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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 11, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: identity theft ( 111 ), impersonation scam ( 165 ), mail fraud ( 23 ), Scams ( 1,460 ), social security ( 30 )   

  New Social Security scam uses old form of contact 

  

  By Greg Collier

  For a few years now, there have been scams that threaten to suspend a victim’s Social Security number. In one of the more common instances of these scams, scammers will call their victims, posing as either law enforcement or the Social Security Administration. Typically, the scammers will their victims that their Social Security number was used in the commission of a crime. The scammers will often tell their victims that a car was rented near the Southern Border using their Social Security number and that drugs were found in the car. If the victims don’t pay an immediate fine, their Social Security number will be suspended and they could face possible prosecution.

  Before we get to the new version of this scam, we’d like to reassure our readers that none of these things can happen. A Social Security number cannot be suspended, and neither the police nor the SSA will ever call you to threaten you with arrest.

  As we said, typically this scam is done over the phone. However, a new version of this scam is using an older method of communication that makes the scam appear more legitimate. People have recently reported receiving letters in the mail that threaten them with the suspension of their Social Security number. The letters claim to be from the SSA and threaten the recipient with suspension in 24 hours. The letters go on to say that due to criminal activity in Texas, the victim’s Social Security number is involved in a multimillion dollar fraud. The letter then directs the recipient to call a toll-free number to settle matters.

  According to news reports, the letters contain clues that it’s a scam. For example, the letters aren’t addressed to anyone by name. The letters also use the European date format, which uses the date first and then the month. That’s not even taking into account that how can a number be suspended in 24 hours if the sender has no idea when the letter will get there?

  While the SSA does its legitimate communications through the mail, any letter that claims to be from them that comes off as threatening should be questioned. No recipient should ever call the phone number in the letter, as it will go to a scammer looking to steal the victim’s money and identity. Instead, call the SSA directly at 1-800-772-1213.

   

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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 10, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook Marketplace ( 66 ), real estate ( 132 ), rental scam ( 88 ), Scams ( 1,460 ), zillow ( 16 )   

  Rental scammers get more creative 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Scams can almost be considered living organisms unto themselves. They constantly adapt and evolve, so they can survive and multiply. Take the rental scam for example. Not too long ago, rental scammers would just claim that they were the landlords to a property but couldn’t be there in person since they were doing missionary work overseas. They would then have their victims send payment through money transfer services. Then consumers started catching on to the scam. From there, the rental scam has branched off into an untold number of scams with different methodologies designed to extract the maximum amount of money from their victims.

  In Blount County, Tennessee, the Sheriff’s Office is warning its residents about a rental scam that took place through Facebook Marketplace. The victim found a home for rent on Marketplace. The victim also saw that the home was listed as for rent on Zillow. Rather than contacting the realtor listed on Zillow, the victim went back to Marketplace and responded to the scammer.

  The scammer even went as far as to set up a walkthrough for their victim using the realtor listed on Zillow. But again, the victim kept going back to the Marketplace scammer where they were instructed to send a $1000 deposit through a Bitcoin ATM.

  The victim probably kept going back to the Marketplace scammer because the Marketplace listing had a lower rent in that listing. If there are two listings for the same property that have differing rent amounts, the listing with the lower amount is almost guaranteed to be a scam listing. Prospective renters should also avoid sending deposits through nontraditional means like cryptocurrency or payment apps like Venmo and Zelle.

  Selecting a new home should never be a rash decision because of what may look like a good deal. When dealing with multiple listings for the same property, the one being shown through a realtor rather than some stranger off the internet is probably the valid one. When in doubt, you can always check with the county’s tax office or website that can provide you the correct information about who owns the property.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 9, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: change of address ( 3 ), mail fraud ( 23 ), mail theft ( 11 ), Scams ( 1,460 ), USPS ( 14 )   

  Scam steals your mail without coming to your home 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Previously, we’ve discussed scams that involve stealing your mail from your mailbox. Check washing is a major problem with that. Scammers steal mail for a number of reasons, but mostly for identity theft reasons. Even junk mail can open an avenue into your personal information to scammers. However, there are some scammers who don’t even need to go to your home to steal your mail.

  The state of Wisconsin is warning its residents to be aware if they stop receiving mail at their homes. Scammers there are said to be using USPS’ change of address options to have victims’ mail delivered straight to the scammers. . Just about anyone can go to the post office and change someone’s mailing address.

  When someone does fill out a change of address form, the USPS sends a confirmation letter to the old address letting residents know that their mailing address is about to change. While you can check your mailbox every day, a lot of us aren’t home during the day, and scammers have been known to stalk their victims’ mailboxes and take what they need, this could include the confirmation letter.

  However, if you do receive the confirmation letter, and you haven’t changed your address, go to the post office immediately and report it.

