Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – August 13, 2026 – 15 Million Patients Affected by Biggest Healthcare Data Breach of 2026
DentaQuest, the second largest dental insurance company in the country suffered a data breach in May that was only confirmed in July when the company sent notices to the 15 million of its customers affected by the data breach which appears to have been done by the ransomware gang ShinyHunters. Among the stolen information was names, addresses and other personal information, most notably Social Security numbers which can be used for criminals for purposes of identity theft. In its notice to affected patients the company offered free identity theft protection services and credit monitoring. For more information, you can call DentaQuest at 844-959-7163
TIPS
One important lesson we have learned from the epidemic of data breaches is to limit the amount of personal information that you provide to companies and websites whenever possible. For example, your dentist doesn’t need your Social Security number for his or her records.
You should make sure that you have a unique password for each of your online accounts so that if one of your passwords is compromised in a data breach, all of your accounts will not be in danger. If your information is compromised in a data breach, you should immediately change the password for that account.
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
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Scam of the day – August 12, 2026 – Google Forms Scams
Google Forms is a terrific free tool that lets you create surveys, quizzes and forms for gathering data. It is widely used in education, business and in people’s personal affairs. It is easy to use, accessible through a shareable link and secure. Unfortunately, however, scammers take advantage of its acceptance as a legitimate tool to use it to perpetrate a variety of scams including scams by which it is used to create fake login pages that appear to be those of banks or colleges as well as to create phony surveys with promises of prizes in exchange for providing personal data. Scams using Google Forms increased by 63% last year and appear to be happening with even more frequency in 2025. Scams using Google Forms are sent through Google’s own mail servers so they can avoid email security filters making them appear more legitimate. Unfortunately, if you provide the asked for personal information, you set yourself up to become a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. If you get a Google Forms email that appears to come from your bank, college or any other institution, confirm with the real bank or other sender by phone or email before providing any personal information. As for Google Forms communications offering a payment in return for personal information or contests asking you to provide personal information, the risk of being scammed is too great to respond by providing the requested information.
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Scam of the day – August 11, 2026 – Elderly Navy Veteran Loses $100,000 to Lottery Scam
Lottery scams are one of the most prevalent types of scams and scammers cheat people out of millions of dollars each year by tricking people into sending money to the scammers after being told that they have won a lottery, but are required to pay some fees or taxes in order to collect their prize. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Americans lost $351 million to lottery scams last year. It is hard to win any lottery. It is impossible to win one that you have not even entered and yet scam artists, the only criminals we refer to as artists have found that it is extremely lucrative to scam people by convincing them that they have won various lotteries.
Most lottery scams involve the victims being told that they need to pay taxes or administrative fees directly to the lottery sponsor; however no legitimate lottery requires you to do so. As with many effective scams, the pitch of the scammer seems legitimate. Income taxes are due on lottery winnings, but with legitimate lotteries they are either deducted from the lottery winnings before you receive your prize or you are responsible for paying the taxes directly to the IRS. No legitimate lottery collects taxes on behalf of the IRS from lottery winners. Other times, the scammer tell the “winners” that in order to collect their prizes, they need to pay administrative fees. Often, the victims are told to send the fees back to the scammer by prepaid gift cards. Again, no legitimate lottery requires you to pay administrative fees in order to claim your prize.
Eighty-one year old Navy veteran Riley Williams who has both Parkinson’s disease and dementia received a call from a scammer seven months ago telling him that he had won a lottery he had not entered, but he needed to pay taxes and fees before he could collect his winnings. For seven months the scammers convinced him time and time again to pay these phony fees and taxes by way of gift cards before he became aware that he had been scammed. Ultimately he lost $100,000.
TIPS
As I have often told you, it is difficult to win a lottery you have entered. It is impossible to win one that you have not even entered. You should always be skeptical about being told that you have won a lottery you never entered. It is also important to remember that it is illegal to play foreign lotteries except when you are actually present in the other country so if you are told that you have won the infamous Jamaica Lottery, it is absolutely a scam.
While it is true that income taxes are owed on lottery winnings, legitimate lotteries never collect tax money from winners. They either deduct the taxes from the winnings or leave it up to the winners to pay their taxes directly to the IRS. You also should never pay a fee to collect a legal lottery prize.
