Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – October 21, 2021 – Vaccine Verification Phishing Scam
As the federal government and more and more state governments along with private employers are requiring their employees to be vaccinated from the Coronavirus as a condition of employment, scammers are taking advantage of this situation to contact people with phishing text messages called smishing that purport to come from state health departments that appear to enable you to confirm your vaccination status. Recently the New York State Department of Health issued a warning about this type of scam which they say is intended to lure people into providing personal information that can be used for purposes of identity theft. In addition, the links contained in these smishing emails also present a threat of downloading malware, such as ransomware or keystroke logging malware if targeted victims of the scam click on the links provided in these emails.
Never respond directly to these text messages. Don’t text “stop” or “no” as sometimes suggested. Doing so only alerts the identity thieves that they have a real and active cellphone number. Instead forward the text to 7726, which spells SPAM on your keyboard.
You can never be sure when you receive a text message asking for information if the sender is who he or she says he or she is and even if the message originates from a legitimate cellphone, you can’t be sure that the legitimate cellphone was not hacked into and the message you receive is from an identity thief. If you ever have the slightest thought that the text message may be a legitimate message from an entity with which you do business, you should contact the real entity directly at a number that you know is correct to inquire about the text message.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 20, 2021 – AOL Mail Notification Scam
Today’s Scam of the day is about a phishing email presently circulating that attempts to lure you into clicking on a link in order to continue using your AOL account. Millions of people still use AOL. One reason for this is that you get greater email privacy when compared to some other email carriers. Due to its popularity, scammers and identity thieves often send out phishing emails that appear to come from AOL, such as the one reproduced below. If you click on the link in the email where it reads “Log-in to Restore” one of two things can occur and both are bad. Either you will end up providing personal information to an identity thief or you will, merely by clicking on the link, download dangerous malware such as ransomware on to your phone, computer or other device.
Here is the email presently being circulated. The link where it reads ” Log-in to Restore” has been disabled. If you had hovered your mouse over the original link, you would have seen that it would have taken you to a site that wasn’t related to AOL.
The Classic version of Your Email will be replaced by our new version 18.9. So it’s time to verify, before you lose your email access.
Log-in to Restore
Note: This is mandatory to continue the use of your email account.
Thank you,
TIPS
When AOL communicates with its customers about their accounts, they do so by AOL Certified Mail, which will appear as a blue envelope in your inbox and will have an official AOL Mail seal on the border of the email. No official AOL Mail seal appears in the inbox for this phishing email. This email also does not refer to you in the salutation which is another common indication that it is a phishing email being sent out to massive numbers of people. Whenever you get an email, you cannot be sure who is really sending it. In the case of this email, the email address of the sender had no relation to AOL and most likely was the email address of someone whose email account was hacked and made a part of a botnet of computers used by cybercriminals to send such communications. Never click on a link unless you are absolutely sure that it is legitimate. If you think the email might be legitimate, the best thing to do is to contact the real company that the email purports to be from at an email address or phone number that you know is accurate in order to find out if the communication was legitimate or not.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 19, 2021 – FCC Proposing New Rules to Combat SIM Swapping
SIM card swapping is a major problem. A Subscriber Identity Module, more commonly known as a SIM card, is an integrated circuit that stores information used to authenticate subscribers on mobile devices, such as a cell phone. The SIM card is able to be transferred between different devices, and often is, when people update into a newer cell phone. However, as more and more financial transactions, such as online banking, are now done through cell phones, identity thieves with access to their victims’ SIM cards are also increasingly becoming able to intercept security codes sent by text messages for online banking as part of dual factor authentication and thereby providing the identity thief with the opportunity to empty their victims’ bank accounts and cause other financial havoc.
SIM card swapping or porting as it is sometimes referred to is the name for the crime where someone convinces your phone carrier to transfer your SIM card to a phone controlled by the criminal. By SIM swaps, criminals can reset passwords on online accounts and request dual factor authentication codes be sent to their phones which will render dual factor authentication useless as a security measure. Sometimes criminals contact the mobile service providers of their victims posing as the victims and trick the mobile service provider employees to swap the SIM cards to phones controlled by the criminals Other times criminals bribe employees at their victims’ mobile service providers to achieve the SIM swap.
