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  • Geebo 8:00 am on August 9, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: impersonation scam, , ,   

    The jury duty scam is becoming more sophisticated 

    The jury duty scam is becoming more sophisticated

    By Greg Collier

    As we have previously mentioned, the jury duty scam is probably one of the most prevalent scams going on out there today. As you may know, scammers will call their victims posing as local or federal authorities. The scammers then tell their victims that they missed jury duty and there’s a warrant out for the victim’s arrest. Then the scammers ask the victim for money, so the victim can avoid arrest. Like most scams, they’ll ask for payment in virtually untraceable ways like money transfers, gift cards, and cryptocurrency.

    The first tip off that this may be a scam is the fact that the scammers are calling you. If you actually missed jury duty, you would receive a summons in the mail from whatever court you were supposed to be reporting to. It seems that enough people have caught on to the jury duty scam that the scammers are changing their tactics, and it begins with a letter in the mail.

    According to law enforcement in the state of Oklahoma, residents have been receiving official looking documents in the mail telling residents that they’ve missed jury duty. However, the letters are being followed up with phone calls to the residents, with the scammers once again posing as law enforcement and threatening arrest. They’re then telling the residents that they need to pay a fine right then and there over the phone.

    The phone call is the tell because law enforcement will never call you to threaten you with arrest, and court fines are not paid over the phone.

    If you receive one of these letters or a letter like this, call the agency or office in claims to be from. Don’t use any phone number that may be listed on the documentation. Those could lead you directly to the scammers. Instead, get the phone number from the agency’s or office’s website. It should be listed on their ‘contact us’ section.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on July 12, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: impersonation scam, , , , , ,   

    Woman poses as man in $500,000 romance scam 

    $4,000,000 stolen in romance scam

    By Greg Collier

    One of the earliest memes that shows the anonymity of the internet was not even first published on the internet. It was from one of the famous cartoons in New Yorker Magazine from 1993. It was a cartoon of a dog sitting at a computer talking to a smaller dog while saying “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. 28 years later, that cartoon is still relevant. Even today, when many people are using their real names on social media, you can still slip into a false identity just about anytime you want. For one woman from South Carolina, her online persona was that of a male Texas oil rig worker for the purposes of a romance scam.

    The 68-year-old woman recently pleaded guilty to elder abuse and theft. She posed as the oil rig worker on Facebook and approached a 74-year-old widow from Wichita, Kansas. After the scammer convinced the woman to be in an online relationship, the money requests started coming in. The phony oil rig worker told the widow that ‘he’ wanted to live with the widow when he retired, but needed money. The widow eventually sent multiple cashier’s checks that totaled $532,000. The widow’s family told her she was being scammed, but she didn’t want to believe it. When investigators finally caught up with the scammer, the scammer claimed the checks were for a business arrangement.

    Anybody on the internet can tell you they’re an oil rig worker, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. The position of oil rig worker is often used in romance scams because it’s difficult to verify and gives scammers a reason to not communicate by phone or meet in person. The same can be said for a military member who says they’re stationed overseas or an international businessman.

    This story also dispels the stereotype of the overseas scammers, who tend to be young and male. A scammer can be from anywhere, including your own neighborhood.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on May 26, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: impersonation scam, , , ,   

    Law enforcement scam claims to give you money 

    Law enforcement scam claims to give you money

    By Greg Collier

    Police impersonation scams are probably one of the most common scams out there. We’ve seen scammers imitate everyone from your local sheriff’or police department to federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency. The scams are generally the same, however. The impersonators will threaten you with arrest if you don’t pay them to resolve some imaginary indiscretion. Usually, this involves some nontraditional form of payment like gift cards, money transfers, or cryptocurrency. Now, we’re seeing a law enforcement agency being used in a typical scam along with a not so typical scam.

    Some scammers are now said to be posing as agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a familiar sounding scam, the phony Border Agents will call their victims and tell them that they’ve intercepted a package that was addressed to the victim. It will then be claimed that the package contained drugs or some other illicit substance. In some cases, the scammers are asking for personal information to ‘verify’ who you are. This is done to steal your identity. In other cases, you’ll be asked to pay the phony agents to avoid arrest. In both cases, you’ll be threatened with arrest if you don’t comply.

