In the Scam of the day for January 20, 2018 I first told you that the FTC was mailing thousands of checks totaling 2.2 million dollars to the victims of a telemarketing scam through which the scammers promised substantial income to people who paid for their work-at-home Internet business coaching services. The scammers used various names to perpetrate their scams including Professional Learning Institute, Pinnacle Learning Institute, Advantage Education and Discover Education.  Now the FTC is sending its fourth round of refunds to victims of the scam in which the scammers charged large upfront fees for their worthless services related to purportedly helping their victims set up online businesses.  For more information about this scam you can go to the middle of the first page of the Scamicide website and click on the tab entitled “FTC Scam Refunds.”

It is important to remember that there is no charge to victims to be eligible for these cash refunds nor will you be required to provide personal financial information. If you are contacted by someone seeking payment to become eligible for the refund or asking for personal financial information pertaining to receiving your check, he or she is just another scammer.

TIPS

While there are legitimate work-at-home opportunities, many scammers lure people into phony work-at-home schemes that are merely scams. As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is. Never invest in a work-at-home scheme unless you have thoroughly investigated the company offering the program and the program itself. In addition, work-at-home programs that pay you merely to reship goods sent to you are often part of a larger scam where stolen credit cards are used to purchase goods that are sent to you to reship to an accomplice of the original scammer as a part of money laundering. In that scam, you may not only risk losing money to a scammer, but even becoming an accessory to a crime.

If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive  free daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and type in your email address on the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”