Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – June 7, 2026 – Medicare Misdial Scam
Medicare coverage can be confusing. Fortunately, if you have a question regarding your coverage, you can always call the official Medicare phone number of 1-900-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) and speak to a Medicare representative who can answer your question. Unfortunately, scammers are aware that on occasion, people will misdial the phone number and scammers take advantage of this by purchasing telephone numbers that are a single digit off of the real phone number and wait to be called by unsuspecting Medicare recipients. The scammers then will ask the person calling for various information supposedly for verification purposes, such as your Medicare number, your Social Security number, your bank account information or your credit card information. Providing this information will lead to identity theft.
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The key to avoiding this scam beyond being extra careful when you dial the Medicare phone number is to remember that if you ask for coverage information, Medicare will not ask for your full Medicare number, your Social Security number, your bank account information or credit card information. Only scammers will ask for this information.
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Scam of the day – June 6, 2026 – The Danger of Trojan Subscribers
In Homer’s Odyssey, the Trojan horse hid soldiers that when brought through the gates and into the city of Troy led to the fall of Troy. Trojan subscribers are malware hidden within legitimate apps that, while they won’t lead to the downfall of a city, can cost the victims of a Trojan subscriber a lot of money.
Trojan subscribers are malicious code that cybercriminals add to legitimate apps and then upload them to app stores under a different name. The apps can be for a variety of purposes, such as monitoring blood pressure or scanning documents. When someone downloads one of these infected apps, he or she doesn’t realize that the Trojan subscriber will automatically subscribe to a paid service without the person who downloaded the app being aware of it.
Generally, the cybercriminals who create and use Trojan subscribers get paid a commission on each new subscription to a paid service.
There have been a number of different Trojan subscribers found during the past few years including the Jocker Trojan subscriber, the MobOk Trojan subscriber, the Vesub Trojan subscriber and the GriftHorse.ae Trojan subscribers. While they all work slightly differently they all manage to effectively sign up their victims to unwanted and costly subscription services.
Google Play and other app stores try to identify apps with Trojan subscribers, but as soon as they take one down, another pops up. In other instances, Trojan subscribers are found in apps that are not allowed on the regular official app stores.
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So what can you do to protect yourself from Trojan subscribers?
First and foremost, don’t install apps from unofficial sources. The risk is far too great that you will be downloading malware. However, even if you stick to legitimate sources for your apps such as Google Play, you must recognize that getting your app from a legitimate source does not guarantee that the app is malware-free.
Always check out the reviews and ratings of particular apps before you download them. Also, the longer an app has appeared on a legitimate source such as Google Play, the better the chance that it has been properly vetted and does not contain any malware. Therefore be a bit wary of apps that have only recently appeared on a legitimate app store.
Another good policy to follow when you download apps is to give the apps only the minimal access to your device that is needed to perform properly.
Finally, make sure that you have installed strong security software on your cellphone and keep it updated with the latest security updates and patches as they become available to protect you from not only Trojan subscribers, but also other threats as well.
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Scam of the day – June 5, 2026 – Vacation Home Rental Scam
It is June and many people are looking into renting a summer vacation home. Renting vacation homes rather than going to hotels has been increasingly popular in recent years. There are many excellent websites such as VRBO and Homeaway that offer wonderful vacation homes. Others will go to Craigslist and similar sites. These websites can be easy and efficient ways to find a great vacation home.
Unfortunately, they are also a great way for scam artists to steal money from unwary people looking for a vacation home. The scam usually starts with a listing that looks quite legitimate and there is a good reason for that. The listing is often a real on-line listing that has been copied by the scammer who merely puts in his or her name and contact information. The price is usually very low which attracts a lot of potential renters. The potential renters are sometimes told that the owner is out of the country and that there are many people interested in the property so if the tenant wants to be considered for renting it, the tenant has to wire money to the landlord somewhere outside of the country. As I have warned you many times, wiring money is a scammer’s first choice because it is all but impossible to retrieve once you have found out that you have been scammed. Too often, unwary potential tenants wire the money and never hear anything further from the scam landlord. And as for the money, it is gone forever.