SIM card swapping has resulted in huge losses including one instance in which a victim had 23.8 million dollars worth of cryptocurrencies stolen from his account by someone who accessed the account through SIM swapping that thwarted the dual factor authentication used by the victim to protect the security of the account.
In a new development the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is proposing new regulations that will require phone carriers to better authenticate customers before redirecting a customer’s phone number to a new device or carrier. In addition, the new proposals would require phone carriers to imme4diately notify its customers whenever a SIM card change is requested for their phone number.
TIPS
The best protection for your phone starts with a strong password, facial recognition or fingerprint scanner. Also, set your phone so that it locks when you are not using it. Make sure that you back up everything in your phone regularly. Install the Find My iPhone app if you have an iPhone or the Find My Device app if you have an Android phone. These will enable you to locate your cellphone if it is lost or stolen and also allow you to send a command to erase everything in your cellphone even if the phone has been turned off. If your phone is lost or stolen, you should immediately contact your wireless provider to have them disable the SIM card in your phone so that your phone cannot be used by someone else. As for protecting your phone from cyberattacks, it is important to both download and continually update security software.
Perhaps the best thing you can do to protect your SIM card from SIM card swapping is to set up a PIN or password to be used for access to your mobile service provider account. This will help prevent a criminal from calling your carrier posing as you and convincing your mobile carrier to swap your SIM card to the criminal’s phone merely by providing personal identifying information or answering a security question.
AT&T will allow you to set up a passcode for your account that is different from the password that you use to log into your account online. Without this passcode, AT&T will not swap your SIM card. Here is a link with instructions as to how to set up the passcode. https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1051397?gsi=9bi24i
Verizon enables customers to set up a PIN or password to be used for purposes of authentication when they contact a call center. Here is a link with information and instructions for setting up a PIN with Verizon. https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/account-pin-faqs/
T-Mobile will allow you to set up a passcode that is different from the one you use to access your account online. This new passcode is used when changes to your account are attempted to be made such as swapping a SIM card. This code will not only protect you from criminals attempting to call T-Mobile and swap your SIM card, but will also prevent someone with a fake ID from making changes to your account at a T-Mobile store. Here is a link to information and instructions for adding a new passcode to your account. https://www.t-mobile.com/customers/secure
Sprint customers can establish a PIN that must be provided when doing a SIM swap, in addition to merely answering a security question, the answer to which may be able to be learned by a clever identity thief. Here is a link to information about adding a PIN to your Sprint account. https://www.sprint.com/en/support/solutions/account-and-billing/update-your-pin-and-security-questions-on-sprint-com.html
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 18, 2021 – Nigerian Emails Achieve a New Level of Ridiculousness
Today’s Scam of the day comes from a regular Scamicide reader and is another version 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, as indicated in the email below, 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, or a minor bank official trying to move the money of deceased foreigners out of his bank without the government taking it. The example below of the email received by a Scamicide reader is an incredibly confusing and inconsistent missive that doesn’t really do a very good job of indicating the basis for the more than 10 million dollar payment described in the email. 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.
Here is a copy of the email presently circulating:
TIPS
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 17, 2021 – Online Used Car Sale Scams
Just as about everything else we do today has migrated online so has buying a used car, however, buying a used car, which is always an activity ripe for scams, is particularly susceptible to scams when you are buying a used car online. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider buying a used car online, but it does mean that you have to take precautions to make sure you are not scammed. One of the first things to check out when you buy a car on Craigslist, eBay or any other online listing site is whether or not the car actually exists and is owned by the person trying to sell it to you. Scammers often take pictures from real online listings of used cars and put them into phony online ads. A good way to determine if a listing has been merely copied is to do a reverse image search on Google which will show you if the same car keeps turning up in ads as being available in many different places around the country.
