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  Geebo 8:02 am on August 14, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: impersonation scam ( 146 ), police scam, Scams ( 1,374 )   

  New scam accuses you of heinous crime 

  

  Police impersonation scams are nothing new. This is where scammers will call you posing as some form of law enforcement. In most cases, they’ll impersonate your local police department but there have been instances where scammers have posed as federal investigators. In all instances of the scam, the scammers are accusing you of having committed some type of crime before attempting to extort money out of you to make the problem go away. In previous instances, the crimes victims have been accused of are minor crimes like traffic violations or small misdemeanors. Now, some scammers are telling their victims that they’re accused of a much more serious crime.

  In King County, Washington, scammers are said to be calling their victims posing as the King County Prosecutor’s Office. The calls are even appearing on victim’s phones as coming from the Prosecutor’s Office phone number. The scammer then tells the victim that they’re being investigated for having inappropriate contact with a minor. Scammers often use fear to intimidate their victims into paying them and nothing is more fearful than being accused of such a reprehensible crime. The victims are then being told to wire $890 through Moneygram to have the charges dropped.

  As scary as this scam might be for some people, there are two simple clues that tip calls like this off to being a scam. The first is that the scammers are asking for money through Moneygram. Scammers often use wire services like Moneygram because once the money is wired it’s untraceable. The second clue is that you received a call in the first place. If you’re ever unlucky enough to be charged with an actual crime, police will never call you to let you know. Instead, they will show up at your home with a warrant or subpoena.

  If you ever receive a call like this, keep in mind that law enforcement agencies will never call you to collect money. Any type of fine that you may owe will always be collected through the mail or through the court system. Otherwise, it’s just a scam and you should hang up.

   

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  Geebo 8:00 am on August 7, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Homeland Security ( 4 ), ICE ( 2 ), impersonation scam ( 146 ), inheritance ( 6 ), police scam, Scams ( 1,374 )   

  Inheritance scam accuses you of being a terrorist 

  

  Residents just outside of Chicago are reporting receiving not only a scam email but some residents have reported receiving a scam letter in their mailboxes as well. In both instances, the scam threatens to have you arrested as a terrorist if you do not comply.

  The letter/email purports to be from the ‘Department of Homeland Security-ICE’ and demand that you send $580 in order to collect on an inheritance from the International Monetary Fund otherwise known as the IMF. However, if you don’t send your $580 within 48 hours, you will be assumed to be a terrorist, tracked down and arrested. The letter/email is then signed off by an officer of the ‘National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’. There’s even a phone number listed to call in Orange County, California. The scam is said to originate from an email address of ‘@homeland-ice.us’.

  Were you able to see what exactly tips the reader off that this is a scam? First off, if there ever was a warrant out for your arrest, you’re not going to receive an email about it or a photocopied email left in your mailbox. Secondly, any email from a federal government organization is going to come from a .gov email address. Anyone can purchase a .us domain name and it holds no governmental value. Lastly, there is no ‘National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’ in the United States. While we do have the DEA, there is no NDLEA which turns out is the Federal agency in Nigeria charged with enforcing that country’s drug policy. Which means that this scam is coming from overseas.

  While this scam may be humorous in its approach, it shows the prevalence of these impersonation scams. In too many scams, the scammer will pose as a member of some domestic law enforcement agency demanding money to make some perceived legal trouble to go away. Just keep in mind that no police force or law enforcement agency will demand money from you over the phone. If you do happen to owe some kind of fine, notices for that will always be delivered in the mail and won’t be a photocopied email.

   
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  Geebo 8:00 am on June 4, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: impersonation scam ( 146 ), jury duty scam ( 30 ), phone scam ( 46 ), police scam, Scams ( 1,374 )   

  Police impersonation scams on the rise 

  

  Within the past few weeks, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of news articles about police impersonation scams. This is where scammers will pose as your local or state police and try to pressure their victims into making a large payment under the threat of arrest. The scammers will often call their victims and make the phone number look like they’re calling from the police department.

  These scams can take a number of forms. One of the most infamous ones is the jury duty scam. This is where the scammers will call you up and tell you that you missed jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. Then they’ll tell you that the warrant can be withdrawn if you just pay them a fine over the phone. Sometimes the scammers will just say that you have a warrant out for your arrest and will forgo the jury duty angle. Other times, the scammers will just say that you owe a fine.

