYPD says they’ve seen an increase in a charity scam that involves Venmo and your phone. Scammers are approaching NYC residents while pretending they’re working for a charity.

    The scammers will ask for a donation through the personal payment app Venmo. The victim will be provided the information to make the donation, but the donation won’t go through. This is when the scammer will ask for the victim’s phone to help them make the donation. Instead, the scammers are sending the entire amount of the victim’s Venmo account to themselves.

    The NYPD is telling residents not to hand their phones over to strangers, especially if they’re asking for donations. Please keep in mind, Venmo was intended to be used between family and friends.

    ***

    We’ve been keeping a close eye on the scams that involve AI-generated voice-spoofing. Scammers will take someone’s voice either from social media or their voicemail message and run it through an AI voice program that will allow them to make someone’s voice say just about anything they want. Typically, voice-spoofing is used in the grandparent and virtual kidnapping scams. In these scams, scammers need the victim to believe they’re talking to a loved one.

    The most recent report we have on this is out of Atlanta, where a mother was confronted with this scam. She received a call she thought was from her adult daughter. She heard her daughter’s voice before someone on the call said her daughter saw something she shouldn’t have and has now been kidnapped. The caller demanded $50,000 in ransom.

    Thankfully, her husband was able to get a hold of her daughter, who was in no real danger.

    If you receive a phone call like this, always try to reach the person who has been supposedly kidnapped through other means. Even if you have a full conversation with someone who sounds just like your loved one, always verify the story. Ask them a question only they would know, or set up a family code word ahead of time that would signify who you were talking to.

    ***

    Residents of Newark, New Jersey, have reported that people posing as police have been going around to tenants and demanding multiple months worth of rent. If the phony officers don’t get the money, they threaten the tenants with eviction and arrest.

    In New Jersey, an eviction can’t be carried out until the landlord has received a judgment in court.

    If you’re renting your home or apartment, you should familiarize yourself with your state’s or county’s eviction process.

    Also, keep in mind, legitimate police will never show up at your door asking for your rent money. If someone claiming to be police does show up at your door, call the police department they’re supposedly from and verify if an officer has been dispatched to your home.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 19, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Grandmother falls prey to puppy scam while gifting grandson 

    Grandmother falls prey to puppy scam while gifting grandson

    By Greg Collier

    A grandmother in North Carolina took in her grandson after the boy’s mother passed away. To give him a better sense of belonging, she decided to buy him a puppy. The grandmother found someone on Facebook who claimed to be selling Yorkshire Terrier puppies. These puppies were even said to be registered with the American Kennel Club (AKC).

    The puppies were being sold for $525, which should have been the first red flag. Purebred Yorkies that are registered with the AKC tend to go for anywhere between $1000 and $3000. The next red flag came in the form of payment the seller requested. She was asked to make the payment in gift cards. The seller instructed her to take pictures of the front and back of the gift cards along with the receipts.

    Then, like in most scams, once the victim makes an initial payment, the scammers try to get more money out of them. In this case, the scammers told the grandmother she needed to pay for a special shipping crate for the puppy, along with insurance and other fees. Before it was all over, she had sent the scammers $5000.

    She received an email that contained information on when the puppy would arrive, but no puppy was ever delivered.

    If you’re thinking about buying a puppy online, this statistic may make you reconsider that. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), more than 80% of social media posts that list puppies for sale are scams.

    When seeking a specific breed, opt for reputable breeders conveniently located within driving distance for an in-person visit. Prioritize meeting the puppy before finalizing the purchase. Before dealing with any local breeder, conduct thorough research to avoid potential risks. Steer clear of puppy mills or backyard breeders, as they often house sick animals with severe health issues.

    But as always, we urge our readers to consider adopting a puppy from your local shelter. Typically, puppies can be obtained from shelters at little to no expense.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 18, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , title loan,   

    Can a scammer take a loan out on your car? 

    Can a scammer take a loan out on your car?

    By Greg Collier

    Not too long ago, we posted a story about how car thieves were cloning vehicle identification numbers (VIN) to put on stolen cars. The thieves would put the stolen VIN on a car of the same make and model before selling it to unsuspecting buyers. More recently, another scam has emerged that also uses VIN cloning, but doesn’t involve stolen cars.