You also should never buy a used car unless you get a chance to actually drive it and have a mechanic check it out for you. Get a Carfax or similar report on the car which will indicate if there is hidden damage that hasn’t been told to you. As I have written about many times, water or storm damaged cars often get their titles changed and are sold as if they had no damage. A Carfax or similar report will reveal such hidden information.
Finally, it is a good idea to use third party escrow sites such as PayPal to pay for a used car to make sure that funds are not released until you get the car you purchased. Be particularly wary if the seller wants you to pay with gift cards which is always an indication of a scam.
TIPS
Whenever you purchase a used car you should always get a full report on its history. The United States Department of Justice operates The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System which provides much information about used cars. The NVMTIS provides a list of various companies such as Carfax that have been approved to provide reliable reports. These companies charge between $2.95 and $12.99 for a report that will provide detailed information on any used car you are considering purchasing.
Whenever you are considering buying a used card you also should ask the seller to provide you with the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). You can then enter that information into the website of the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) in order to verify that it matches the car the seller indicates he or she is selling and that it is not a stolen car.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 16, 2021 – Move Over Mavis Wanczyk, Pierre Omidyar is Now Offering Millions (Not!)
I have been writing about scams related to Mavis Wanczyk for four years.. Many of you may not remember the name of Mavis Wanczyk, but she was the lucky winner of a 758 million dollar Powerball drawing in 2017. Not long after she claimed her prize, a scam started appearing in which many people received emails with the message line referring to the Mavis Wanczyk Cash Grant. The email indicated that you were chosen to receive a large cash grant from Mavis Wanczyk. All the lucky strangers receiving the emails had to do was provide personal information in order to qualify for the grant. Since that time there have been a multitude of various new incarnations scams that share the same hook which is that Mavis Wanczyk is giving money away to lucky people. People responding to the scam soon learn that there are a number of costs that you need to pay in order to receive the gift that never comes or they are required to provide personal information such as their Social Security number which leads to their becoming a victim of identity theft.
But move over Mavis, Pierre Omidyar is the new hook for this type of scam. Actually the scam is not really new as it has been turning up in emails like the one copied below for two years. Once again there is a bit of truth to hide the scam. Pierre Omidyar is indeed a wealthy man, primarily earned from his creation of eBay. It is also true that he is charitably inclined and has established the Omidyar Network which is a charity through which he gives money to non-profit and for profit business ventures. He absolutely does not, however, give vast amounts of money to strangers. As in the Mavis Wanczyk scams, if you respond to the email in which you are told of your good fortune you will either end up paying fees for a gift you never receive or you provide personal information that is used to make you a victim of identity theft. Either way you lose.
It is interesting to note in the email shown below sent in by a Scamicide reader the email address of the sender is an Australian email address has no relationship to Pierre Omidyar.
From: Pierre Omidyar <toursbookings@vis.org.au>
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2021 9:59 AM
To: YOU <toursbookings@vis.org.au>
Subject: Pierre’s Gift
Greetings to you and your family.
This email will come to you as too good to be true!
In a million years, I never thought I would do something like this.
My Name is Pierre Omidyar, Below is a Link of me and what i do.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/pierre-omidyar/
I have been giving my wealth away for a while now to various charities and causes I really care about but recently I had an epiphany and I realized I need to be more personal with my giving.
I want to touch ordinary people in a way that has never been done before.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/ebay-founder-pierre-omidyar_n_1020884.html
So I decided I was going to contact 20 people via their email address which I paid for from a Marketing Firm.
If you receive this email, I am giving you $1.9 Million.
Thinking about it again, I must be crazy to do something like this but crazy is what made me who I am today so lets go for it!
All you have to do is reply to this email with your full names and you will be paid $1.9 Million.
This is my personal journey to self-fulfilment, I hope you accept this special gift from me and my family.
