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  • Geebo 9:00 am on March 9, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Minnesota, Rochester,   

    Used iPhone scam targets online buyers 

    Used iPhone scam targets online buyers

    By Greg Collier

    Whenever someone tries to buy a used high-end phone online, like an iPhone, there’s always a risk of being scammed. The most common scam is they’re trying to sell you a stolen phone. If a phone is reported stolen, the buyer wouldn’t be able to activate the phone on their network, or any network for that matter. Depending on what platform a buyer uses, they could also end up with a counterfeit iPhone that’s not an iPhone at all. However, a new scam has the buyer show up at the exchange before the scam even takes place.

    A couple in Rochester, Minnesota, recently found themselves out of almost $400 after attempting to buy an iPhone 13 through Facebook Marketplace. They met in public, and the couple gave the seller $375 for the iPhone. That’s when the phone started to ring. The seller’s mother was supposedly the caller and told the seller that she left her personal information on the phone and needed to delete it. The seller told the couple he was going to his home and that he’d be right back. The seller never returned. The Rochester Police have said that this has been an ongoing scam in their area.

    When using an unmoderated platform like Facebook Marketplace, assume everything is a scam. This is especially true when you find a better than average deal. As always, we recommend to our readers that if you’re meeting in public to make an exchange, meet the other party at your local police department. While it’s not a guarantee that you won’t be scammed, it will go a long way in discouraging scammers from meeting with you. We also recommend never getting into the other party’s vehicle or going to a private residence for the meet up, as this can put you in great danger.

     

  • Geebo 9:01 am on February 8, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Minnesota, , , ,   

    Romance scams ramp up in time for Valentine’s Day 

    By Greg Collier

    Recently, the FBI issued a warning urging citizens to be wary of romance scams in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. For new readers, romance scams typically consist of scammers luring their targets into false romantic relationships as a way to steal money. The scammers usually pose as oil rig workers, military members stationed overseas, or international business people. This is done in order to have a built-in excuse as to why the scammer can’t meet their victim face to face. While anybody can fall for a romance scam, elderly women are frequently the targets for this scam. While the FBI is warning about Valentine’s Day as a possible flashpoint for romance scams, they can happen at any time.

    For example, a woman in Minnesota is said top have recently lost $57,000 in a romance scam. While it’s not clear who the scammer was posing as, the scammer kept giving the woman excuses as to why they couldn’t meet face to face. Moreover, the scammer would use these excuses to solicit more money from their victim. In one instance, the scammer said they made it halfway to Minnesota, but fell ill before they could get there. Another time, the scammer said they made it to the Twin Cities, but needed more money for gas. When nobody showed up, the woman realized she had been scammed.

    Another recent romance scam happened in Pennsylvania, where a woman lost $5000. She met a scammer on a chat app posing as an oil rig worker in the Gulf of Mexico. The scammer claimed they had lost their debit card and needed money. The victim ended up mailing $5000 in cash to an address in Ohio.

    It’s believed that many romance scams go unreported because the victims are too embarrassed to come forward, which is the main reason why this scam continues to proliferate.

    If you ever meet a potential romantic partner online, the first thing you should do is a reverse image search on their picture. Scammers will often steal pictures from someone’s social media who has no idea their picture is being used in a romance scam. If your prospective partner is being cagey about meeting in person, that is usually a good indicator that they’re trying to scam you. Lastly, if they ask for money before meeting, that’s a huge red flag indicating a scam.

    If you know someone who may be a victim in a romance scam, it’s often difficult to convince them that they’re being scammed. It may help if you show them this blog post or any of the articles out there that detail how a romance scam works.

     

  • Geebo 8:00 am on April 17, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , Minnesota, , , , ,   

    OfferUp user assaulted outside of police station, BBB warns of car scam, and Amazon’s board to vote on facial recognition 

    OfferUp user assaulted outside of police station, BBB warns of car scam, and Amazon's board to vote on facial recognition

    As we always say, when meeting someone for an online transaction you should always make the transaction at a local police department. It can go a long way in helping to ensure your safety. However, that was not the case for a man in Albuquerque. This man was meeting someone through OfferUp to sell a camera. The suspect posing as a buyer lured the man out of the view of the police department’s security cameras before trying to rob the man. The victim was dragged about 20 feet after the suspect drove off while holding on to the camera. If someone tries to get you away from the police station it may just be a trap.