  A good way to protect yourself from this scam is to switch to paperless banking and bills. Another good way is to sign up for the USPS’s Informed Delivery service. It’s free, and every day you receive postal mail, you’ll receive an email with pictures of your scanned mail letting you know what to expect in that day’s mail. That way, you can see if a change of address letter has been sent to you before someone can take it from your mailbox.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 6, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: arrest warrant ( 26 ), expert witness scam ( 2 ), jury duty scam ( 33 ), Scams ( 1,460 )   

  Scammers are too deep into our personal lives 

  

  By Greg Collier

  As we’ve said before, if we were asked what the most common scam is, we’d have to say the arrest warrant scam. Scammers across the country pose as law enforcement, including spoofing their phone numbers to make it look like police are calling their victims. The scammers tell their victims that they owe some kind of fine and need to pay it immediately or get arrested. The most common form of this scam is where victims are told they’ve missed jury duty.

  Usually, that’s enough for a victim to pay the scammer money. However, there is a variation of this scam that targets professionals. For example, if a victim ever had to testify in court as an expert witness, you could be targeted for this scam.

  In North Carolina, a woman was targeted in just such a scam. She’s a physical therapist who had testified in a lawsuit as an expert witness about a client of hers who had been injured in a car crash. The scammers used publicly available information to convince her she had missed a required court appearance. She was told that her physical therapist license could be in jeopardy if she did not pay a court fine immediately over the phone. She was also told that her phone was being tracked and that she couldn’t talk to anyone else about the fine because of a gag order.

  The scammers then sent her through an ordeal to get the money she needed to pay this fictitious fine. She withdrew the money from her bank, and the bank teller even commented on the large withdrawal. The victim replied she couldn’t comment on it because she was still on the phone with the scammers, thinking they were police.

  She was instructed to drive to five different Walmarts to send the money in smaller payments, more than likely through a money transfer service. She was also told that she needed to set up an appointment for a signature verification test. If her signature did not match the one on the subpoena, she would get her money back. So, she thought she would go to the police department to make the appointment.

  At this point, the scammers tried to get her to stay in her car. They told her she could be arrested if she went inside, since there was an active warrant for her arrest. She didn’t listen to them and went inside, where police told her she had been scammed. The victim had lost over $10,000 in the scam.

  Just because someone has a lot of information about you, that doesn’t make them the police. As shown in this story, even just a little bit of publicly available information can be used to scam victims. In many other scams, the scammers have used private information, such as the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security number or credit card. This information is usually gathered after a data breach and can be bought on the dark web. They can even use information that they’ve gathered from a victim’s social media accounts. While a scammer may know a lot about you, that doesn’t make them an authority on you and should be hung up on.

  Please keep in mind, police would never call someone and threaten them with arrest if they didn’t pay them immediately. If a victim did owe a fine or court cost, they wouldn’t be asked to go to Walmart or any other store to make the payment. And gag orders are only applied to participants in an ongoing court case, not people who haven’t even been arrested yet. Anytime something feels wrong on a phone call, hang up and call the department or business they claim to be calling from.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 5, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: army, Cash App ( 42 ), military ( 12 ), pay scam, Scams ( 1,460 ), venmo ( 29 )   

  Pay scam targets junior military members 

  

  By Greg Collier

  For the newest members of our nation’s military, life can be rough. A bunch of 18-year-olds are embarking on their first journey into the real world while being shipped to any number of training camps states away from their homes and family. Now, imagine these fresh recruits with little life experience are being targeted in a scam designed to steal their money. You can hardly blame them for falling victim to such a scam.

  Fort Huachuca in Arizona, Fort Benning in Georgia, and West Point military academy, are all warning new recruits about a pay scam that leaves their victims without money. Scammers are posing as high-ranking military officials and calling the recruits to tell them that there is something wrong with their pay. The recruits are then instructed that in order to receive their pay and back pay, the recruit needs to first send money through Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, PayPal, or Apple Pay. Recruits who hesitate on sending the money are threatened with disciplinary action. According to one report, 74 soldiers have recently lost a total of $143,000 to pay scammers.

  According to the Army, if there really was an issue with a recruit’s pay, the matter would be handled at the recruit’s supporting military pay office. Even when serving in the military, no one should ever have to pay money to get money. Anyone who is asking a recruit to do so is more than likely a scammer. If you’ve been affected by this scam, the Army requests that you report it immediately to your chain of command. A complaint can also be filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

  If you have a friend or family member who recently entered the service, no matter which branch they’re serving with, you may want to share this story with them. Serving our country is already a difficult task. Our men and women of the armed services should not have to deal with scammers like this.

   
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  Geebo 9:02 am on January 4, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: charity scam ( 37 ), Damar Hamlin, gofundme ( 10 ), Scams ( 1,460 )   

  Beware of fake charities in injured NFL player’s name 

  

  By Greg Collier

  By now, most of us have heard about the devastating injury that happened to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin during Monday night’s game. For those who may not know, Damar collapsed on the field during the Bills’ game at Cincinnati. Damar was attempting to tackle a Bengals player when he took a helmet to the chest. While the hit didn’t appear to be that hard, it had enough of an impact to send Damar into cardiac arrest. He rose from the field after the hit before collapsing. As of the time of this writing, Damar Hamlin remains in critical condition and is on a ventilator.

  Prior to his injury, Damar had set up a GoFundMe that would help children affected by the pandemic in his Pennsylvania hometown of McKees Rocks to get toys for Christmas. However, Damar’s GoFundMe has now been set up to help Damar fight his current battle, as his family put it. Thanks to the generosity of the American public, Damar’s GoFundMe has raised over $5 million.