    In a twist on the police impersonation scam, some scammers are posing as CBP Agents to tell you that they’ve intercepted a package that contains a large sweepstakes prize for you. Rather than being threatened with arrest, you’re asked to pay a large fee to pay for special shipping labels. This is a new variation of the sweepstakes scam where scammers will typically ask you to pay a processing fee to receive winnings from sweepstakes that you probably didn’t even enter. These scammers usually claim to be from Publisher’s Clearing House instead of a federal law enforcement agency.

    In either instance, a wary consumer needs to keep two things in mind. The first is that no real law enforcement agency will threaten you with arrest for not making a payment over the phone. The second thing is that you can’t win sweepstakes that you never entered. There’s really no such thing where someone is called out of the blue and told they’ve been chosen at random to win a big prize. That only happens in TV and movies.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on May 18, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: impersonation scam, , ,   

    Social Security scammers try to get man to sell his own car 

    By Greg Collier

    The following story is yet another example showing not only how low scammers are willing to stoop, but also the extremes they’re willing to go to steal money from their victims.

    The story starts out like many other Social Security scams. A man from North Carolina receives a call from someone posing as someone from the Social Security Administration. The caller says that the man’s Social Security number has been connected to a drug crime in Texas. Typically, the scammers will say that they’ve found a rental car near the Mexican border that had drugs that was rented using the victim’s Social Security number. The man was then told he needed to pay a fine to avoid arrest.

    The man was skeptical, but the caller said that they were going to have someone from his local police department call him. A short time later, the man received a call that appeared to be coming from his local police department. The Caller ID even said it was the police department calling. That caller reiterated what the first caller said. The phony police detective told the man that there was a federal warrant out for his arrest and that he needed to pay the fine.

    Unfortunately, it was at this point that the man believed the story he was being told. The original caller called the man back and instructed the man to buy $7000 in gift cards. This happened to be all the money the man had. That wasn’t enough for the scammers, though. They told the man that he needed to sell his car to pay for the rest of the imaginary fine. They even gave him a list of local car dealerships where he could sell the car. It was at this point that a neighbor intervened and told the man that this was a scam.

    It’s not unheard for scammers to try and squeeze as much money as possible from a victim. In many cases, scammers have repeatedly harassed the same victim for multiple payments. However, this is the first time we’ve heard of scammers trying to get a victim to sell their car after bleeding their victim dry of all their cash.

    As we mentioned, this is a common scam that usually targets retirees who are unaware of how the Social Security Administration actually does business. They will rarely ever call you. The majority of communication from the SSA will be sent to recipients through the mail. No government agency or law enforcement agency will ever threaten to arrest you over the phone if you don’t make a payment then and there. No legitimate company, agency, or organization will accept gift cards as payment except the companies the gift cards are intended for.

    If you know someone who might be vulnerable to this scam, please share our post with them or direct them to the SSA’s Scam Warning page.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on May 17, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , impersonation scam, ,   

    Counterfeit scam targets businesses 

    Counterfeit scam targets businesses

    By Greg Collier

    No businesses were more hard hit by the pandemic than restaurants. Many restaurants struggled to stay open during the pandemic. However, due to the nature of how COVID-19 was spread along with government lockdowns, many restaurants closed their doors for good. Even without COVID-19, the restaurant business is a very precarious one. There’s an old joke that says the best way to make a million in the restaurant business is to start out with two million. Those that have survived the pandemic should be commended instead, some are being targeted by scammers posing as police.

    Scammers who pose as police is nothing new. The most common variation of the police impersonation scam is when scammers will call a victim and tell them that the victim has a warrant out for their arrest. In most cases, the scammer will say that the victim missed jury duty. The scammer will threaten the victim with arrest if they don’t pay a fine over the phone either through gift cards or prepaid debit cards.

