Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – November 20, 2025 – DoorDash Data Breach October 2025: What Happened, Risks, and How to Protect Yourself
Doordash suffered a major data breach on October 25th, but took 19 days before it notified by email millions of its customers that personal information of theirs had been compromised. The information consisted of names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses and while this information is not as sensitive as Social Security numbers or credit card numbers, it still puts victims of the data breach in danger of spear phishing emails that can lure them into becoming scam victims. The data breach was not the result of a computer hacking, but rather social engineering in which a psychologically skilled scammer convinced a DoorDash employee into giving him access to the company’s data.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. This is the third major data breach suffered by DoorDash since 2019 and is a good indication that its cybersecurity is lacking.
TIPS
As for the victims of these data breaches, the first thing they should do is freeze their credit if they have not already done so. Freezing your credit is actually something everyone should do. It is free and easy to do. In addition, it protects you from someone using your identity to obtain loans or make large purchases even if they have your Social Security number. If you have not already done so, put a credit freeze on your credit reports at each of the major credit reporting agencies. Here are links to each of them with instructions about how to get a credit freeze:
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
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Scam of the day – November 19, 2025 – FTC Amazon Prime Settlement: $1.5 Billion Refund Program Explained and How to Avoid Scams
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently settled a lawsuit it brought against Amazon in 2023 related to Amazon enrolling millions of customers as Amazon Prime members and then making it difficult for those customers to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions. As a result of the settlement, Amazon is required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty to the FTC and pay an addition $1.5 billion in refunds to affected customers. Anyone in the United States who enrolled in Prime between June 23, 2019 and June 23, 2015 through what the FTC referred to as “challenged enrollment flows” or who tried unsuccessfully to cancel their Prime membership during that time is eligible for a refund capped at $51. No action need be taken by affected customers to receive their refund. Eligible Prime customers will receive an email between November 12th and December 24th informing the customers of the choice to get their refund by PayPal or Venmo. Customers who would prefer a check can merely ignore the email and a check will be sent to the default shipping address on their Prime subscription.
TIPS
As always, scammers will be taking advantage of the refund program and contacting people posing as Amazon asking for a cash payment in order to receive their refund or asking for username and passwords for your Amazon account. The real refund program does not require any payment to be made in order to be eligible for or apply for the refund. Nor will you be asked for your username and password. Only scammers will do so. Providing that information to a scammer will result in the scammer being able to access your Amazon account. This is probably a good time, if you have not done so already, to sign up for dual factor authentication for your Amazon account so that even if a scammer obtained your Amazon username and password, they would not be able to access your account.
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Scam of the day – November 18, 2025 – Money Mule Scams: How Criminals Launder Funds Through Work-at-Home and Romance Schemes
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.
Many times the scammers will use the names of legitimate businesses when attempting to lure people into the reshipping scam.
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 – November 17, 2025 – Publishers Clearing House Scam Alert: How to Spot Fake Prize Calls and Letters
In the last few years there has been an increase in reports of scammers calling people on the telephone and telling them that they have won one of the Publishers Clearing House lotteries, but that they have to pay fees or taxes before being able to claim their prize. In addition there are reports of targeted victims receiving phony notifications by regular mail that they have won a Publishers Clearing House lottery, but that again they must pay fees or taxes before being able to receive their prize.
It is hard to win any lottery. It is impossible to win one that you have not even entered and yet scam artists have found that it is extremely lucrative to scam people by convincing them that they have won various lotteries. With so many people entered into the Publishers Clearing House lotteries, it is easier for scammers to convince people that they have won. Manny Guerrero of Las Vegas lost $180,000 to scammers posing as Publishers Clear House who called him on the telephone and convinced him that he had won a multi-million dollar prize, but that he needed to pay $180,000 to the scammers for tax owed on the winnings before he could claim his prize.
Most lottery scams involve the victim 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 may seem 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 gift cards. Gift cards are a favorite of scammers because they are the equivalent of sending cash.
After years of declining revenues Publishers Clearing House filed for bankruptcy in April and its assets were sold to ARB Interactive who are now operating the company as PCH Digital LLC.
TIPS
Fortunately, there is an easy way to know, when you are contacted by Publishers Clearing House by phone, email or text message informing you that you have won one of its major multi-million dollar prizes, whether you have been contacted by the real Publishers Clearing House. Publishers Clearing House only contacts major prize winners in person or by regular mail. They do not contact winners by phone, email or text message so if you do receive a notification of your winning one of their major multi-million dollar prizes by those means of communication you know it is a scam.
