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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 12, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: New Jersey ( 7 ), Scams, social media ( 88 ), unemployment scam ( 30 )   

  Why you shouldn’t use social media for unemployment problems 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Many internet users only use the internet to browse their favorite social networks. To them, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram is their internet. This is what’s known as being in a walled garden. Why leave the confines of the garden when everything you need is right there. These users can talk to their friends, see what’s in the news, and watch videos in their social network of choice. So, it should come as no surprise when these users have a problem they need to resolve, they use social media. In some instances, this is perfectly acceptable as many companies have someone manning their social media accounts at all time. In other instances, using social media like this can open you up to fraud. One governmental agency recently found this out the hard way.

  The state of New Jersey recently had to close the comments on the Facebook page of the Department of Labor. People who were having issues with their unemployment were leaving comments on the NJDOL’s Facebook page. Then scammers would appear posing as state employees in an attempt to get personal information out of those who were having issues. The NJDOL issued a warning on their Twitter account that they closed comments on their Facebook page because of the deluge of scammers. They wanted to remind unemployment recipients that their agents will never reach out to them on social media.

  This is just the latest in a long line of unemployment scams that have plagued the country since the start of the pandemic. While there is light at the end of the tunnel, consumers should still be vigilant when it comes to sharing their personal information. If you’re dealing with an unemployment issue in New Jersey or any other state, you should always use the state’s official website that deals with unemployment. That’s usually the Department of Labor, but some states call it something else. These websites should always end in the .gov domain. Even if it’s the state’s official social media account, it’s always best to use their actual website to try to get unemployment issues resolved.

   

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  Geebo 9:19 am on March 11, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apple ( 34 ), gift cards ( 108 ), icloud, phone scam ( 50 ), Scams, tech support scam ( 54 )   

  Victim loses $15,000 in iCloud scam 

  

  By Greg Collier

  iCloud is Apple’s cloud storage service that it supplies to its users for free up to 5 GB of storage. If you’re not an Apple or iOS user, iCloud is akin to Google Drive, Microsoft’s One Drive, or Dropbox. A few years ago, iCloud made the headlines when a number of celebrities had the contents of their iCloud accounts leaked to the internet. So, in theory, iCloud accounts can be hacked. Scammers know this and use this fear as a way to trick their victims who may not be that technically savvy as one woman in Missouri recently discovered.

  The 86-year-old woman was expecting an important call from her daughter when she answered her phone. The person on the other line claimed that the woman’s iCloud account had been hacked along with 42 other iCloud users. The scammer then told the woman that she would need to buy gift cards in order to protect her data. Since the woman used iCloud frequently she complied. She ended up buying 29 $500 gift cards for Walmart. When store clerks asked her what all the gift cards were for, she was instructed by the scammers to tell the clerks that the cards were for her grandchildren. The scammers told her that she would be reimbursed, but instead she was out $14,500.

  Tech support scams and their variants have been around since the dawn of the internet and continue to find victims. However, these scams are easy to thwart. All you need to keep in mind is that none of the big tech companies are ever going to call you out of the blue. That includes Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and the like. The best way to keep your personal storage accounts safe is to use a password that is difficult to guess. Password managers are a great tool to assist you with this. It also helps if you don’t use the same password for multiple accounts. Again, this is where a password manager comes in handy.

  However, if someone calls you out of the blue to tell you that your account has been hacked or your computer has a virus, hang up on them. The tech companies will never call you and no one can remotely tell if you have a virus on your computer.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 10, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: debt forgiveness ( 14 ), Scams, student debt ( 16 ), student loans ( 17 )   

  New student loan forgiveness scam preys on confusion 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Over the past several years, college tuition costs continue to rise while salaries for jobs that many graduates would fill have remained largely stagnant. This has resulted in one of the largest debt crises our country has faced. We may now have a generation of college graduates who may work their whole lives just to pay back their student loans. Not only has this made student loan debt forgiveness a contentious political issue, but it’s also allowed scammers to take advantage of the confusion and desperation of those who find themselves dealing with this debt.