  His family has also stated that Damar’s GoFundMe is the only fund being used by his family. To that end, a representative for Damar has said that scam accounts have shown up claiming to collect money for Damar. There is also a warning to avoid donating money to any Venmo or Cash App accounts that are claiming to be collecting money for Damar Hamlin.

  We here at Geebo.com would like to offer our thoughts to Damar Hamlin’s family at this time, and we’re hoping for his recovery.

  If you’d like to donate to Damar’s GoFundMe, you can do so here.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 3, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: cryptocurrency ( 53 ), FTX, recovery scam ( 8 ), recovery service ( 8 ), Scams ( 1,460 )   

  Crypto scam victims continue to be victimized 

  

  By Greg Collier

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

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

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

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

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

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

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on January 2, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: advance fee scam ( 46 ), job scam ( 82 ), lottery scam ( 13 ), parking scam ( 3 ), police impersonation scam ( 74 ), police scam ( 38 )   

  Scam Round Up: Parking ticket scam and more 

  

  By Greg Collier

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

  ***

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

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

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

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

  ***

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

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

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

  ***

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

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

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

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

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on December 30, 2022 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: American Express, Facebook ( 181 ), gift cards ( 103 ), Macy's, Microsoft ( 21 ), pop-ups ( 27 ), recovery service ( 8 ), Scams ( 1,460 ), social media ( 85 ), tech support scam ( 52 )   

  Scammers try to scam victim again 

  

  By Greg Collier

  In the 1984 sci-fi classic ‘The Terminator’, one of the protagonists describes the Terminator by saying, “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever.” That’s an apt description of scammers as well. They will use any opportunity to scam someone, no matter what the cost may be to the victim. And if that victim has been scammed before, then that just means they can be scammed again, according to scammers. Even if the intended victim didn’t fall for the scam, that doesn’t mean scammers won’t try to scam them again.

  A Rhode Island widow says she was scrolling Facebook on her computer when she started receiving a number of pop-ups that said her computer was infected and to call Microsoft at the number listed. Avid readers of this blog will recognize this as the pop-up scam. The phone number doesn’t actually go to Microsoft and instead goes to a scammer’s call center.

  After calling the number, the widow was told that her American Express card had been compromised, and she was about to be charged $16,000 for a fraudulent purchase. She was then connected to another scammer posing as an American Express agent. That scammer told her she would need to buy $8000 in Macy’s gift cards to override the fraudulent charge. The victim went and bought the gift cards while the scammer stayed on the line with her.

  The scammer told her to scratch the backs of the cards and give him the code numbers. The victim gave him one before realizing this may be a scam. Instead of giving the remaining numbers to the scammer, she went to the police. But the story doesn’t end there.

  The victim didn’t want anyone else to fall victim to the same scam she did. She posted a warning about it on Facebook. It didn’t take long for her to receive a comment from another scammer. This scammer said that the FBI helped them get their money back and the victim would need to text a phone number left by the scammer. The supposed FBI agent kept asking the victim for personal information in exchange for assistance. Thankfully, the victim realized this was a scam and ceased all communications with the scammer. Scammers never stop scamming.

  While the first scam is one that we’ve gone into detail before, the second scam is not so well known. That scam looks for scam victims on social media, and will try to send victims to a phone number or social media account that can supposedly help a victim get their money back. This is just another scam. Once money is lost to a scam, no recovery service can get it back, no matter how much someone promises you they can.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on December 29, 2022 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: real estate ( 132 ), Scams ( 1,460 ), zillow ( 16 )   

  $200K property almost sold out from under owner 

  

  By Greg Collier

  A man from Raleigh, North Carolina almost had a $200,000 plot of land he owns sold out from under him. The man has owned the property since the 1980s, so he’s probably not in the market to sell it. You may imagine his surprise when he received a message from a realtor, asking him if he was selling the property.

  The realtor contacted the owner because the realtor had been contacted by someone claiming to be the owner. The impostor was even said to have presented a North Carolina driver’s license in the owner’s name. The reason the realtor contacted the true owner of the property was because the impostor’s story didn’t add up. The impostor allegedly said he was selling the property because he needed quick cash to buy a home in Michigan.

  However, that apparently didn’t stop the scammer, as they were able to convince another realtor to list the property on Zillow. A listing on Zillow with a realtor’s name behind it makes the listing look as legitimate as possible. That realtor even started receiving offers for the property. Thankfully, the owner got the realtor to take down the listing.

  If a fraudulent sale had gone through, it could have been a legal nightmare for the owner. Even though the man can show proof that he is, in fact, the owner of the property, there could have been a long and drawn out legal battle to evict anyone who may have moved on to the property.

  As we have shown previously, this is very similar to the rental scam, where scammers have listed properties for rent they do not own. While Zillow is a great resource to help determine if a real estate listing is a scam, it is not infallible.

  The best way to prevent your home from showing up as for sale or for rent on Zillow is to claim the property on Zillow yourself. This applies to other real estate platforms as well.