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Scam of the day – August 10, 2026 – USAA Customer Loses $15,000 to Imposter Scam
Imposter scams where the scammers pose as a government employee, such as with the IRS or a company with which you do business such as your bank are unfortunately often very successful in stealing your money. They generally convince you that there is an emergency that requires you to pay them money directly or, as is often the case, send money to designated accounts that you are told would be held for you to protect your funds. Recently Arsiln Chaudhry, a 21 years customer of USAA took a phone call that his Caller ID indicated was from USAA’s customer service department, however, the truth is that the call was from a scammer using a simple technique called “spoofing” to manipulate Chaudhry’s Caller ID to make the call appear to come from USAA. The scammer, posing as a bank employee told Chaudhry that someone was attempting to take $8,500 from his account and told him that he needed to transfer the money from his account to another account provided by the bank in order to protect his funds. Unfortunately, Chaudhry moved $15,000 before recognizing that he had been scammed.
If this sounds familiar, you may remember in 2025 when I told you about Minnesota Vikings linebacker Dallas Turner falling prey to a similar imposter scam where he received a phone call from a scammer posing as an employee of Chase, his bank informing him that someone had tried to access his bank account and that in order to protect his money he needed to wire it to two different accounts at two different Chase banks, which Turner did before he realized after speaking with a family member that he had been scammed.
TIPS
The biggest red flag in this type of scam is to remember that no bank or governmental agency will ever under any circumstances direct you to withdraw your funds and put them into another account provided by the scammer.
If you do receive a call, text message or phone call about a threat to your account, you can never be sure that the person contacting you as legitimate, so you should never provide personal information, make a payment or click on a link in any such communication. Rather, if you think the communication may be legitimate, merely call your bank or other company involved at a phone number you know is accurate to find out the truth.
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Scam of the day – August 9, 2026 – OPM Data Breach Update
I initially reported to you in 2014 that the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was hacked by Chinese hackers who stole personal information of what was initially thought to be the personal information of about four million present and former federal employees as well as non-employees whose information was gathered by the OPM during the course of background investigations of federal employees. At that time, the OPM offered free credit restoration services and credit monitoring to the victims. Then in 2015, the OPM discovered a much larger data breach affecting approximately twenty-two million people and again offered free credit restoration services and credit monitoring services for a period of ten years.
Now people who enrolled in the free coverage when first offered are receiving notices that their free credit monitoring services will be terminating in September and Senators Mark Warner and Eleanor Holmes Norton have introduced legislation which, if passed will extend the identity protection services for the lifetimes of those affected by the data breach. According to Warner, “We have a responsibility to stand by the federal workers who were put at risk through no fault of their own. This legislation will ensure those affected continue to receive the identity protection they need, while helping better safeguard personal information from future exploitation.”
TIPS
I will keep you informed as to the progress of this proposed legislation.
It is important to remember, however, that no identity theft protection company can prevent you from becoming a victim of identity theft. The best they can do is notify you earlier that you have become a victim. None of the identity theft protection companies help you with the one best step you can take to protect yourself from identity theft which is to put a credit freeze on your credit report. With a credit freeze on your credit report, even if someone has your personal information including your Social Security number, they cannot access your credit report for purposes of gaining credit or loans in your name. You can find information about how to put a credit freeze on your credit reports at each of the three major credit reporting agencies by going to the “Search for Scams” section of Scamicide and putting in the words “credit freeze.”
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Scam of the day – August 8, 2026 – Student Loan Scams Increasing
I have written often about phony student loan debt relief companies and with good reason. More than thirty-eight million Americans have student loans with an outstanding balance of more than 1.4 trillion dollars so it is no surprise that scammers are focusing their attention on these students and former students through scams that falsely promise to provide debt relief. Now, after a five year pause during the pandemic on penalizing student loan borrowers for not making payments, in January of 2025, the Department of Education instructed loan servicers to start reporting late payers to credit bureaus which is resulting in millions of student loan borrowers having their important credit scores drop dramatically. Then in May of 2025, the Department of Education restarted collections on defaulted student loans after a pause commenced in 2020. This has resulted in scammers increasing their efforts regarding phony student loan scams. Government figures indicate that two thirds of student loan borrowers are late or behind in their payments and this presents a dire situation to which scammers can be expected to respond by offering phony debt relief to desperate borrowers.
Scammers like Arete Financial Group who charged illegal upfront fees for their services can be expected to flourish in this new environment. Arete would change their clients’ Federal Student Aid (FSA) login ID, password and contact information with their clients’ loan servicer which effectively eliminated contact between the borrowers and their loan servicers. This enabled Arete, according to the FTC, to place the borrower’s loans into temporary forbearance or deferment status without the borrower even being aware of this. Thus when the borrowers sent their payments to Arete that they were told would be credited toward their loans, the money actually was kept by Arete. Some of Arete’s clients saw their loans become delinquent and their income tax refunds garnished to pay for overdue loan payments. The victims of the scam also lost the money they paid to Arete that was intended to be applied toward their loans. Ultimately, Arete settled a lawsuit brought against it by the FTC and funds obtained from Arete through the settlement of the lawsuit was returned to victims of the scam.