TIPS
There are a number of red flags to look for in vacation home rental scams. First, as always, if the price is too good to be true, it usually is just that – not true. Also be wary of landlords who are out of the country.
Never send your payment by a wire transfer, Zelle, Venmo or a cashier’s check. Use a credit card, PayPal or any other payment system with which you can retrieve your funds if the transaction is fraudulent. It is usually best to deal with websites that specialize in vacation homes, but you must remember that they cannot possibly monitor every listing to ensure that it is legitimate.
A great and easy way to determine if the listing is a scam is to check out who really is the owner by going on line to the tax assessor’s office of the city or town where the property is located and look up who the real owner is. If it doesn’t match the name of the person attempting to rent you the home, you should not go through with the rental. Also Google the name of the owner with the word “scam” next to his or her name and see if anything comes up to make you concerned.
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Scam of the day – June 4, 2026 – San Antonio Passes Law Requiring Warnings on Cryptocurrency ATMs.
A report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicates a 1,000 % increase in money lost to scammers through Bitcoin ATMs in the last three years with consumers reporting losses of around $333 million between January and November of 2025. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency ATMs look just like traditional ATMs, but instead of distributing cash, they take cash in exchange for cryptocurrency and enable the transfer of the deposited cash turned into cryptocurrencies into crypto wallets. Due to the anonymity and immediacy of the cryptocurrency transfers done through a cryptocurrency ATM, it is a favorite method of payment for scammers.
Most of the scams using cryptocurrency ATMs involve imposter scams where the scammer poses as either a law enforcement officer, government official or someone providing tech support for a non-existent problem. What all of these imposter scams have in common is that they scare the targeted victim with a story about an emergency that requires them to take cash from their bank account and use a QR code provided by the scammer to deposit the money into the account of the scammer at a cryptocurrency ATM under the guise of protecting the funds. According to the FTC, people over 60 years old were more than three times more likely to report losing money to a cryptocurrency ATM scam with an average loss of $10,000.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts became the latest state to sue a crypto ATM operator, in this case Bitcoin Depot for enabling criminals to use their machines to scam people. According to the lawsuit, more than half of the money that went through Bitcoin Depot ATMs between August 2023 and January 2025 was related to scams. Indiana and Tennessee have gone so far as to ban cryptocurrency ATMs.
Now San Antonio, Texas has passed an ordinance effective July 1st requiring a sign be put on all cryptocurrency ATMs in both English and Spanish warning users about common cryptocurrency scams and instructing anyone being pressured to send money to call 911.
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Protecting yourself from these imposter scams starts with recognizing that you can never be sure who is actually contacting you when you are contacted by phone, email or text message so you should never click on a link, download an attachment or provide personal information in response to any of those communications unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication was legitimate. Further there is no circumstance where you will be asked by anyone legitimate to withdraw funds from your bank, deposit them into a cryptocurrency ATM and transfer the funds to them. Only scammers make those requests.
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Scam of the day – June 3, 2026 – FIFA World Cup Scams Increasing
The FIFA World Cup tournament will be beginning on June 11th. This is the most popular sporting event in the world. With an estimated half of the world’s population eagerly watching the FIFA World Cup tournament it should come as no surprise that this event has spawned numerous scams and identity theft schemes concocted by criminals around the world. The FBI is warning people about scammers setting up phony FIFA websites in order to lure people into paying for tickets or merchandise that they will never receive or provide personal information that will lead to identity theft. Often the scammers will use URLs that at first glance such as http://www.fiffa.com that at first glance may appear to be the legitimate http://www.fifa.com site. Among the many other counterfeit websites that the FBI identified are http://www.fifa-online.com and jobs-fifa.com. By using AI, the scammers can make the counterfeit websites appear legitimate.
One way you can confirm if a website is legitimate is to use Whois.com which is a free service that will tell you who owns a particular URL and how long it has been in service. If your FIFA website has only been around six months and is owned by someone in Nigeria, it certainly is a scam. Here is a link to Whois https://whois.domaintools.com/
Phony lotteries that appear to be operated by FIFA or its corporate sponsors such as Visa or Coca Cola are also popular with scammers. Victims receive emails informing them that they have won a lottery that they never entered and are asked to pay fees required to claim their prize. They also may be required to provide personal information, which is then used for purposes of identity theft.