    In Panama City, Florida at least one restaurant has fallen to a new twist on the police impersonation scam. The scammer called the restaurant claiming to be from the Panama City police. The restaurant was told that they had deposited counterfeit money into their bank account. Considering how much cash restaurants can end up dealing with, this could be a real possibility. To replace the supposed counterfeit money the restaurant was told to replace the counterfeit money with a prepaid debit card. In this instance, it was in the amount of $1000. Panama City police have said that this scam has been targeting other local small businesses as well.

    There are a few keys to this scam besides the obvious one of paying with a prepaid debit card. The first is that most business that deal in cash should already have safeguards in place to detect counterfeit bills, such as the marker that can detect counterfeit bills. Also, if you were to accidentally deposit counterfeit cash into your business’ bank account you would be charged by your bank and not the local police. You may get a visit from the Secret Service instead.

    If you run a small business, you may want to warn your employees of any calls from someone claiming to be the police demanding payment and let them know that those calls are probably scams.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on May 7, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , impersonation scam, , ,   

    Arrest warrant scammers now showing up at people’s homes 

    Arrest warrant scammers now showing up at people's homes

    By Greg Collier

    One of the most common scams is the arrest warrant scam. A scammer will call a victim out of the blue claiming to be with the local police. The scammers will then tell the victim that there’s a warrant out for their arrest. Most of the time, the scammers will say it’s because the victim missed jury duty. This makes the thought of an arrest warrant more believable since missing jury duty is a pretty innocuous crime that most people could see happening to them. The victims are then instructed to make some kind of payment over the phone, usually by untraceable means like gift cards or money transfers. We want to stress that these scams were normally done over the phone because in at least one community a scammer has added a dangerous step to the scam.

    In Suffolk, Virginia, a man showed up at a woman’s doorstep asking for the woman’s son. The man said that he was with the Suffolk Sheriff’s Office and that her son had a warrant out for his arrest. The scammer identified himself as Lt. Johnson, however, the Suffolk Sheriff’s Office does not have a Lt. Johnson working for them. Thankfully, the woman did not open the door to the scammer, but the story doesn’t end there. The scammer called the son telling him there was a warrant for his arrest unless he made a $1500 payment in gift cards. In the family’s defense, none of them had ever been arrested before and didn’t know that this was not how arrest warrants work. Once payment was made the scammer even called them back to gloat. We can only imagine what would have happened if the woman had opened her door to the scammer.

    If there is a warrant out for someone’s arrest, police will approach the suspect’s home which makes this new version of the scam incredibly dangerous for the victim. However, typically, police will send at least two officers to execute an arrest warrant. Also, please keep in mind that no law enforcement agency whether local, state, or federal will ever ask for any kind of payment in gift cards.

    We believe scams like this continue to happen because there is not enough education about situations like this. Please consider sharing this post on social media so more people can be protected from this scam.

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on March 5, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , impersonation scam, ,   

    DEA issues warning about impersonation scam 

    DEA issues warning about impersonation scam

    By Greg Collier

    The Drug Enforcement Agency issued a warning about scammers posing as their agents and demanding money. One of the more popular versions of the scam has the scammers calling their victims and accusing the victims of being involved in a crime. The scammers will even spoof a DEA phone number while telling their victim that someone rented a car using the victim’s identity and the car was found to have drugs in it near the Mexican border.

    The phony agents will threaten the victim with arrest if the victim doesn’t pay a fine. As with the majority of scams, the scammers will ask for payment of the imaginary fine in nontraditional ways like gift cards or money transfer. This is because these methods of payment are largely untraceable.

    Another version of the scam has scammers calling their victims claiming that the victim’s bank account has been compromised by criminals. The scammers then instruct the victim to send them money in order to assist them with their investigation.

    These scammers will often target medical professionals as well. The scammers will threaten doctors and providers with arrest claiming that someone used the doctor’s identity to write illegal prescriptions.

    In their warning, the DEA states that they would never call someone demanding payment and threatening arrest. This also goes for virtually all law enforcement agencies.

    If you receive a call from one of these scammers, you’re asked to report it to the FBI at http://www.ic3.gov/.