    An elderly couple in Arizona were attempting to sell their truck so they could pay some medical bills. They listed the truck for sale online and found a legitimate buyer. When the couple and the buyer went to the DMV to transfer the title, they were hit with some unusual news. The title couldn’t be transferred because there was a $12,000 lien on the vehicle. The couple said that wasn’t possible since they owned the truck outright and hadn’t taken any loans out on it.

    What had happened is a scammer got a hold of the truck’s VIN, and used it to get the truck transferred to them. The scammer created a bill of sale and forged the truck owner’s name to it. Some of the documentation was even notarized. With the title now in their name, the alleged scammer was able to take the title to a title loan office and got a $4000 loan. As you might expect, the loan was never paid, which led to the $12,000 lien. The truck was even supposed to be repossessed, but the truck couldn’t be found since the scammer never actually had possession of the truck.

    Unfortunately, the couple are still trying to get the matter straightened out with their state’s DMV.

    So, the question remains, how can you protect yourself from this happening to you? The Arizona Department of Transportation recommends selling your vehicle to a dealership to prevent your personal information from getting out. You can also check your state’s DMV website to see if they can check the current status of your title. If they do, it may be worth checking on it every once in a while.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 17, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , ,   

    Job scam uses victims to rob banks 

    Job scam uses victims to rob banks

    By Greg Collier

    Recently, the city of Omaha, Nebraska, experienced a bank robbery and an attempted bank robbery with similar M.O.s. In both instances, a woman handed a phone to the bank teller. The person on the phone threatened the bank tellers into giving money to the person who handed them the phone. Except, the people standing at the teller’s counter had no idea they were being used in a bank robbery. So, how did this happen? We could just say ‘Craigslist’ and leave it at that, but we’ll give our readers a more in-depth explanation.

    According to a local news report, the women who entered the banks had replied to a Craigslist ad looking for someone to help with a sick and elderly relative. Once the women responded to the ad, they were told they would be helping with, “light housework, grocery store runs, and helping with finances.” Don’t you think classifying ‘helping with finances’ as bank robbery is a bit much? Anyway, the women were told they needed to go to the bank to withdraw money for the relative’s medical bills. The women handed the phones to the tellers, thinking their employer was discussing a withdrawal.

    Only one of the women was ‘successful’ and thought nothing of it when the teller handed her the money. That woman was instructed to deposit the money at a Bitcoin ATM.

    To make matters worse, the supposed employer obtained the women’s bank information, promising he would pay them through direct deposit. The scammer did try to steal from one of the victim’s accounts, but was unsuccessful.

    At the time of this writing, no arrest has been made.

    While a scam like this is unlikely to happen to the average jobseeker, it does highlight a couple of red flags when looking for a job online. If your employer only communicates through text messages, instant messaging, or phone call, and won’t meet you personally, there’s an excellent chance they’re a scammer. Also, if the position requires you to make any kind of payment involving cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, there’s an even grater chance the job is a scam.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 14, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , ,   

    Shipping scams increase in wake of online sales season 

    Shipping scams increase in wake of online sales season

    By Greg Collier

    Amazon Prime Day was this past week. It’s become such a staple of the summer shopping season that a number of other online retailers have initiated their own sales which coincide with Prime Day. With so many items being purchased, the majority of shipping companies and the USPS will be extra busy delivering all these packages. This means consumers should expect various shipping scams whether they bought anything or not this week.

    The most common of these scams is the delayed delivery scam. This is where a consumer will receive a text message that claims to typically come from UPS, FedEx, or the USPS. The messages will say that your item could not be delivered for whatever reason. A link will be contained in the message where the recipient will be asked to update their shipping information. More often than not, the phony shipping company will also say there is a service fee involved, and the consumer will be asked for their payment information. While the service fee may be small, it’s really the payment information the scammers are after.