There also are numerous scammers selling “official” merchandise on line and hundreds of ads on social media for these bogus sites that often merely steal your credit card information and send nothing in return.
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It is impossible to win a contest you have not entered so that should be warning enough not to click on links in emails regarding contests you apparently have won although you never entered. In addition, no legitimate lottery requires you to pay administrative fees or taxes to claim your prize, but the phony lotteries do. Anytime you are asked to pay a fee to claim your prize it is a scam.
It is impossible to know if any of these emails that you receive regarding the World Cup are legitimate, so do yourself a favor and stick to either the official FIFA website, http://www.fifa.com or other sports websites that you know are legitimate, such as ESPN’s http://www.espn.com.. As for purchasing official merchandise, again you are better off only dealing with the official FIFA website.
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Scam of the day – June 2, 2026 – Avis Data Breach Settlement Update
In August of 2024, the rental car company Avis suffered a data breach in which personal and financial information of 299,000 of its customers was compromised. The compromised information included names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, driver’s license numbers and credit card information. This information put Avis’ customers in danger of identity theft and other scams. A class action was filed in September of 2024 alleging that Avis was negligent in failing to implement reasonable security measures. and now that lawsuit has been settled with class members eligible to receive up to $5,000 for documented, unreimbursed losses suffered as a result of the data breach. Class members who did not experience out-of-pocket losses will also receive cash payments from the settlement. The amount of the payments will depend upon on the number of class members making claims. The settlement is scheduled for a final approving hearing before a judge who must approve the settlement On July 28, 2026.
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In order to be eligible for a payment you must have had personal information compromised in the 2024 data breach and must submit a claim form before June 21, 2026. You can submit a claim form here. https://www.avisdatasecuritysettlement.com/submit-claim
This data breach is a good example of why you should not use your debit card for anything other than as an ATM card. While your liability for fraudulent use of your credit card is limited by law to no more than $50, when you use your debit card, you are making a direct withdrawal from the bank account tied to your card. If your debit card security is breached such as in a data breach your liability is five hundred dollars if you do not report the fraudulent use within two business days after learning of the breach and if you are not regularly monitoring your bank statements and do not report the fraudulent use for more than sixty days after your bank statement with the fraudulent charges is sent to you, your liability is unlimited. This is why you should only use your debit card at ATMs and not for direct shopping.
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Scam of the day – June 1, 2026 – California Sues Over 23andMe Data Breach
Scam of the day – May 31, 2026 – AI Enhanced Fake Kidnapping Scam Snares Victim
I have been warning you about phony kidnapping scams, also known as virtual kidnapping, for fourteen years and according to the FBI, the scam is increasing in frequency. Generally, the scam starts with a telephone call informing the person answering the phone that a child or other relative has been kidnapped and if the person receiving the call does not respond by wiring money right away, the relative will be killed. As with so many scams, we are often our own worst enemy and this scam is no exception. In many instances, the scammers gather personal information about the intended scam victims from information that the intended victims or members of their families post on social media. Armed with personal information gathered from social media, a scammer can describe the supposed kidnapped victim or provide personal information that would make it appear that indeed they actually do have the person in their custody.
This scam has evolved to be even more convincing through the use of AI voice cloning technology to clone the voice of the person the scammers say they have kidnapped. They get the audio through social media posts to make the call from the kidnapper appear to be more believable. With voice cloning becoming so easy to do, even technologically unsophisticated scammers are able to utilize it to make their scam seem legitimate. In addition, the FBI is warning about scammers sending deepfake videos or photos of the person they claim to have kidnapped to prove that they actually are holding the victim. Often the scammers will send the photos or videos using timed message features that limit the time that the family targeted in the scam can actually view the photos or videos because upon close inspection they can be determined to be fake.
