Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – July 2, 2026 – Fourth of July Scams
Every season is scam season and every day provides unique opportunity for scam artists, the only criminals that we call artists, to try to scam us out of our hard earned money. Here are a few scams that you should be aware of that are related to the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
Many scammers send out emails or text messages purportedly from the IRS or any of a number of state and federal agencies in which they require you to provide personal information under the guise of some emergency. They do this because if they can frighten you enough to act during the holiday in some instances you will be unable to confirm with the real entity as to whether the communication is legitimate because all of these entities will be closed on the Fourth of July. If you provide the requested information, it will be used against you to make you a victim of identity theft.
You also should be wary of Fourth of July electronic greeting cards that you may receive. These can be loaded with keystroke logging malware that will steal all of the information from your computer or portable device if you download the malware by clicking on the link.
Finally, be on the lookout for messages that appear on your social media such as your Facebook page with links to Fourth of July themed videos that arouse your curiosity. Again, the links contained within these messages may be loaded with keystroke logging malware.
TIPS
The IRS and many other state and federal agencies will not initiate communications with you through email so you can disregard that email from the IRS or other similar entities. It is important to be skeptical of any email or text message that you receive that requests personal information. Never provide such information or click on links in such emails unless you are absolutely sure that the request is legitimate and you can’t be sure unless you have confirmed with the person or entity that purportedly sent it that it is indeed legitimate. If you can’t confirm on the Fourth of July, let it wait until you can.
As for e cards, never click on a link to an e card unless the message specifically indicates from whom it is being sent and only then after you have confirmed with that person that they indeed did send you an e card.
Also remember that messages that you get on Facebook may appear to come from friends, but may actually be coming from scammers who have hacked your real friend’s Facebook account or cloned an account using the name of your friend. In addition, unfortunately, sometimes you actually will get videos sent to you by your real friends who are unwittingly passing on malware infected material. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
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Scam of the day – July 1, 2026 – Phony Inheritance Scam
The Federal Trade Commission is warning people about a scam which begins when you get a letter from a law firm informing you that they are probating an estate in which they have not been able to locate an heir, however, they then inform you that you are the heir to the million dollar estate. The letter then offers to split the value of the estate with you, some charities and their law firm. If you respond to the letter, you will be asked to provide personal and financial information including your Social Security number and to pay a fee. If this sounds vaguely familiar it is because it is just a variation of the Nigerian email scam that continues to plague the online community.
Although it may seem that the Nigerian email scam began in the era of the Internet, the origin of the scam actually goes back to 1588 when it was known as the Spanish Prisoner Scam. In those days, a letter was sent to the victim purportedly from someone on behalf of a wealthy aristocrat who was imprisoned in Spain under a false name. The identity of the nobleman was not revealed for security reasons, but the victim was asked to provide money to obtain the release of the aristocrat, who, it was promised, would reward the money-contributing scam victim with a vast reward that included, in some circumstances, the Spanish prisoner’s beautiful daughter in marriage.
In the most common versions of this scam circulating on the Internet today, you are promised great sums of money if you assist a Nigerian or someone elsewhere in his effort to transfer money out of his country. While we refer to this type of scam as the Nigerian Email Scam, not all versions of this scam have a connection to Nigeria. Common variations of the scam include the movement of embezzled funds by corrupt officials, a dying man who wants to make charitable gifts, a minor bank official trying to move the money of deceased foreigners out of his bank without the government taking it or, as in this case, abandoned funds.
In most variations of this scam, although you are told initially that you do not need to contribute anything financially to the endeavor, you soon learn that it is necessary for you to contribute increasingly large amounts of money for various reasons, such as fees, bribes, insurance or taxes before you can get anything. Of course, the victim ends up paying money to the scammer, but never receives anything in return.
TIPS
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Scam of the day – June 30, 2026 – “Kind” Can be a Dangerous Word When it Comes to Scams
The Dalai Llama has said that his religion is very simple – it is kindness. And certainly we all could use a bit more kindness in our lives, however, when the word “kindly” appears in an email or text message that you receive, it can be a tip off that you are being contacted by a scammer or identity thief based in a country other than the United States, particularly countries that were once part of the British Empire where they have adopted the use of British speech patterns. According to Tim Bajarin, the chairman of the market research company Creative Strategies in an interview with Reader’s Digest, ‘You’ll often hear it used in countries with British influence, perhaps once a colonial country, where English isn’t their mother tongue.” Nigeria, for instance, a hub of international scams was a British colony from 1900 until 1960 and the British influence is still strong there.