    ***

    The Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota is warning residents of the two states to be aware of phony car scams that are proliferating in the area. They’re reporting that there are a number of phony car dealerships who are advertising cars on craigslist for a price well below market value. The phony dealerships then ask for the money to be wired to them before cutting off all contact with the victim. When buying a car online from a dealership, always do a web search to make sure such a dealership exists and money should never be wired for a transaction under any circumstance. It’s too easy for scammers to make off with your money while remaining anonymous.

    ***

    Previously, we’ve discussed how high-ranking Amazon employees have called Amazon’s environmental practices into question. Now it seems that shareholders are also getting ready to decide on another one of Amazon’s business practices. Next month the board will vote on whether or not Amazon should ban the sale of their facial recognition software called Rekognition to governments and governmental agencies. We’ve posted before about how a number of civil liberty groups complained about Amazon trying to sell Rekognition to police departments as the tool could be easily used to violate civil rights. Combine Rekognition with all the Amazon Echoes in people’s homes and Jeff Bezos’ ownership in the Washington Post and you could see how some board members may view this all as a privacy overreach on Amazon’s part.

     

  • Geebo 10:56 am on February 14, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Minnesota   

    Close to 30,000 guns were for sale on Armslist requiring no background check 

    Close to 30,000 guns were for sale on Armslist requiring no background check

    City Pages in Minnesota is reporting that 28,818 firearms were for sale on Armslist last year in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. If you’re not familiar with Armslist, they are an online classifieds site specifically designed for the sale and trade of firearms. Armslist has been courting controversy since many Armslist buyers and sellers take advantage of a loophole in the law which does not require a background check when a firearm is sold between private individuals. While many sellers on Armslist are licensed gun dealers there are many who aren’t.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwqMeHqF5I%5D

    A gun control advocacy group conducted a study on Armslist and they estimate that 10% of the gun buyers on Armslist couldn’t pass a background check if the buyers tried to buy their firearms from outlets that required the checks. If you apply that to the state of Minnesota, that’s roughly 2800 guns that could have been sold to people looking to circumvent a background check for illegal purposes. Even in a state of 5.6 million people, that’s still too many guns that could potentially fall into the wrong hands.

    Armslist’s defenders will claim that most guns used in crimes are purchased on the black market not realizing the irony of their statement. Armslist is part of that chain where guns end up in the black market as they have in Chicago and other locations. All the while, Armslist does very little to discourage the sale of guns to those who shouldn’t be able to own except for a button that buyers have to click that says they’re over 18 and they’re legally able to purchase a gun. Because no one lies on the internet.

     

    • J M2064 8:39 am on February 17, 2019 Permalink

      Gunsuckers are such filth. Gunsuckers are not the same as responsible gun owners, that vanishing minority. Gunsuckers suck guns because they think gunsucking Makes The Man. They’re also fools as well as gunsuckers.

  • Geebo 9:04 am on October 22, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Mankato, Minnesota   

    17-year-old caught with gun from Armslist 

    17-year-old caught with gun from Armslist

    Previously, I’ve posted about how ‘the craigslist of guns’, better known as Armslist, has been used by several felons to purchase guns when the law expressly prohibits felons from owning guns. Armslist falls under the ‘gun show’ loophole meaning no background check is required when the private sale of a firearm is made. These shady gun sales through Armslist have led to several murders. Now besides felons, who is the last type of person who should be buying a gun through Armslist? If you answered minors you would be correct. However, this hasn’t stopped at least one teen from buying a weapon from the dubious website.

    In Mankato, Minnesota, a 17-year-old male was pulled over by a state trooper for allegedly speeding. The trooper was said to believe that there may have been drugs in the car. When the car was searched the trooper reportedly found a minor amount of drugs but also found a handgun. The driver claimed that he bought the gun from a private seller on Armslist for $300. In case you were wondering, Minnesota state law dictates you have to be at least 18 before legally purchasing a handgun. The suspect is facing felony charges of underage gun possession and drug possession.

