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  • Geebo 8:00 am on October 28, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , geek squad, , , ,   

    Don’t Fall for These Holiday Shopping Email Scams 

    Don’t Fall for These Holiday Shopping Email Scams

    By Greg Collier

    It starts with an innocent email in your inbox—maybe from “PayPal,” maybe from “Geek Squad.” It says you’ve just spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on something you never bought. A cosmic-orange iPhone. A renewal you don’t remember approving.

    Panic hits first. Logic comes later. And that’s exactly what scammers are counting on.

    What’s Going On:

    Two holiday phishing emails are making the rounds this season, each designed to trigger fear and force you into acting fast.

    The first pretends to be from PayPal, claiming you purchased an iPhone 17 for $1,399. It’s riddled with red flags—missing punctuation, “PAYPALACCOUNT” in all caps, and a fake contact number with an 808 area code (Hawaii, not PayPal headquarters). The outrageous price is the bait, meant to shock you into calling before thinking.

    The second email impersonates Best Buy’s Geek Squad, warning your “Geek Squad Care” plan will auto-renew for $399.84 unless you cancel immediately. Again, that same Hawaii area code appears—an obvious mismatch for a national company.

    Even though these errors seem obvious on a desktop screen, they’re harder to spot on a phone, which is where most people read their email—and where scammers thrive.

    Why It’s Effective:

    The holiday rush is prime hunting season. People are distracted, busy, and shopping online more than ever. The scammers weaponize your anxiety about unauthorized purchases. Fear of fraud makes even savvy users slip.

    According to Atlanta News First, PayPal has seen so many of these scams that it now maintains a dedicated page explaining how to verify and report fake messages.

    Red Flags:

    • Emails claiming you bought an item you didn’t order.
    • Urgent language about “auto-renewals” or “account verification.”
    • Typos, awkward grammar, or missing “.com” in official logos.
    • Phone numbers that don’t match the company’s location (like 808 = Hawaii).
    • Demands for quick action to avoid a charge.

    Remember: real companies do not pressure you to call, click, or pay immediately.

    What You Can Do:

    • Don’t panic. Delete the email without clicking any links.
    • Verify independently. Go to the company’s official website or app to check your account.
    • Don’t call numbers listed in suspicious messages.
    • Report phishing directly to the company (PayPal, Best Buy, etc.) and to the FTC.
    • Educate friends and family—especially those who shop online frequently.

    If You’ve Been Targeted:

    Disconnect any device you interacted with the scam on, run antivirus scans, and change your passwords. If you entered payment info, contact your bank immediately to freeze or dispute fraudulent charges.

    Final Thoughts:

    This year’s scammers are getting smarter—and even using AI to make fake emails and phone numbers look more convincing. But that same technology can help you fight back. When Atlanta News First tested one of these emails with an AI detector, it correctly flagged it as a scam and explained why.

    The lesson? Stay skeptical, slow down, and verify before you react.

    Because in the season of giving, scammers are counting on you to give them exactly what they want: your trust.

    Received a suspicious holiday email or “purchase confirmation”? Share your experience below or forward this post to someone who shops online often. Staying alert saves money—and peace of mind.

    Further Reading:

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on December 13, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Best Buy, , , geek squad, ,   

    You probably don’t have a Geek Squad subscription 

    By Greg Collier

    Tech support scams have been a blight on both smartphone and computer users for years. As much as we hate to say it, this goes doubly so for elderly users of these devices. Currently, the most common tech support scam is the pop-up scam. This is when a computer user gets a pop-up on their display that tells them their computer has been infected with a virus, and they need to call the phone number on the pop-up to have it resolved. Typically, the phone number claims to go to Microsoft, but they can also claim to be from any large tech company. If someone were to call the number from the pop-up, they’d be talking to scammers who would swindle their victims of their savings.

    However, there is a tech support scam that is a close second to the pop-up scam in the frequency with which it occurs. The difference with this scam is that it’s a phishing scam. Phishing scams are where scammers send out emails or other messages hoping to catch a victim on their proverbial hooks. This specific phishing attack uses the name of Geek Squad, which is the computer repair service arm of Best Buy.

    Scammers have been sending out emails that say your Geek Squad subscription is about to run out. The email continues with the claim that you’ll be charged several hundred dollars if you don’t cancel your subscription. The email contains a phone number to call if you want to cancel your subscription or dispute the charge. Much like the pop-up scam, the phone number leads to scammers instead of Geek Squad or Best Buy. From there, the scammers can commit a number of frauds by either taking control of the computer, getting your financial information, or both.

    Before calling any number, think back. Have you taken any device to the Geek Squad for any kind of service? If not, the email is almost certainly part of a scam. If you’re unsure, go over your financial records to see if any payments have been made to Geek Squad in the past. If not, then this is probably a scam email.

    It’s good general advice to never call any number or click on any link in an email that’s asking you for money. These emails can look like they’ve been sent by any number of legitimate companies. Instead of using the information in the email, go to the company’s website and instead contact them through official means at their website.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on September 8, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: geek squad, , ,   

    Widow taken for $30,000 in scam 

    Widow taken for $30,000 in scam

    If you’ve ever lost an immediate family member you know how difficult the days following can be especially if the family member was a spouse. In the days following, you could start receiving phone calls from all sorts of services who are just looking to see if the service should be maintained after the decedent’s passing. So a woman from Michigan who was recently widowed didn’t find it unusual to receive an email from Geek Squad letting her know that the subscription was about to be renewed for the annual fee of $300.

    The widow called the number included in the email and stated that she wanted the subscription canceled. The man on the other end of the phone said he would be happy to issue a refund. Later in the call, the man said that he accidentally refunded the widow $30,000 instead of $300. He then asked the widow to wire the $30,000 so his boss wouldn’t find out and he wouldn’t lose his job. The widow had recently lost her own job and didn’t want to see anyone else lose there’s so she wired the money. Sadly, this was all a scam and there was no Geek Squad employee. So now this unemployed widow was out of most of her savings. There’s been a GoFundMe set up to help recoup at least some of her losses if you’re so generously inclined.

    Scams like this try to take advantage of their victims not knowing how payment systems work. If this was a legitimate transaction, the company in question would have been able to correct the refund electronically. These mishaps happen in corporate America all the time and safeguards are in place to correct mistakes like this almost instantly.

    Also, another tip off that this was a scam was when the fake Geek Squad employee asked for the money to be wired. This is an old scammer trick as once the money has been collected from where it was wired to, the scammers can virtually disappear into thin air.

    Grief can weigh heavy on anyone’s mind after the loss of a loved one. It can cause anyone to not think straight when dealing with what appear to be mundane transactions.

     

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