So when you get an email or a text message that appears to be from a governmental agency such as the IRS or a company such as Amazon that uses the word “kindly” in a communication requesting a payment, personal information or asking you to click on a link or download an attachment under any pretense, you should immediately remember BS, be skeptical.
TIPS
It is a simple matter for a scammer to use spoofing to manipulate your Caller ID and make a phone call appear to come from a legitimate source. Similarly phishing emails and text messages can also appear to be sent by legitimate sources when the source is a criminal. Therefore you should never make a payment, click on a link, download an attachment or make a payment in response to any communication unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication was legitimate.
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Scam of the day – June 29, 2026 – Louisiana Sheriff Warns About Scammers Posing as Priests
I first warned you about this particular scam in 2017, but it has recently resurfaced in many places around the country including St. James Louisiana where the local sheriff is warning people about scammers posing as a local priest contacting parishioners and attempting to lure them into sending gift cards. Similarly, last year, parishioners of the Nativity Lutheran Church in Bend, Oregon received emails that appeared to come from their Pastor, Chris Kramer in which they were asked to buy Target gift cards and provide the numbers of the gift cards to the phony Pastor Kramer to help with a “delicate” situation. The email contained the photo of the pastor and was written in a manner that closely followed his writing style. The scammers may have been aided by AI in doing so. This wasn’t even the first time this type of scam had targeted parishioners of the church. A similar less sophisticated version of the email was done five years ago.
Generally in this scam, local church, synagogue or mosque members receive what appear to be emails from their religious leaders asking them to make contributions through gift cards and credit cards. In 2017 the scams primarily asked targeted victims to wire money to accounts and people named in the emails. The emails come from email addresses that appear at first glance to be that of the local religious leaders, but a closer inspection will disclose that it is coming from a different email provider than what their religious leader. Often, the scammers harvest information from church websites to make their phony requests appear legitimate.
TIPS
The key to protecting yourself from this scam is to first be skeptical whenever you get a request to wire money or make a payment through gift cards because once money has been wired, it is gone forever which is why it is a favorite method of payment for scammers. As for gift cards, once you provide the numbers from the gift cards, the scammers utilize the gift cards to make purchases that they quickly sell in order to get cash. No religious institution solicits gift card payments nor does the IRS which is why when someone posing as a religious institution or the IRS asks for a payment through gift cards you can be sure it is a scam. The second thing that we all should do is to always confirm the legitimacy of any request for a donation of any kind before making a payment.
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Scam of the day – June 28, 2026 – Scammers Love WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more scams in the United States are started on social media than on any other platform at a cost of 2 billion dollars in 2025 and that figure is undoubtedly low because many victims, often out of embarrassment, do not report being victimized. A study done by the Fin Tech company Revolut found that 60% of all scams in the UK originated on the Meta platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp with investment scams being the most common form of scam. Revolut referred to social media as a “hotbed” for scams.
Social media based scams take many forms, but are often based on our trusting the people we encounter as friends on social media. Remember my motto, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Scammers harvest information about you that you post on social media to learn about your identity and interests and use that information to target you with a wide variety of scams including investment scams, romance scams and sales of phony products.
One way to recognize a scam is when you start communication with someone on social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram or even through email and they want to move your discussions to WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal which are all legitimate encrypted messaging platforms, but are favorites of scammers because they are encrypted and not monitored as well as other social media where the platforms may be using AI for scam detection.
TIPS
Don’t accept friend requests from everyone who asks to be your friend on social media and don’t trust communications on social media merely because they appear to come from your friends. Often social media accounts are hacked or cloned and the scammers, posing as your friends, leverage the trust that you have in your friends to lure you into phony investments, phony sales and romances. Further, even if a communication comes from a real friend, often people will forward scams that they have been fooled into thinking are legitimate.
Use your privacy settings to limit who can see the information you post on social media.
Remember it is good rule to never click on links that may appear on social media, text messages or emails unless you have absolutely confirmed that they are legitimate because the risk of downloading malware is too great.
As for WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, no legitimate employer offering a job or financial advisor will switch platforms after they have made initial contact with you.
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Scam of the day – June 27, 2026 – Stolen Car Reward Scam
Scammers are taking photos of cars and then posting them on social media indicating that the car has been stolen and that a thousand dollar reward is being offered for information about the whereabouts of the car. When people respond to the social media post with information about the “stolen” car, they are then instructed to provide their bank account number and bank routing number in order to have the reward sent to their bank account.