Pierre Omidyar
TIPS
It is difficult to win a lottery you have entered. It is impossible to win one that you have never entered and neither lottery winners, nor anyone else is sending out messages through the Internet offering free money to anyone who responds with personal information. Never give out personal information that can make you vulnerable to identity theft unless you have absolutely verified that the party requesting the personal information is legitimate and has a legitimate need for the information. Also never pay anything to a lottery claiming you owe fees in order to claim your prize. This is a telltale sign of a scam. No legitimate lottery requires the payment of a fee to collect your winnings or requires you to pay the lottery income taxes on the prize. While income taxes are due on lottery winnings, those taxes are either deducted by the lottery sponsor before giving you your prize or the prize is given to you in full and you are responsible for the payment of any taxes. No lottery collects taxes on behalf of the IRS.
Also, neither Mavis Wanczyk nor any other lottery winner is giving away money to strangers and neither is Pierre Omidyar.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide was recently cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive 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 insert your email address where it indicates “Sign up for this blog.”
Scam of the day – October 15, 2021 – Facebook “Is it you in the video” Scam
I wrote about today’s Scam of the day previously this year but am repeating it again because I have heard from a number of Scamicide readers who have been targeted by this scam. The scam starts when you receive a message on Facebook Messenger that looks like this:
(image: Sophos)
The message will have a link and what appears to be a video, which many people would be tempted to click on out of a concern that the video may be significant, however, when you click on the link, you are taken to a phony Facebook login page. If you fall for the scam and type in your username and password, you will have turned over control of your Facebook account to a criminal. When a criminal gains access to your Facebook account, it enables him or her to be able to send out a wide variety of malware infected posts and messages that will appear to come from you and therefore be more likely to lure your unsuspecting friends into clicking on the links in the posts and messages thereby downloading a wide variety of dangerous malware such as ransomware or keystroke logging malware that can lead to identity theft.
TIPS
Remember my motto, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Whenever you get a Facebook message, email, or text message you can never be sure who is really contacting you. The “friend” you think is communicating with you may well be a criminal who has managed to hack your friend’s Facebook account, email account or phone and use these accounts to send out phishing messages that lure you into clicking on infected links. Never click on a link unless you have absolutely confirmed that it is legitimate.
In the case of this particular Facebook Messenger scam, instead of clicking on the link or providing your user name and password, you should contact your real friend to determine if they sent the message to you. Additionally, it is always a good idea to use dual factor authentication whenever possible so that if somehow you are tricked into providing your user name and password, the criminal still wouldn’t be able to gain access to your account. Here is a link to information about setting up dual factor authentication on your Facebook account. https://www.facebook.com/help/148233965247823
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/
Scam of the day – October 14, 2021 – New Developments in the Grandparent Scam
I am sure most of you are familiar with the grandparent scam where a grandparent receives a telephone call from someone purporting to be their grandchild who has gotten into some trouble, most commonly a traffic accident, legal trouble or medical problems in a far away place. The caller pleads for the grandparent to send money immediately to help resolve the problem. However the caller also begs the grandparent not to tell mom and dad. One would think that no one would be gullible enough to fall for this scam, but don’t be so hard on the victims of this scam. Scam artists have a knowledge of psychology of which Freud would have been envious and are able to use that knowledge to persuade their victims to send money right away. While this scam has been going on for approximately thirteen years, it continues to victimize people. Most often the crime begins with a phone call in which the criminals impersonate the grandchildren of their intended victims although in some instances, the criminals impersonate lawyers calling purportedly on behalf of the grandchildren. The criminals convince the victims that their grandchildren are in imminent need of money for bail, medical expenses for car accident victims or to prevent criminal charges from being filed. In a more recent new twist on this scam, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is warning people about scammers who send couriers to collect the money. Often these couriers are Uber or Lyft drivers who are unaware of the scam.
TIPS
Sometimes the scammers do not know the name of their victim’s grandchildren, but often they do. In a recent San Diego case, the criminals used the nicknames of the grandchildren when speaking to their intended victims. Sometimes they get this information from social media while in other instances they get this information from reading obituaries which may contain the names of grandchildren so merely because the correct name is used in the call is no reason to believe the call. Don’t respond immediately to such a call without calling the real grandchild on his or her cell phone or call the parents and confirm the whereabouts of the grandchild. If a medical problem is the ruse used, you can call the real hospital. If legal problems are the hook you can call the real police. You can also test the caller with a question that could be answered only by the real grandchild, but make sure that it really is a question that only the real grandchild could answer and not just anyone who might read the real grandchild’ s Facebook page or other social media.
Never wire money unless you are absolutely sure about to whom you are wiring the money and it is not a scam. Once you have wired money, it is gone forever. Also, students traveling abroad should register with the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs/ui/. This program can help with communications in an emergency situation.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide was recently cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive 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 insert your email address where it states “Sign up for this blog.”
Scam of the day – October 13, 2021 – Extortion Scams on LGBTQ+ Dating Apps
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning members of the LGBTQ+ community about extortion scams turning up on LGBTQ+ dating apps such as Grindr and Feeld. Unlike the typical romance scam about which I have written many times, in these new scams the scammers don’t quickly profess love and then ask for money under a variety of pretenses. Rather in this case the scammer quickly establishes a relationship with his or her victim on one of the LGBTQ+ dating apps and then sends sexually explicit photos with a request for the victim to do the same. However, if the targeted victim does send such photos, the scammer then threatens to share those photos with the targeted victims’ friends, family and employers unless the targeted victim pays a blackmail ransom, generally by gift cards to maintain anonymity.
In 2017 I told you about a similar scam preying on heterosexual soldiers. The Army Criminal Investigation Command has warned military personnel about the dangers of sextortion. Sex extortion or sextortion has been around for years on the Internet with criminals persuading people into performing sexual acts online that are recorded and then used to blackmail the victims. The Army’s Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU) in 2017 began warning soldiers about extortionists who threaten to send the videos to the Soldier’s command, family and friends unless they pay a ransom.
TIPS
The best solution to any problem is to avoid the problem altogether. If you are going to send sexually explicit photos or indulge in cybersex or phone sex, it should only be done with people whom you totally trust. Engaging in such activities with strangers or people you do not know extremely well is asking for trouble. You can check on the legitimacy of someone’s profile picture to see if it has been associated with another name or with details that don’t match what you have been told by doing a reverse image search using Google or websites such as tineye.com. You also should avoid sharing personal information such as your cell phone number, email address and social media profile with someone you only recently met on a dating app.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide was recently cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive 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 in the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”
Scam of the day – October 12, 2021 – FTC Sends Warning to For-Profit Colleges
For-profit colleges and universities have been a target of state and federal investigations for years. I have written about this topic since 2012. It should be noted that not all for-profit colleges are scams, but there are a large number of for-profit colleges, sometimes referred to as “diploma mills” that at times offer credit for your “life experience” and lure students in with promises of a helpful degree, but the students end up with a worthless degree and an empty wallet. Sometimes the names of these scamming colleges and universities are confusingly similar to legitimate colleges. For instance, Columbia State University is a diploma mill while Columbia University is an eminent Ivy League school.
In 2019, the University of Phoenix settled charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that it used deceptive advertising to attract students. These ads falsely implied that the University of Phoenix worked with companies such as AT&T, Yahoo and Microsoft to create job opportunities for students and to shape its programs for the jobs. Pursuant to the settlement, the University of Phoenix paid 50 million dollars to the FTC and the FTC is now sending refunds to 147,500 former University of Phoenix students.
Members of the armed forces and student veterans are often targeted by deceptive marketing by some for-profit schools who falsely claim they are affiliated with the U.S. Military.
Recently the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) send notices to 70 for-profit colleges that the FTC will be taking legal action against any schools that make false promises about their graduates’ job and earnings prospects and that such actions will carry significant financial penalties.
TIP
If you are considering attending a for-profit school, first check it out with the United States Department of Education’s website at www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation to make sure it is an accredited institution.
You also should investigate whether a local college, university or community college would be more cost effective for you. For-profit colleges and universities are often more expensive than these other alternatives without offering any distinct advantages. Also, check out the graduation rates of any for profit college you are considering and finally, investigate the job prospects in your field of study. Don’t just take the word of the college.
For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.” Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is sign up for free using this link. https://scamicide.com/scam-of-the-day/