  Over the past year, the government has approved a couple of economic impact payments due to the record unemployment. Even a third one was recently approved. Those payments came with a lot of confusion about how to get one and scammers swooped down on that confusion like a pack of hungry buzzards. Now, scammers are making up government relief programs to take advantage of those swimming in student loan debt.

  Scammers are now contacting their victims claiming they represent a student loan debt forgiveness program. Those programs exist, but they are difficult to find and even more difficult to get approved. These scammers are said to be using terms like ‘Biden student loan forgiveness’ and ‘stimulus forgiveness’. So far, there has been no student loan debt forgiveness legislation that has been approved by either Congress or President Biden. However, with the talk of an additional COVID-19 economic impact payment, someone could be tricked into believing that debt forgiveness is part of that package.

  As always, the scammers are looking for one of two things. Scammers will either ask you for some kind of ‘processing fee’, your personal information, or both. Anyone that contacts you out of the blue offering a too good to be true way of getting out of debt is not your friend. These calls should be ignored and reported to your local police and the Federal Trade Commission.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 5, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: DEA ( 3 ), impersonation scam ( 206 ), police scam ( 40 ), Scams   

  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/.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 4, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: alaska, Cash App ( 44 ), missing person ( 9 ), paypal scam ( 14 ), Scams, virtual kidnapping ( 52 )   

  Scammers use missing persons to commit fraud 

  

  By Greg Collier

  We’ve often said that scammers will stoop to any lengths to try to get one over on their victims. We also say that scammers will try to take advantage of any kind of tragedy to make a quick buck. Now, think of one of the worst tragedies that can befall a family. Then imagine that family having to deal with a scammer that’s trying to take advantage of that tragedy. That’s what’s been happening to many families in Alaska.

  Due to the sheer amount of untamed wilderness that Alaska has, the state has an inordinate amount of missing persons cases per capita. This has led to scammers trying to extort money out of the families involved in these cases. Even we were taken aback when we read about this scam as it’s beyond cruel.

  The scammers take to social media looking for posts that deal with a missing person. They’ll then use that information to contact the missing person’s family. The scammers will say that they are holding the missing person hostage and that the missing person is now ill. The family will be instructed not to contact police and that their loved one will be released if they make a ransom payment. The ransom payment is then demanded to be paid through a payment app like PayPal or Cash App.

  This is a variation of the virtual kidnapping scam with the only difference being is that the person being used in the scam is actually missing. The reason this particular scam is doubly cruel is that not only are the scammers harassing an already distraught family but in some cases, it’s giving them a false sense of hope that they may be getting their family member back.

  Whenever one of these scams come up, we like to remind our readers that kidnapping for ransom is actually very rare in the US.

  We hope that anyone reading this never has to deal with a missing person in their family. However, if the unthinkable happens, and then you receive a scam call like this, you should contact your local police immediately.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 3, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: job scam ( 94 ), repackaging ( 24 ), reshipping ( 25 ), Scams, West Virginia ( 3 ), work at home ( 14 )   

  Disadvantaged state taken advantage of by scam 

  

  By Greg Collier

  West Virginia is a state that’s been dealing with an unemployment problem since long before the pandemic. Some of its residents could be forgiven for falling prey to a scam that promises not only easy money but a work from home position as well. When someone is desperate enough for a paycheck, they’re more likely to overlook red flags that they may otherwise notice.

  The Better Business Bureau of West Virginia has received several complaints about a company that was allegedly hiring people for a work from home reshipping position. Applicants received items in the mail and were told to take pictures if the items before shipping them off to another address. The employees were told to log into the company’s dashboard to print off the new shipping labels. People received and reshipped things from antique coins to fully assembled computers.