  What all of these scams have in common is that the scammers will try to pressure you into making a payment right away and over the phone. Police departments do not call people to tell them that they have warrants or owe fines. You will almost always receive that information by mail if it is legitimate. Scammers, on the other hand, will try to get you to make a payment either through gift cards or wire transfer. If you weren’t sure if a call you received from someone claiming to be the police was a scam or not, the gift cards should be a dead giveaway as no government agency accepts them as payment. As we have said in the past, gift cards are the currency of scammers due to the fact the cards can be emptied remotely and anonymously.

  If you receive one of these calls, just hang up. Don’t even engage with the scammers. However, you are asked that you report the calls to your local police.

   
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  Geebo 8:00 am on March 31, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Corona Antivirus, coronavirus ( 40 ), covid-19 ( 48 ), malware ( 26 ), medical fraud ( 2 ), medical scams ( 21 ), police scam, quarantine, Scams ( 1,374 )   

  Kickbacks and more coronavirus scams 

  

  We thought by now that we might be seeing a decline in new scams related to the coronavirus pandemic but we are woefully mistaken. With more recent news, it seems like the scams are still on the rise.

  Medical fraud is one of the more common scams in the United States. Often, many dishonest medical providers will order unnecessary tests in order to either defraud healthcare insurance carriers or get kickbacks from the testing facilities. A Georgia man who ran a marketing company was recently arrested by the FBI for accepting kickbacks from medical testing companies for referring people to these companies to get unnecessary covid-19 testing. We keep hearing about how testing materials are scarce and are only available for the worst cases yet here is a man wasting them for the sake of greed.

  If this next scam didn’t involve covid-19 it might have almost been funny. However, leading antimalware maker Malwarebytes is reporting that there is a fake app out there calling itself ‘Corona Antivirus’. The fake app claims that if you install this app on your computer it will protect you from the actual coronavirus. If only it were that easy. Corona Antivirus is actually a piece of malware that could do a number of unpleasant things to your device.

  In the state of Washington, at least one police department is warning residents of a quarantine scam. Residents there have complained they’ve been getting calls from someone claiming to be the local police. The scammer tells the victim that they’ve been reported for violating the quarantine and must pay a fine over the phone before asking for your financial information. Police will never call you to ask you to pay for a fine over the phone.

  If you see images on social media that look like tweets from President Obama or President Trump stating that you’re eligible for $1,000 from PayPal, it’s a fake. The images had been circulating on Instagram before the accounts posting the images were pulled. Neither PayPal nor any other payment app is offering free money.

  In Illinois, a woman had her home robbed after she let a man into her house claiming to be an inspector. The man claimed he was a plumber and said he needed to check the water because people in the area contracted covid-19 form the water supply. The CDC states that covid-19 has not been detected in drinking water.

  Lastly. we’d like to remind you that if you’re receiving a coronavirus relief payment, you do not have to sign up for anything. If you filed your taxes for 2018 or 2019 and received your refund through direct deposit, the relief payment will be deposited into the bank account that the IRS has on file. There is nothing anyone can do to make the payment get to you faster. So if someone claims that they can get you the payment faster, they’re trying to scam you. Please do not give out any of your financial information to people you don’t know.

  Again, this has become a boom period for scammers. Don’t let the fear of coronavirus push you into making bad decisions that could cost you later.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdZxXMqTi9g%5D

   
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  Geebo 9:03 am on January 30, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: gift cards ( 101 ), impersonation scam ( 146 ), police scam, Scams ( 1,374 ), social security ( 29 )   

  Man loses $30,000 to scammers posing as federal agents 

  

  A man in Michigan almost lost $50,000 after falling prey to a very threatening scam. Unfortunately, the man did lose $30,000 to the scammers before the scam was noticed. For many, especially the elderly, that is not an insignificant amount of money to lose. The scam that was used against him was a combination of scams that we’ve discussed previously. At first, it involved a call from someone claiming to be from the Social Security Administration. They told the man that a car had been leased in his name using his name and Social Security number. From here it became more frightening for the man.