TIPS
The old adage still is true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Many of these student loan debt relief scammers promise quick loan forgiveness, which is unrealistic. In addition, you should never pay any upfront fees for student loan debt relief assistance. Those fees are illegal and are a sure indication that you are being scammed. Also, remember my motto, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Don’t trust scammers merely because they use names that sound like they are affiliated with the government. You also should never share your FSA ID with anyone.
For information you can trust about federal student loan repayment option, go to https://studentaid.gov/articles/student-loan-forgiveness/ . There you can learn about loan deferments, forbearance, repayment and loan forgiveness programs and there is never an application fee. If you owe private student loans, contact your loan servicer directly. You can also look into student loan refinancing rather than consolidating the loans. Refinancing student loans can result in a lower interest rate. Also, this site is helpful https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-opens-revised-income-driven-repayment-plan-and-loan-consolidation-applications-borrowers
Here is a link to an FTC video that explains student loan scams and what you can do to protect yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TjSI4Q6ztQ
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Scam of the day – August 7, 2026 – Florida Sheriff Warns About Jury Duty Scams
I have been warning you about the jury duty scam for thirteen years, but it continues to snare many unwary victims. Recently the Broward County, Florida Sheriff’s Office issued a warning about jury duty scams after an incident in which a local resident was contacted by a scammer posing as a court official telling the targeted victim that they had missed federal jury duty and an arrest warrant had been issued. The targeted victim was then told to deposit $15,000 into a cryptocurrency ATM as bail to avoid being arrested.
Often in these scams you are told that you can pay the fine through gift cards And now more frequently, as in this case, you are told to pay the “fine” through a cryptocurrency ATM. Other times they ask for your Social Security number to confirm your identity. Of course, the phone call is a scam. Even if you have missed jury duty, you will never be called by legitimate court officers and shaken down for a payment.
Often, as in this case, the scammers will use a technique called “spoofing” to make the call appear on your Caller ID as if it is coming from a legitimate law enforcement agency or court. In some instances of the scam you are asked to confirm your identity by providing your Social Security number which will then be used to make you a victim of identity theft. Recently the scam has evolved to where people are also being contacted by text messages or emails from scammers posing as a representative of the local court system.
TIPS
Initial contacts from courts regarding jury duty are always in writing through the mail although some systems will permit you to receive future notices through email. Under no circumstances will you receive telephone calls or text messages indicating that you have failed to report for jury duty. No court will demand payment over the phone for failing to appear for jury duty and no court ever requires a payment be made via gift cards or cryptocurrencies. If you do receive such a call and you think that there is even the possibility that you might have forgotten to report for jury duty, merely call the local clerk of courts in order to get accurate information. Of course anyone calling you and telling you that you can pay your fine to them over the phone using a gift card is a scammer.
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Scam of the day – August 6, 2026 – Scammers Posing as Popular Car Parking App
Paying for a parking spot using an app on your phone has become very popular. Apps such as ParkMobile and PayByPhone are particularly popular in the United States. RingGo is a popular parking app in the UK although it is not available for use in the United States. Recently people in the UK have been receiving text messages from scammer posing as RingGo indicating that a billing review or routine review found a bill for outstanding parking. The text message goes on to direct the targeted scam victim to click on a link that takes them to a phony RingGo website where they are prompted to provide their user name, password and credit card details to pay the phony outstanding parking charge. Of course, anyone doing so will end up providing their credit card information to a scammer.
TIPS
While this scam has not yet been identified in the United States, it is only a matter of time before it turns up with parking apps used in the United States. Fortunately, it is an easy scam to avoid. As I often caution you, whenever you get a phone call, text message you can never be sure who is actually contacting you so you should never click on a link, download an attachment, make a payment or provide sensitive personal information in response to any communication until you have confirmed that it is legitimate. Counterfeit websites, which in the past would often have poor grammar or graphics can now be easily created by even unsophisticated scammers using AI. You just can’t trust any communications. In a situation such as presented by this particular scam, you can merely go to your RingGo app directly and not through a link in a text message or go directly to their website, again not through a link in a text message to determine if you have any outstanding charges.