Even if the Caller ID on your phone indicates the call is from Publishers Clearing House, it is very easy for a scammer to use a technique called “spoofing” to make it appear that the call is coming from Publishers Clearing House rather than the scammer who is really making the call. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
In addition, no winners of the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes are ever required to make a payment of any kind to claim their prize so if you are told that you have won, but are required to make any kind of payment before you can claim your prize, you can be sure that it is a scam. As for other lotteries, remember, you can’t win a lottery you haven’t entered and no legitimate lottery asks you to pay them administrative fees or taxes.
Also, as I often tell you, it is always a red flag that you are involved with a scam when you are asked to pay for anything with gift cards. Gift cards are a favorite method of payment for scammers because they are easy to convert into cash and impossible to trace.
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Scam of the day – November 16, 2025 – Timeshare Resale Scams: How Mexican Cartels Target Owners
Timeshares are a legitimate vacation option for many people with about 9.6 million Americans owning timeshares. However, resales have often been difficult for timeshare owners and scammers have been preying upon timeshare owners trying to sell their interests with promises of buyers that never materialize after charging the timeshare owners upfront fees of sometimes thousands of dollars. Part of the problem is that the timeshare resale firms are largely unregulated although the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought a number of lawsuits against timeshare resale companies for false and misleading marketing. Many older timeshare owners are specifically targeted by scammers through the mail, telemarketing and seminars in which they promise easy sales and big profits. Most of these companies charge upfront fees of between $2,500 and $10,000. Many of them provide a money back guarantee, but the guarantee of a scammer is worthless.
But now, as I often say, “things aren’t as bad as you think, they are far worse” because the Mexican drug cartels Jalisco New Generation and the Sinaloa Cartel have gotten in the timeshare resale scam business. According to federal officials, they have scammed Americans and Canadians owning timeshares in Mexico whom they call by phone offering to sell their timeshare out of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last ten years. Most often they target elderly timeshare owners. Making the matter even worse, after the cartel scammers have scammed their victims out of money for sales that never occur, the scammers contact their victims posing as government agents who have become aware of the scams and offer to help get their money back. Of course, before doing so they require a payment which just adds to the losses of the scam victims.
TIP
Anyone considering selling their timeshare unit should check out the legitimacy of any company proposing to help you sell your timeshare. You can check with your state’s attorney general and your local consumer protection agencies. You also can do a search engine search typing in the word “scam” along with the name of the company you are considering. Make sure you have a lawyer review any contract before you sign it and you should never pay in advance for the services of someone purporting to assist you in reselling your timeshare unit. Probably the best way to sell a timeshare unit is to deal with the resort management company or timeshare developer on your own.
Also, no government agency requires a payment to help you after you have been scammed.
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Scam of the day – November 15, 2025 – Mystery Shopper Scams Continue to Snare Victims
I have written many times over the last fourteen years about the mystery shopper scam because it continues to ensnare unwary victims. These scams continue to be effective and are increasing in number so it is important to remind you about them again. Mystery shoppers are people hired to shop at a particular store and report on the shopping experience for purposes of quality control. Unlike many scams, there actually are legitimate mystery shopper companies, but they never advertise or recruit through emails, text messages or letters.
The manner in which the scam generally works is that when you answer an advertisement, or respond to a letter, email or a text message to become a mystery shopper, you are sent a bank check. You deposit the check into your own account and spend some of the money on the goods that you purchase which you are allowed to keep and also are directed to keep some of the balance of the check as payment for your services. You are instructed to return the remaining funds by a wire transfer. Of course, the check that was sent to you is counterfeit and bounces, but the funds wired by the victim of the scam is gone forever from his or her bank account.
In a Walmart themed mystery shopper scam, the targeted victim was sent a legitimate appearing, but counterfeit check for $2,940 and told to keep $540 as payment and then go to the nearest Walmart and use the remainder of the check to buy six $400 Kroger gift cards and provide the numbers to the scammer. The scam victim was then told to keep the gift cards for their next assignment although there never is another assignment and the scammers use the numbers on the Kroger gift cards to make purchases, making the actual cards worthless. The victim of the scam loses the $2,400 used to purchase the gift cards from the victim’s own bank account when the check bounces.
TIPS
One reason why this scam fools so many people is that there really are mystery shopping jobs although the actual number is quite few and the companies that do mystery shopping do not go looking for you. A firm indication that you are involved with a scam is when you receive a check for more than what is owed you and you are asked to wire the difference back to the sender. This is the basis of many scams. Whenever you receive a check, wait for your bank to tell you that the check has fully cleared before you consider the funds as actually being in your account. Don’t rely on provisional credit which is given after a few days, but which will be rescinded once a check bounces and never accept a check for more than what is owed with the intention to send back the rest. That is always a scam. Also be wary whenever you are asked to wire funds or send gift cards because this is a common theme in many scams because it is difficult to trace and impossible to stop. Legitimate companies do not use gift cards as payments.