Unfortunately, once the scammer has your bank account number and the routing number for your bank which is used for wire transfers, they are able to use that information to make purchases where money is wired from your account and the goods purchased are sent to the scammer who then can sell the goods thereby laundering the proceeds of the scam. Some scammers will even use your banking information to set up recurring payments such as for utilities. In other instances, they will use the account number and routing number to create counterfeit checks.
TIPS
Never give your bank account information to anyone or any company that you have not thoroughly researched to make sure that they are legitimate. In fact, if you are a bit paranoid, like me (remembering even paranoids have enemies) you can avoid the problem altogether by not providing your bank account information to anyone and have payments sent to you by a check.
If, however, you do become a victim of this type of scam where a scammer has your bank account information, freeze your accounts immediately and notify the police and the fraud department of your bank. Change your online banking password and make sure you are using dual factor authentication as well.
The good news is that for this type of wiring of funds fraud, you are not liable for the money withdrawn from your account if you notify the bank within 60 days of when you receive your monthly statement. Frankly you should notify your bank within 60 seconds of receiving your monthly statement indicating the crime. Banks are required to investigate the crime promptly and replace the money into your account within one business day of determining that the loss of funds from your account was fraudulent.
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Scam of the day – June 26, 2026 – Porn in the Cloud Scam
People are reporting receiving calls that purport to be from Apple’s Special Investigations Unit telling them that illegal child pornography has been discovered on their cloud account. The phony investigator is sympathetic when you inform them that you never stored child pornography on the cloud or anywhere else. He tells you that most likely the child pornography was somehow planted by a hacker on your computer and it is being backed up in the cloud. In order to remedy the problem, the phony Apple investigator tells you he needs remote access to your computer in order to locate and remove the child pornography from your computer. The cost of this service can be as high as thousands of dollars which the phony investigator requests be paid through Amazon gift cards. This scam presents a double whammy. Victims of the scam not only pay the scammer for services they don’t need, but by providing remote access to their computers, they enable the scammer to install a wide variety of malware that can lead to identity theft and further scams.
TIPS
Even if your Caller ID indicates that the call is coming from Apple, your Caller ID can be manipulated easily through a technique called “spoofing” by which the scammer can make your Caller ID read whatever he or she wants it to read. One way you can be sure if you receive such a call that it is a scam is that neither Apple nor any other tech company is going to call to inform you that there is child pornography on your computer. Also, Apple does not have a Special Investigations Unit. Additionally, legitimate tech companies do not accept Amazon gift cards or any other form of gift card as payment for their services. As for enabling someone to have remote access to your computer, you should never do so unless you have absolutely confirmed that the remote access is legitimately warranted and the person to whom you are giving the remote access is also legitimate.
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Scam of the day – June 25, 2026 – Synthetic Identity Theft Worsens
Although I have been writing about synthetic identity theft for many years, many people are not familiar with the term “synthetic Identity theft.” Synthetic identity theft poses a significant threat to many people particularly children. Synthetic identity theft occurs when a criminal takes information from a variety of sources to create a new identity to take out loans, purchase goods and services, or fraudulently obtain credit cards. Synthetic identity thieves combine real and fake information to form a new fictional person. They may use your Social Security number and combine it with the name, address and phone number of someone else. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said that synthetic identity theft is the fastest growing type of identity theft. Children are the most common victims of synthetic identity theft and it is often many years before the problem is discovered.
The problem of synthetic identity theft has gotten worse in recent years. Credit Reporting Bureau TransUnion reported that synthetic identity theft has become the fastest growing form of fraud since 2024 and LexisNexis found that synthetic identity theft increased 800% in 2025. Much of the blame for the increase in synthetic identity theft can be attributed to AI which has made it easier for identity thieves to create legitimate appearing personal documents, and create deepfake identification images that pass standard verification checks. Complicating the situation further is the vast amount of personal data harvested from data breaches.
Commonly with synthetic identity theft, criminals who set up a synthetic identity build the credit score of the synthetic identity by having people using credit cards obtained in the name of the synthetic identity and make regular payments until the credit score of the new synthetic identity is high enough for the ultimate payoff, which is referred to as the “bust out.” In the bust out phase, the identity thief uses the new synthetic identity to either make large purchases or take out big loans that are never paid back. Some synthetic identity thieves will take years to build the synthetic identity theft credit score by making payments on cell phone accounts, car loans and more.
TIPS
Some telltale signs of synthetic identity theft include being contacted about an account that you never opened or a debt that you didn’t incur. Also, look for aliases listed on your credit report that you do not use. A dramatic lowering of your credit score coupled with a lack of negative information on your primary credit reports are further indications of synthetic identity theft. The reason that your primary credit report will not show negative information due to synthetic identity theft is because when a criminal uses your Social Security number, but doesn’t use your name, the negative information caused by their actions does not appear on your regular credit report. Instead, the information is added to a sub-file of your credit report which will, however, cause your credit score to drop tremendously.