  He was then transferred to someone claiming to be from the Drug Enforcement Agency and that if he didn’t pay them money he would go to jail. The man didn’t believe them and he hung up. He then received a call from someone claiming to be from the local barracks of the Michigan State Police telling him he would be arrested if he didn’t cooperate with the supposed DEA agent. The scammers then instructed the man to purchase $10,000 in gift cards and provide them with the numbers. The next day the scammers called back and instructed him to overnight $20,000 in cash to a location in Texas. The scammers tried to get another $20,000 out of the man but his bank informed him that he was likely the victim of the scam.

  There are a lot of red flags in this story. The first is that Social Security rarely calls recipients and that’s usually only when there’s an ongoing issue that the recipient initiated. Secondly, law enforcement will never call someone asking for money. Lastly, no government agency accepts or requires money through gift cards. If you receive a phone call like this, hang up and call your local police. If you believe there may be some kind of issue that needs your attention through Social Security or law enforcement, call them back at their official numbers.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on November 13, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: FTC ( 16 ), gift cards ( 101 ), identity theft ( 107 ), police scam, Scams ( 1,374 ), tech support scam ( 50 )   

  Getting scammed after being scammed 

  

  If you’ve ever been scammed you may have reported the scam to your local police, the Better Business Bureau, or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). While you should report scams to the FTC, if you have, you may want to be on the lookout for a scam that comes from reporting the scam. According to reports, people who report scams to the FTC are sometimes targeted by a new set of scammers. These scammers claim to be a company that can help you get your money back from the original scammers. While a service like this sounds great, sadly, it’s just another scam.

  Residents of the Denver area have been reporting they’ve been getting calls from people posing as the Denver Police Department. The scammers will tell their victims that they’ve been the victim of identity theft then ask for their banking information. Once the information was given the scammers would just hang up. If police discover that you’ve been an actual victim of identity theft, they will send an officer to your home rather than call you. And as always, you should never give your financial information over the phone to any stranger, even if they claim to be the police.

  In Greenville, South Carolina, authorities there have warned elderly residents to be aware of various scams that have affected the area. At least two elderly residents were taken for a combined total of $80,000. One of the victims gave control of her computer remotely to a scammer who claimed to be helping process an unexpected refund. This led to the scammer advising the victim to buy a number of gift cards in order to receive the phony refund. Control of your computer should never be given over to strangers even with the promise of money as this could lead to ransomware or malware being placed on your computer or your personal information being stolen. And as always, no legitimate service, business, or agency will request payment by gift cards.

  Please always keep in mind just because these scams aren’t happening in your area doesn’t mean they’re not on their way.

   
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  Geebo 8:15 am on August 26, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: charity ( 17 ), charity scam ( 35 ), fallen officer, police scam, Scams ( 1,374 )   

  Scam takes advantage of fallen police officer 

  

  We’ve posted about some pretty reprehensible scams in the past. Some of the ones that come to mind are the scam that threatens your family with violence, the scam that targeted victims of a devastating forest fire, and the grandparent scam. All of the scams mentioned are designed to take advantage of people’s emotions when they’re at their most vulnerable moments. Now, a scam has popped up that tries to prey on people’s generosity while they’re trying to heal from a great loss in their community.

  In Illinois, a State Trooper was killed in the line of duty this past Friday. 33-year-old father of three and 10 year veteran of the force, Nick Hopkins was shot and killed while trying to serve a warrant in East St. Louis. Within a day of his passing, scammers were already trying to solicit funds from people in Trooper Hopkins name. While it wasn’t mentioned in the report we’ve read, we can only imagine that this was done through social media in order to maximize the number of people who could see the posts in such a short amount of time. The only official channel where donations can be made for Tropper Hopkins is through the Illinois State Police Heritage Foundation.

  Police and fire departments have unfortunately long been the unwilling pawns in a number of scams. Most involve the scammers calling victims claiming to collect donations for any number of first responder foundations. Often, these scammers will try to pressure you into making a donation. Legitimate charities will be happy to get a donation at any time and will let you take your time to think about it. If you want to donate to any first responder charity, the best way to find out where to donate is to call that department specifically at their non-emergency business number.