    Thankfully, the teen decided not to engage the trooper with the weapon at hand. That may have been his smartest move. Considering how many law enforcement officers end up being ambushed in similar situations this teen should never have had the gun in the first place. What is it going to take for either Armslist to start being more responsible or for legislators to close the gun show loophole? Since the multitudes of murders and mass shootings haven’t changed the laws or Armslist’s disregard for safety, will it take a shooting tragedy of such massive proportions that it shakes us from our complacency for these types of shooting before anything is done? Instead, action should be taken now before our country reaches that level of violence.

     

  • Geebo 10:09 am on February 8, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Minnesota,   

    Super Bowl stings catch those who would buy children 

    Super Bowl stings catch those who would buy children

    Previously, we’ve posted about Washington County, Minnesota, and how they’re cracking down on the type of human trafficking that deals in children. This past weekend, Washington County was the site of many Super Bowl visitors due to its proximity to the Twin Cities area of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where the Super Bowl took place.

    They were just one of many police departments that conducted stings to try to catch those who would use sites like craigslist and Backpage to buy children for the purposes of sex. In Woodbury, which is the largest city in Washington County, at least three men were apprehended for allegedly looking for what they thought were children as young as 13 on both Backpage and craigslist. It’s highly doubtful that either website were willing participants in this investigation meaning they allowed ads placed by police posing as children to remain on their platforms. Washington County wasn’t the only task force cracking down on the trafficking of children as over 100 human trafficking arrests were made during Super Bowl week.

    People who say sites like craigslist and Backpage are making it easier for police to find human traffickers are forgetting one thing. It’s also making it much easier for pimps and traffickers to sell women and children against their will. Craigslist and Backpage can’t be both the cause of and solution to human trafficking. That is the textbook definition of a logical fallacy which forgets that the true victims in these cases aren’t craigslist and Backpage but the women and children who are sold unabated on these websites.

     

  • Geebo 10:19 am on January 15, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Citizens Against Sex Trafficking, , Minnesota, twin cities   

    Twin Cities suburbs fight against human trafficking 

    Twin Cities suburbs fight against human trafficking

    Last week, we discussed how January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and how the problem is not just confined to big cities and urban areas. At that time we talked about how the issue was affecting Idaho Falls, Idaho. Not exactly a monolithic metropolis. Now another location in Middle America is taking the fight to the plague of human trafficking and it’s in suburban, Minnesota.

    A group called Citizens Against Sex Trafficking, or CAST for short, is working in cooperation with the police of Washington County, Minnesota, which contains communities considered the suburbs of the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. Once again, a citizens group is showing that human trafficking is happening everywhere in our country, including small towns and suburbs.

    CAST is already showing results with the rescuing of a 13-year-old girl. And where is CAST finding these victims? Backpage of course. An investigator with Washington County police said that she has reviewed close to a 100,000 ads for trafficking in their county alone last year. This is after Backpage supposedly closed down their adult section, although in reality the trafficking ads just moved to the personals section where paying to have the ads promoted still exists. In essence Backpage, is still making money from ads where woman and children are being trafficked against their will, and as we’ve pointed out, this is happening everywhere probably including where you live.

    Until we as a nation start to recognize human trafficking as an ‘everywhere’ problem, Backpage and the traffickers that keep them in business will continue to make what is essentially blood money.

     

  • Geebo 11:53 am on April 22, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Dodge, flagged ads, Minnesota,   

    ‘Mean mom’ sells daughter’s car online. Find out why. 

    1998DodgeRam

    A Minnesota woman calling herself ‘The World’s Meanest Mom’ recently sold her 15-year-old daughter’s truck online because she skipped class. Amy Adams of Almelund, Minnesota, put the 1998 Dodge Ram pick up truck for sale saying in the ad that her daughter has “decided that her grades don’t matter, that she can disrespect myself and her siblings on a daily basis, and that she has the right to skip school and run away from home.”

    However Ms. Adams’ daughter has not been without recourse. Exploiting a weakness in the website where the ad was placed, her daughter’s friends have been flagging the ad and have had it removed multiple times even though the ad is legitimate.

    With Geebo.com you don’t have to worry about your ad being flagged by pranksters and the like since Geebo ads are manually reviewed and approved by real people. At Geebo we not only strive to be safer that the competition but to provide a better service to our customers.

     

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