    Scammers don’t actually know whether you made a Prime purchase this week or not. They send out these text messages en masse, hoping to catch a few victims. Any unsolicited text message with a link in it should be treated as suspect. However, if you are expecting an important delivery and want to make sure there are no delivery issues, use the shipping company’s app or website to address any concerns. Clicking on links in suspicious messages could lead to having your phone infected with malware, spyware, or ransomware.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 13, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    County official targeted in AI scam 

    By Greg Collier

    We’ve come across yet another story where an AI-generated voice has been used in a scam. This time it took place in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. There, a county official received a phone call she thought was coming from her daughter. The voice on the other end sounded exactly like her daughter, and was sobbing and crying. Then a man got on the call and claimed to be a police officer. That man said that the daughter caused a car accident after looking at her phone while driving. It wasn’t long before the man asked for $15,000 bail. Thankfully, while this was going on, the woman got a text message from her actual daughter, which spoiled the scam.

    Regular readers will recognize this as the grandparent scam. It was initially called that because scammers would target the elderly and pose as one of the victim’s grandchildren. Now, ‘grandparent scam’ is a misnomer because more recently, scammers have been targeting parents as well. This is thanks to the advancement of AI technology lately. Scammers now have the capability of spoofing the voice of just about anyone they want and making it say whatever they want. This makes a scam that was concerning at first, absolutely terrifying now. Before voice-spoofing, a scammer would have to try to imitate a loved one while claiming they had some kind of injury which made their voice sound different, such as a broken nose. Now, scammers don’t even have to bother. All they need now is a few seconds of someone’s voice they can take from a video on social media.

    But as always, If you receive a distressing call from a supposed loved one who claims they’re in some kind of trouble, it is critical to verify their situation by contacting them directly. Scammers will try to keep you on the phone by threatening arrest if you hang up or claiming there is some kind of gag order. Nothing is keeping you from hanging up on the phone call to verify the story with your family or friends. Even if you’re convinced you’re hearing your loved one’s voice, always verify the story before making any kind of payment is even considered.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 12, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Beware the parking lot stranger with a bag of cash 

    Beware the parking lot stranger with a bag of cash

    By Greg Collier

    Recently, we came across a news article about a man who was arrested in the Washington, D.C. area for allegedly taking part in pigeon drop scams. We had never heard of the pigeon drop scam before, so we were intrigued. The articles we read about this man’s arrest didn’t go into great detail on how the scam worked, other than the man was said to have been in possession of $20,000 in counterfeit money and a letter from a phony law firm that said the man had inherited over $700,000.

    After doing some more research, we found out the pigeon drop scam is one of the older scams going on. The term “pigeon drop” comes from the world of con artists and scamming, specifically referencing the act of tricking or “dropping” a pigeon, which is slang for an easy target or a naive person. Also, from the context of the news article, this is how we think the suspect was allegedly stealing from his victims.

    One of the more popular versions of the pigeon drop scam is when the scammer approaches their victim in public. This encounter usually takes place in a parking lot. The scammer tells the victim he’s from another country, but recently inherited a great deal of money. A letter from a law office is shown to the victim, which shows the amount supposedly inherited. Except, for whatever reason, the scammer can’t take the money back to his country. So, instead, he needs help donating the money to charity.

    ‘Coincidentally’, another person walks by whom the scammer tells the same story to. However, this is no random person. It’s actually the scammer’s accomplice. If the victim is willing to help the scammer, the accomplice will act as if they want to help too. But here’s the catch. The scammer requires proof that the two people won’t just run off with the money, so the two people need to withdraw money from their own accounts as collateral. The pair will go to a bank or ATM together to get their collateral. Once they’ve done that, the scammer places both people’s collateral in a bag. It could be a duffle bag, a purse, a briefcase, what have you.

    Now that the victim has the scammer’s ‘trust’, the scammer gives the bag of money, which is also supposed to contain the victim’s collateral. When the victim opens the bag after the scammer has left, the victim typically finds bundles of newspaper cut up to resemble stacks of dollar bills. However, since movie prop money is so easy to come by these days, that has replaced newspaper. Plus, it makes the scam seem more legitimate.

    Another version of this scam is when the scammer approaches a victim, asking them if they dropped a wallet or purse containing a large amount of money.

    So if a stranger approaches you in a parking lot talking about inheritances or lost wallets, just tell them you’re sorry, but you’re in a hurry. Remember, no one is going to give you more money for less money.

     

← Older posts

Newer posts →

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel