Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – April 3, 2026 – Virtual Kidnapping Scams Increasing
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 has just issued a 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.
TIPS
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.
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 – April 2, 2026 – Veterans Savings Program Scam
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is warning veterans about a scam targeting veterans not just in North Carolina, but around the country. The scam is presently being circulated through postcards or letters, but is also being done through phone calls including automated robocalls as well as emails and text messages in which the scammer poses as a an agent of the VA, Social Security, CHAMPVA or TRICARE offering enrollment in what the scammer calls the Veterans Savings Program. The scammers claim that through the program the veterans can receive monthly payments of $200 or more, free or discounted dental insurance coverage and special savings benefits unavailable to the general public. The veteran is prompted to call a provided number to enroll.
Veterans who call the provided number are asked to provide their Social Security number, bank account information and other personal information in order to enroll in the program. However, there is no Veterans Savings Program. It is a total scam and while the written communications from the scammers appear legitimate containing official appearing logos, anyone providing the requested information will soon end up a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
As I often say, trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Not only is there no Veterans Savings Program, but government agencies do not initiate contact with veterans by unsolicited phone calls and they do not request personal information by phone, text or mail. Whenever you get any communication by snail mail, email, phone call, or text message, you can never be sure who is actually contacting you. Your Caller ID can be manipulated through a technique called “spoofing” to make it appear as if the call is coming from the VA or some other legitimate government agency although the call is actually coming from a scammer’s phone or computer.
Whenever you are asked to make a payment or provide personal information in response to any communication you should confirm the legitimacy of the communication before responding. In this case, a call to the real VA will confirm that it is a scam. If you need to know what benefits you may be eligible for as a veteran you can go to va.gov.
Veterans are very much targeted for scams and fall prey to them even more than the general population so veterans should always be on guard.
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Scam of the day – April 1, 2026 – Watch Out For Scammers Posing as Airline Customer Service Representatives
Looking ahead to a busy air travel season in which we can expect delays and cancellations due to a variety of reasons, scammers will be taking advantage of the situation. Delays and cancellations occur for a number of reasons including bad weather and air traffic control issues. Weary travelers are always looking for help and assistance from their airline. Often the inconvenienced travelers will turn to social media for help and scammers who monitor social media for posts from disgruntled travelers respond posing as airline customer service representatives. The scammers lure their targeted victims into clicking on links to go to phony airline websites where they are manipulated into providing personal information that can be used to make them victims of identity theft. Scammers are using AI to make these phony websites appear very legitimate and convincing.
TIPS
Never click on a link in any email, text message or social media post that purports to take you to a company with which you do business. The risk of it being a scam or downloading dangerous malware is too great. Instead, go directly to the website of the company through a URL that you know is legitimate. In the case of an airline, contact customer service through the airline’s official website, app or phone number you have confirmed is legitimate.
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Scam of the day – March 31, 2026 – New Variation on Sextortion Scam
I have been warning you about sextortion scams for ten years. One way that sextortion scams begin is with an email in which you are told that your computer and web cam have been hacked and that the scammers have video of you watching porn online. In the email, the scammer threatens to send the videos to people on his contact list unless you pay a ransom in Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency.
In the most recent version of this scam, people around the country are receiving such sextortion emails with some new twists. First, the email contains a photograph of your home with a threat to contact you at your home, referring to your home’s address if you don’t pay the demanded Bitcoin ransom. Second, the email refers to a type of Spyware called Pegasus that can steal information from you computer without being discovered. In fact, Pegasus spyware does exist, but it is used only by government agencies.
TIPS
Scammers use services such as Google Maps to obtain the photos used in the emails and use AI to gather other personal information used in the email to make it appear more believable, but the truth is that they do not have the videos that they claim to have because if they did, they would show it to you in the email.
In regard to your web cam being hacked, while often this is merely a threat and the scammer has not hacked your web cam, however web cams can be hacked. One thing you can do to protect your webcam from being hacked is to make sure that you change the default password on your webcam when you first install it. Another simple thing I do and you can, as well, is to merely put a post it note over your webcam when it is not in use.
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Scam of the day – March 30, 2026 – CAPTCHA Tests Being Used By Scammers
We are all familiar with CAPTCHA tests which appear on many websites that we use and are intended to confirm that you are not a robot, but a real person. CAPTCHA is an acronym for “completely automated public Turing Test to tell computers and humans apart.” The name Turing refers to early British computer scientist Alan Turing. CAPTCHA tests generally take the form of having to recognize scrambled letters or numbers or to recognize patterns in a number of pictures such as which pictures have traffic lights. People are familiar with CAPTCHA tests and although many people find them mildly annoying, people trust them and there is the problem. Scammer are setting up legitimate appearing websites with fake CAPTCHA tests that require you to click on a box to solve a simple test, but when you follow the instructions, you end up downloading dangerous malware.