  After about a month went by the employees were locked out of the dashboard and the company cut off all communication with them. None of the people who complained to the BBB were ever paid.

  We’re confident that many of you have already figured out that these people have unfortunately been the victims of the reshipping or repackaging scam. These positions are often advertised online with such titles as ‘shipping coordinator’, ‘warehouse distribution coordinator, or ‘local hub inspector’. The goods that are reshipped are usually bought with stolen credit card information while the scam victims are used as middlemen to ship the goods to third-parties overseas. This is done in an attempt to obfuscate the package’s real destination.

  These victims are little luckier than most. In many cases, the scammers will pay their victims in fraudulent checks which end up costing the victim money. The only thing stolen from these victims so far has been their time. However, there is also a potential for identity theft as the victims also filled out tax forms to the phony employer.

  The reshipping scam is especially dangerous to the victim because it could cause them trouble with the law. Even if you’re a victim of the scam, but you knowingly addressed a package to avoid customs inspections you could find yourself in hot water.

  As with any employment position, it’s worth researching your potential employer as this one used the address of a vacant warehouse in West Virginia.

  https://youtu.be/YeAmXEOkslU

   
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  Geebo 9:04 am on March 2, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: fake check ( 54 ), Instagram ( 17 ), modeling ( 8 ), Scams, social media ( 88 )   

  Modeling scam targets would-be influencers 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Modeling is a profession that is already fraught with peril. For aspiring models of any gender the pitfalls can range from being overcharged for photo packages to becoming the victim of human trafficking. Thankfully, today’s story didn’t have such drastic results, but it does show just one of the many ways those starting out can be taken advantage of.

  A man in Southern California was recently arrested for allegedly scamming a woman out of money with a phony modeling contract. The man is said to have reached out to a woman on Instagram and offered her $175 an hour for a photoshoot. The man claimed to be an intern for a record label and was recruiting women for a music video.

  The man is said to have given the woman two checks for $1,000 instead and claimed he was paying her for future photoshoots. All she needed to do was deposit the checks into her bank account and return the overage of the payments back to the supposed photographer.

  As you can probably imagine, the checks turned out to be fraudulent. The woman’s bank called her hours later to let her know that the checks were no good. This victim was lucky considering in most instances of fake check scams the banks usually don’t notify you for days and by that time the scammer is usually long gone with your money.

  This scammer’s downfall was that he tried to victimize the woman again. While she was at the police station reporting the crime, the scammer called her trying to set up another meeting for another photoshoot. He was promptly arrested shortly thereafter.

  Aspiring models should be wary of any unsolicited offer that comes through social media. They should also research any potential offers to make sure they’re dealing with legitimate professionals and agencies.

  Lastly, no job, no matter what field, will ask you to deposit a check into your bank and then ask for some of the money back. That’s a dead giveaway that the check is a fake. If the scammer in this case were to have disappeared, the victim would have been responsible for the amount of the checks and any penalties the bank may have charged.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on March 1, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: child safety ( 8 ), child safety kit ( 3 ), identity theft ( 131 ), Scams, social media ( 88 )   

  Child safety kit scam returns to social media 

  

  By Greg Collier

  The Indiana State Police have received complaints about a scam circulating on social media. The scam involves the advertising of child safety kits. If you’re not familiar with child safety kits, they are a way of gathering your child’s identifying information in case the unthinkable happens, and they go missing. These kits allow parents to quickly give investigators the information needed to help find their child. This includes a DNA sample such as strands of hair, recent photos, and fingerprints among other information. Many child safety organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) partner with local law enforcement to provide these kits free to parents. You can even make your own kits at home, although you may want to have your children professionally fingerprinted by your local police.

  Unfortunately, scammers will try to prey on a parent’s fears to ‘sell’ phony kits. These phony kits are really just attempts to steal your child’s personal information to use for identity theft. In Indiana, the State Police there are saying that after some parents clicked on the social media ad for one of these kits, they received phone calls from aggressive people who wanted to come to the parent’s home to install an app on the parent’s phone. When you’re trying to protect your child’s safety, the last thing you need is an aggressive stranger in your home seeking your child’s information. While the report doesn’t state what the app’s real purpose is, one can safely assume that the app either steals your child’s information when you enter it, or installs malware to your device.

  The purpose of keeping your child’s information at hand is so that you can provide it to law enforcement quickly as possible if need be. Providing that information to a third party only delays giving the information to police.

  In identity theft, there is a huge market for children’s information including their Social Security numbers. This way a scammer can use the information to build up credit years before the parents or the child would notice.

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on February 26, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: covid-19 ( 49 ), FEMA ( 12 ), funeral expenses ( 11 ), natural disasters ( 25 ), Scams   

  Scams can bring federal programs to their knees 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Prior to the start of the pandemic, many of us looked at scammers as minor annoyances. “They might fool a few people, but they’d never be able to fool me.” many of us said. Then when the pandemic happened in full force, scammers were everywhere. Not only did every old scam have a new COVID-19 twist to it, but the scammers were now attacking federal and state governments to the tune of billions of dollars. You may not be fooled by a scammer, but as the unemployment scam showed us, you may not have a choice. Now, a federal relief program has yet to roll out due to the scams that may surround it.

  FEMA has a fund to help pay for funerals for people who were lost in certain disasters. This includes deaths related to COVID-19 for 2020. However, here we are near March 2021 and FEMA has yet to issue any assistant payments for these funeral expenses. With half a million people having passed from COVID-19, FEMA realizes that this could open them to the same amount of fraud that has affected the unemployment system. FEMA is working with the CDC to try to find a way to make sure that these assistant payments get to the people who actually need them.

  All it could take is a forged death certificate for scammers to start trying to collect money from FEMA. And with states reporting deaths in different ways, this could lead to a lot of confusion. The other aspect this scam shares with the unemployment scam is that FEMA will be dealing with a record amount of funeral reimbursement requests since the country has never dealt with this many deaths before due to one single disaster.

  If you’ve ever had to suddenly plan for a loved one’s funeral, you’ll know how expensive funerals can be. Thanks to scammers, more people will be out of more money until more safeguards are put in place to prevent such widespread fraud.

  Was a death certificate stolen for a FEMA scam? | Greg's Corner is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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  Geebo 9:00 am on February 25, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: medical scams ( 21 ), new york ( 16 ), nurses ( 3 ), phishing ( 91 ), Scams   

  Scam tries to extort medical professionals 

  

  By Greg Collier

  Scammers still haven’t gotten tired of COVID-19 related scams yet. However, instead of targeting the general public, some scammers have decided to go after medical professionals in the scammer’s quest for ill-gotten gain.

  This scam is similar to the Social Security scam where the scammers claim that your Social Security number has been suspended due to some fictitious crime that your number was supposedly attached to.

  In this scam, scammers are contacting nurses, physicians and pharmacists posing as the state of New York to tell the victims that their licenses have been suspended. However, a substantial payment just happens to be able to revers the suspension and can avoid the licensee any future fines.

  It’s not lost on us that these scammers are going after frontline workers in a state that has one of the highest concentration of COVID-19 patients. This is an example of a couple of scammer tactics. One is to try to pressure and already overworked system and the other is to take advantage of any crisis no matter how horrible.

  In this instance, the scammers are flooding their victims with mounds of official-looking paperwork that appear to be from such agencies as the state, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, Trans Union and the New York state Office of Professions. The problem with this paperwork is that it can look legitimate since they contain information like the professional’s National Provider Identifier.

  In the long run, scammers may not be after money but instead after the personal information of medical professionals as most of the forms ask for Social Security numbers and the like.

  It is recommended that anyone receiving one of these calls or messages to ignore it and report it to the FBI if you’ve lost money, or the FTC and local police if you haven’t.