If you do find out that you have become a victim of synthetic identity theft, notify each of the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion of the crime and ask them to investigate and remove the false information from your sub-files.
Children are prime targets and particularly vulnerable to synthetic identity theft. In 2025 as many as 2 million children in the USA were victims of identity theft, much of it synthetic identity theft. Parents also should, as much as possible, try to limit the places that have their child’s Social Security number and become familiar with the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act which helps you protect the privacy of your child’s school records and enables you to opt out of information sharing by the school with third parties.
You also should freeze the credit reports of your children. Until 2018 there was no national law that allowed the credit reports of children to be frozen, but in the wake of the major Equifax data breach, Congress passed laws that now permit children’s credit reports to be frozen and unfrozen for free.
Here are the links to information about how to freeze your child’s credit reports at each of the three major credit reporting agencies.
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
https://www.equifax.com/personal/education/identity-theft/freezing-your-childs-credit-report-faq/
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Scam of the day – June 24, 2026 – The Danger of Social Media Quizzes
Quizzes on Facebook and other social media are very popular, but they can be exploited by identity thieves. A good example of this was the “10 Concerts, but there is one act that I haven’t seen live. Which is it?” Facebook quiz. While this may appear harmless, the information you provide may tell more about you than is safe to make public. It may provide information about your approximate age and preferences in music which can then be used by a scammer to send you a spear phishing email tailored to appeal to your particular interests that you may trust and click on a link contained in the email that contains either keystroke logging malware that can be used to steal your identity or ransomware.
Quizzes that ask about your favorite place to live or favorite movie characters may seem like simple fun, but may have been posted by an identity thief seeking to gather information the identity thief can use to make you a victim of identity theft. In addition, providing this type of personal information can help an identity thief determine your passwords or the answers to security questions that would enable the identity thief to change your passwords. Particularly problematic is when a pop up appears when you start the quiz requiring you to agree to allow a third-party application access to your Facebook profile. If you agree to this, you are permitting the quiz poster to gain access to your Facebook profile information, your location and much more. Additionally, clicking on some quizzes may install malware on your phone or computer
TIPS
We all tend to put too much personal information on social media that can be exploited by scammers and identity thieves to our detriment. My advice is to avoid the problem entirely and not play these online games. However, if you, as many people do, find these quizzes and games to be fun to play, you may want to just adjust your privacy setting to “friends only” so that you limit who gets to see your answers. While you are at it, you also may want to check out your Facebook profile and remove personal information such as your phone number or home address.
Be particularly aware not to provide information that can answer common security questions, such as your mother’s maiden name, the name of your first pet, your childhood street address, your favorite food or the name of the elementary school you attended. A good practice when it comes to security questions is to use a nonsensical answer when you provide an answer when setting up your security question. Thus, the answer to the security question as to the name of your first pet can be “Grapefruit.” This is so silly you will remember it and no hacker will ever be able to guess it from social media posts or quiz answers.
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Scam of the day – June 23, 2026 – Phantom Debt Collection Scams
Receiving a telephone call from a debt collector is not a pleasant experience. Being hounded by someone attempting to collect a debt you do not owe constitutes fraud. In recent years the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken action against a number of these phantom debt collection agencies. These scammers used false claims and threats to compel people to pay debts which were largely either non-existent or which the defendants had no authority to collect. They also violated federal law by illegally failing to provide proper notices and disclaimers also required by federal law.
TIPS
Subject to strict federal laws, legitimate debt collectors are permitted to call debtors, however, the law prohibits them from threatening imprisonment for the failure to pay a debt and attempting to collect a debt that the debt collector knows is bogus. The law also prohibits debt collectors from communicating information about a debt to the consumer’s employer although they can contact the employer merely to obtain contact information about the employee
It can be difficult to know when someone calls attempting to collect a debt if indeed they are legitimate or not, so the best course of action if you receive such a call is to not discuss the debt with the person calling, but instead demand that they send you a written “validation notice” by regular mail which describes the debt they allege you owe and includes a listing of your rights under the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Never give personal information over the phone to anyone who calls you attempting to collect a debt. You can never be sure who they are. If you receive the validation notice and it appears to be legitimate, you may be better off contacting your creditor directly because the person who called you may not be representing the creditor, but may merely have information about the debt.
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