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Scam of the Day – August 5, 2026 – Justice Department Taking Action Against Money Mules
Laundering money derived from a scam is an essential element of many scams. Scammers can be extremely clever at distancing themselves from their scams in order to avoid detection. The people they enlist either as willing or unknowing participants in the laundering of the proceeds of a scam are called money mules. Scams in which innocent people are lured into being unknowing money mules are numerous. One of the more common of these involves work at home scams where your job is to receive goods, often electronics that have been shipped to you, inspect them and then reship them to an address provided to you by your new employer.
The problem is that these goods have been purchased with stolen credit cards and you have just become an accomplice to the crime when you ship them to someone else who will then sell them to turn the merchandise into cash. Other times the scammers will say that your job is to receive funds sent to you by the scammer, deposit the funds in your own bank account and wire the funds to people who the scammers tell you are either clients or suppliers of the scammers’ phony company. Finally, money mules are also used is in a variation of the romance scam where you are asked by your romantic partner to wire funds to someone on behalf of the scammer under a variety of pretenses.
The Justice Department just completed its fourth annual Money Mule Initiative targeting money mules in which 4,670 letters were sent out warning people that their actions were facilitating fraud schemes. In addition, more than 30 people were criminally charged for their roles in money laundering.
TIP
As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Check out work at home scams with the big two – your local attorney general and the FTC. And, as always, you can Google the name of the particular company offering you the work at home program with the word “scam” next to it and see what turns up.
As for reshipping goods as a work at home job, it is important to remember that there are no such legal jobs for reshippers. They are always a scam and you should steer clear of them. You also should never use your own bank account to transfer funds for an employer. Finally, you should always be skeptical of someone with whom you have recently established an online romantic relationship who either asks you for money (the most common scam) or asks you to pass on money to a third party as directed by the scammer.
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Scam of the day – August 4, 2026 – Microsoft Warns About Hotel Wi-Fi
Microsoft has just issued a warning about an international cyberattack campaign being done by Russian hackers targeting hotels and conference center Wi-Fi networks. The hackers have compromised the legitimate hotel and conference center networks and are able to redirect network traffic to phony Microsoft sign-in pages, fraudulent verification checks and phony browser or operating system updates. The hackers can then steal sensitive personal information from the infected computers and laptops.
Whether we are at the airport, a hotel, a shopping mall, a coffee shop or almost anywhere else, you will usually find free public Wi-Fi service offered so that we can use our cell phones, laptops or tablets to connect to the Internet. However with this convenience can come danger. Too many people assume that the Wi-Fi that they are using is secure and this is not always the case. In addition to the Russian attack on the actual hotel and conference center Wi-Fi, an even more common threat is that of cybercriminals setting up phony Wi-Fi that appears to be that of the hotel or conference center. Often an identity thief will go to the same coffee shop or other venue and set up his or her own Wi-Fi which is what you may unwittingly be tapping into when you think you are connecting to the Wi-Fi of the particular coffee shop or other place you find yourself at. Technologically, it is easy to set up a phony Wi-Fi that can steal data from your cell phone, laptop or tablet and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft.
So what can you do to make using public Wi-Fi safe?
TIPS
It is always a good idea to make sure that your cell phone, tablet or laptop has a good firewall and is protected by anti-virus and anti-malware security software that is updated with the latest security updates. It is also a good idea not to use public Wi-Fi for banking or other financial transactions or, for that matter, anything that requires you to provide login credentials. Sensitive data should not be sent over public Wi-Fi. If you are going to use public Wi-Fi, the first thing you should do is check the hotspot name. Identity thieves often set up their phony Wi-Fi with names that appear quite similar to the legitimate Wi-Fi. For example, the public Wi-Fi offered at your coffee shop may be named GoodCoffee while the phony one may be something that with a cursory look appears legitimate, such as Go0dCoffee.
Always make sure when using public Wi-Fi that you are on the legitimate Wi-Fi site before proceeding to use it. Many cell phones and other devices automatically connect to nearby networks, which can connect you to the identity thief’s phony Wi-Fi before you realize it. Therefore disable automatic connection to networks. Finally, the best thing you can do to protect your privacy and security when using public Wi-fi is to use a Virtual Private Network app which will encrypt all of your data before sending it through the Wi-Fi connection. Here is a link to an article I wrote about VPNs that will tell you all you need to know (and possibly more) about VPNs. https://au.norton.com/internetsecurity-wifi-how-does-a-vpn-work.html and here is a link to an article that lists ten good VPNs that you can get for free. https://www.techradar.com/vpn/best-free-vpn
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