For more information about legitimate mystery shoppers, you can go to the website of the Mystery Shopping Professional Association https://www.mspa-americas.org/scam-alerts/
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Scam of the day – November 14, 2025 – VA Scam Alert: How Veterans Can Spot Overpayment Fraud
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is warning veterans about scams in which veterans are being contacted by phone, email or text messages from scammers posing as VA representatives who tell the veterans that they were overpaid benefits and must return the funds immediately. The emails may contain the VA logo and phone calls and text messages may appear to come from the VA, but it is important to remember that the VA will never call, text or email a veteran if there had actually been an overpayment. Instead the veteran would get a formal letter from the VA explaining the amount claimed to be owed and the right of the veteran to appeal the determination or set up a payment plan.
An easy way to recognize this scam is that the scammers, as they often do, request payments by cryptocurrencies or gift cards which scammers love for their anonymity, but are never asked for or accepted by the VA.
TIPS
Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. If you do receive such a communication, you should not respond to it directly, but rather go to your VA.gov account where you can see if you actually have been overpaid. If you have been overpaid you can call the VA’s Debt Management Center at 1-800-827-0648 to set up a repayment plan.
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Scam of the day – November 13, 2025 – IRS Phishing Email
Today’s Scam of the day is about a phishing email presently circulating that appears to come from the IRS informing you that you that there are issues with your income tax return that require you to download software to review your return to avoid penalties. Like so many scams, it attempts to convince you that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention. However, if you click on the link, you will either download dangerous malware or be prompted to provide personal information that will lead to identity theft.
This particular phishing email is not particularly convincing and is riddled with indications that it is a scam. First, the email address of the sender has no relation to the IRS; Second, it never refers to the person it is being sent to by name, but only to “Dear Taxpayer,” Third, it contains grammatical and spelling errors, Fourth, there is no such entity in the IRS called IRS Administration Support. It also is odd that it is being sent now since only people who got an extension on the filing of their income tax return would be filing a return in October.
Here is a copy of the phishing email which contains the IRS logo, but that is easily counterfeited.
It is easy to know when you get an email from the IRS as to whether it really was sent by the IRS because the IRS will never initiate contact with you by an email, text message or phone call.
BS, Be Skeptical. It is always a good rule to follow to never click on a link in an email or text message or provide personal information in response to an email or text message unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate.
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Scam of the day – November 12, 2025 – Fraud Recovery Scams
Scammers are targeting people who have already been the victim of scams posing as either investigators, government agencies or law firms telling the scam victims that they can can recover the funds lost in the original scam. They demand an upfront fee and then disappear. Scammers often keep detailed records of their victims and sell these lists, often referred to as “sucker lists” to other scammers on the Dark Web, that part of the Internet where scammers sell their goods and services. Scammers also get the names of scam victims through monitoring consumer complaint websites or social media. Some of these recovery scammers use AI to create believable websites or call centers.
TIPS
Legitimate recovery entities such as the FBI or law firms do not charge upfront fees for investigating crimes or for efforts to return funds to people who have been scammed. and they never guarantee asset recovery. Governmental agencies do not charge any fees for asset recovery.
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Scam of the day – November 11, 2025 – Google Releases Emergency Chrome Update
It is always important to update all of the software you use with the latest security updates and patches as soon as they are available. Numerous hacks and data breaches could have been avoided if individuals as well as companies installed security updates as soon as they became available. Hackers take advantage of the fact that many of us procrastinate installing security software to our great detriment. The major data breach at Equifax in 2018 that affected 148 million people involved a security flaw in Apache software for which a patch had already been issued months earlier, but Equifax had not yet installed at the time of the data breach.
Google recently issued an emergency Chrome update to respond to five critical security vulnerabilities. Chrome usually updates itself automatically, however Android updates depend on he device manufacturers and carriers so not all devices receive updates immediately or automatically so it is a good idea to check for the update and install if if it has not been done automatically. Here is how to do it:
- Open Chrome.
- Click the three dots in the top-right corner.
- Go to Help > About Google Chrome.
- Chrome will check for updates and install version 142 if available.
- Restart Chrome to complete the update.
TIPS
Always update your programs as soon as security updates are available. Enabling automatic updates is the best way to do it, but it is a good idea to confirm that updates have been installed.
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