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on February 11, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , impersonation scam, , ,   

    Tax scam season is starting 

    It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that we were all filing our taxes for 2019. Due to the pandemic, the IRS gave us all a generous extension to file our income taxes. This year, we’re not so lucky. The deadline for filing your taxes this year is the traditional April 15th. So, with tax season also comes a number of tax scams which are made even more difficult to avoid due to 2020s unprecedented circumstances.

    The best tip we can give to avoid being scammed is to file your taxes as soon as possible. Last year, scammers were known to file for false returns using stolen identities. If you wait too long you could receive a notification from the IRS that someone has already filed a return using your Social Security number.

    Also, if you’re not going to do your own taxes, and you’re looking to use the services of a tax professional, research the person or company first. Dome fraudsters will set up shop looking like a legitimate tax preparer only to steal your identity and your refund while charging you to do it. Try to avoid any service that’s promising you a ‘too good to be true’ return.

    Tax season is also when scammers will attempt IRS impersonation scams. The scammers will call their victims posing as the IRS and demanding payment for any number of reasons. The one thing all these impersonators have in common is that they will try to pressure you into making a payment over the phone. The IRS does not call taxpayers about tax issues. If the IRS has a concern that they need you to resolve, they will always contact you through the regular mail.

    If you suspect one or more of these scams you can call the IRS directly at 800-829-1040.

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on February 5, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , impersonation scam, , ,   

    Police impersonation scams using payment apps 

    Police impersonation scams are one of the more stressful scams you can find yourself in. Scammers will spoof the number of your local police department and try to convince you that there is a warrant out for your arrest. For most people, this will catch them off guard and probably instill more than a little fear into them. The scammers like using high-pressure tactics like this to get their victims to send them a phony payment. Often, the scammers will ask for the payments in untraceable ways like gift cards and wire services. Now, some of these impersonators have switched to a new way of taking money from their victims.

    In the San Antonio area of Texas, police there are reporting that police impersonation scammers are now asking for payment through PayPal. Meanwhile, in South Florida, police there are reporting something similar except the scammers are using Cash App. Just like in most police impersonation scams, the scammers are saying the victims have a warrant out for their arrest, but it can be resolved if the victim makes a payment to the person on the phone. We can guess that some scammers are moving to these payment apps because not only do they get their payment instantly, but it’s also easy to block the victims from trying to get their payments back.

    As with most scams, the scammers are trying to get you flustered emotionally, so they can pressure you into making a payment. If you get one of these calls, take a moment to think about the situation. We know this is easier said than done sometimes, but it is imperative to avoid being taken in a scam like this. If there was a warrant out for your arrest, even an erroneous one, police are not going to call you. They will send officers to your house. If there is a warrant out for somebody’s arrest, you can’t just resolve the warrant by making a payment over the phone. Any payments that need to be made in regard to the process almost always need to be made in person.

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on January 28, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , impersonation scam, , U.S. Trading Commission   

    New scam tries to take advantage of scam victims 

    New scam ties to take advantage of scam victims

    The Federal Trade Commission is usually the office of the government that deals with online scammers and returns money to victims. Ironically, the FTC has issued a warning about a website that is impersonating them to scam consumers.

    The scam website claims to be the U.S. Trading Commission. There is no such division of the U.S. Government, but the site fake uses the FTC’s seal and street address. The site claims that it is distributing a ‘personal data protection fund’ to victims of identity theft. It promises that you can receive money instantly on top of it.

    If you click on the link to obtain the money, you’re asked for your banking information, so you can receive the payment. Of course, this is just a ruse to gain access to your bank account, so the scammers can drain it. The FTC also says there’s a potential chance that going to the phony site could download malware to your device. Scammers could not only gain access to your personal information this way, but they could also spread the malware to people in your contacts list.

    Surprisingly, this phony website has claimed victims from all over the world and not just the US.

    If you were a victim of a scam that the FTC reclaimed money from, they would send you a check in the mail. They would not have a link that anybody could click on to try to claim money. The FTC would also not ask for personal identifying information like bank account information, credit card number, or Social Security number before they could deliver their payment.

    If you come across a phony FTC lookalike site, you’re asked to please report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

     

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