Recently, Deborah Del Mastro of California received a phone call from someone who told her that he had kidnapped her daughter and then to prove that they were holding her daughter, Sarah, they put Sarah on the phone who, in a panic filled voice told her mother, “I love you, mom. I’m so sorry, I’m so scared.” But it wasn’t her daughter, Sarah. The phony kidnappers had cloned Sarah’s voice to make the call appear legitimate. In response to the kidnapper’s demand, Deborah Del Mastro wired $5,400 to Mexico and was told to go to a local grocery store where her daughter would be released. When her daughter didn’t appear, she finally called her daughter’s cell phone and found out that she had been at work the entire time.
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Always be skeptical if you receive such a call. Never wire money to anyone for anything unless you are totally convinced that what you are doing is legitimate because unlike paying for something with a credit card, once your wired funds have been sent, they are impossible to get back. Talk to the alleged kidnapper as long as possible, thereby giving someone else with you the time to call or text the alleged kidnap victim on his or her phone. If the purported kidnapping victim is a young child, call the school to confirm that he or she is safe. You also could ask the kidnapper to describe your relative as well as provide information, such as his or her birth date, which could be found on a driver’s license, however, it is important to remember that much of this kind of information may be available through social media or elsewhere on the Internet.
Parents should also check the privacy settings of the social media of their children and consider limiting the availability of their children’s posts.
Remember, even if the call appears to come from your family member’s phone, it is a simple matter for a scammer to “spoof” the number to manipulate your Caller ID to make it appear as if the call was coming from the phone of your family member. Also, you can’t trust your eyes or ears so even if it is a photo or video of your family member or their actual voice, it could merely be AI.
Finally, even paranoids have enemies. A good protective measure for everyone to take to protect themselves from virtual kidnappings is to have a secret password to use in the event of an emergency that can be used to determine if a family member truly is in trouble.
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Scam of the day – May 30, 2026 – PayPal Friends and Family Payment Scams
PayPal is very popular and, as I always say, anything popular with the public is very popular with scammers. Over the years I have written about many scams involving PayPal, but one I have not written about until now relates to its Friends and Family Payment option. When you buy something using its Goods and Services option PayPal offers an excellent PayPal Purchase Protection program by which if you are scammed by a phony seller, never receive the item you intended to purchase, receive an item that is counterfeit or otherwise not what was represented to you or even if someone manages to take over your account and makes an unauthorized purchase using your account, PayPal will refund you the full amount of your purchase. This warranty can give you great peace of mind when using PayPal.
PayPal also has another payment option called Friends and Family which is intended for use in situations such as making a gift, splitting a lunch tab or sending money to someone you know very well. It is not intended for commercial purposes. When you use the Goods and Services PayPal option you are charged a small fee, but when you use the Friends and Family option and pay from your PayPal account or your bank account tied to your PayPal account there is no fee. However, when you use the Friends and Family option, you do not get the PayPal Purchase Protection Plan. Scammers offer something for sale and then ask to be paid by PayPal using the Friends and Family option to save a little money. Many people comply with this request and have few options to get their money back once they have been scammed.
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The lesson here is a simple one. Whenever you are buying anything using PayPal, you should use the Goods and Services option. Only use the Friends and Family option for small gifts or payments to friends and family and, even then, you shouldn’t use it for purchases from friends and family because scammers may pose as your friends and family.
If you do fall for such a scam, contact your bank or credit card company as soon as possible and ask for a chargeback, which you may be able to get.
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Scam of the day – May 29, 2026 – HR Department Vacation Scam
It is late May and many of us are thinking about taking our summer vacations that we look forward to all year, however, scammers are also taking advantage of our vacation interest to scam us and the companies we work for.
One new scam involves your getting an email that appears to come from your employer’s HR Department luring you to click on a link to submit your request for vacation time. Clicking on the link can either cause you to download dangerous malware that can lead to your becoming a victim of identity theft or luring you into providing your online credentials at work in order to get access to your company’s computers and data.
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Never click on a link or provide personal information in response to an email or text message unless you have confirmed that the communication is legitimate. Scammers can use email addresses that may appear to be legitimate and it is easy for a scammer to make a text message appear as if it is coming from a trusted phone. If you get a communication that appears to come from your HR department, contact them directly through an email or phone number that you know is legitimate.
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