It should be noted that even “legitimate” CAPTCHA tests sometime are used by the websites to collect data from you such as your IP address and browser history without telling you that your information is being gathered This information is then sold to companies looking to use that information.
TIPS
Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Particularly when going to unfamiliar websites you should be wary of CAPTCHA tests that appear there. Additionally, you should make sure that you have good security software on all of your electronic devices that you update whenever security patches are issued to protect you from known malware threats.
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Scam of the day – March 29, 2026 – Alleged Grandparent Scammer Arrested
In the Scam of the day for March 6, 2025 I told you that twenty-five Canadians were arrested and charged with operating the grandparent scam through a call center in Canada where they contacted elderly victims in 40 American states between 2021 and 2024 during which time they stole $21 million from their victims. The scammers posed as either the targeted victims’ grandchild or an attorney representing the grandchild asking for money to be paid for bail. The scammers sent couriers posing as bail bondsmen to collect the cash and told the elderly victims that there was a gag order that prevented the victims from discussing the phony charges.
However, one of the prime suspects, Jimmy Ylimaki had managed to avoid capture back in 2025, but he has now been arrested in Nicaragua and extradited to Vermont where he was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty
I am sure by now all 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 fifteen years, it continues to victimize people.
TIPS
Scammers often use 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 social media postings. Prudent families can also come up with a code word to use in an emergency which a scammer will never know.
Due to AI voice cloning the scam has gotten worse with unsophisticated scammers able to use voice cloning technology to disguise their voices to sound like that of the grandchild. The scammers are able to obtain audio of the grandchild they are impersonating through social media posts to use to clone their voice.
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Scam of the day – March 28, 2026 – Iran War Scams: How Imposter Bank Alerts Are Tricking Victims and Stealing Identities
Scammers are always taking advantage of what is going on in the news to use it as a hook for scams and the war in Iran is no exception. A number of Iran war scams have begun to proliferate and as with many scams, they use emotional appeals to lure people into being scammed. Here is an imposter scam presently circulating. In the days ahead I will discuss other Iran war scams.
Scammers, posing as bank representatives, target their victims by email, text messages or by phone telling them that fraudulent charges have been made on their bank account and then ask for your personal information including bank account numbers or Social Security number to verify your identity. If you provide the information, you will become a victim of identity theft and your bank account can be accessed by the scammers. Alternatively, the scammers may tell you that in order to protect your funds, you need to withdraw them from your bank account and send it to the phony government agency scammer using a cryptocurrency ATM in order to protect your funds. Of course, anyone doing so just ends up sending the scammer all of their money.
Here is an example of a phony text message used in scams such as this:
Banks do not call, text or email their customers asking for personal information. You should always be skeptical of anyone asking for such information. Of course, if you receive a text message that appears to come from a bank at which you do not have an account, you can be confident it is a scam. If the text message provides for you to respond to stop future texts, don’t do it. Sending such a message to a scammer merely alerts them to the fact that yours is an active phone number.
Another step you should take to prevent your account from being taken over even if someone manages to get your user name and password is to set up dual factor authentication on your bank account.
The best course of action when you receive such a text message, if you have a concern that it may be legitimate, is to merely independently contact your bank to determine whether or not the text message was a scam, but be careful that you do not misdial the telephone number of your bank as some scammers purchase phone numbers similar to those of legitimate banks and credit card companies hoping that they will receive calls from unwary consumers who may have merely misdialed the telephone number of their bank or credit card company.
It is also important to remember that no legitimate government agency or law enforcement department will ever ask you to withdraw funds and send it to them and anytime you are asked to transfer funds for “safekeeping” through a cryptocurrency ATM, it is a scam.
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Scam of the day – March 27, 2026 – Hawaii Flood Charity Scams
Natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes and earthquakes are common occurrences. The devastating floods recently in Hawaii has caused severe damage estimated at a billion dollars according to Hawaii officials. It has also displaced many people whose homes were ruined. Natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and earthquakes bring out the best in people who want to donate to charities to help the victims. Unfortunately natural disasters also bring out the worst in scammers who are quick to take advantage of the generosity of people by contacting them posing as charities, but instead of collecting funds to help the victims of these natural disasters, these scam artists steal the money for themselves under false pretenses.
Charities are not subject to the federal Do Not Call List so even if you are signed up for the federal Do Not Call List, legitimate charities are able to contact you by phone. The problem is that whenever you get a phone call, you can never be sure as to who is really calling you so you may be contacted either by a fake charity or a scammer posing as a legitimate charity. Using a technique called spoofing, the scammers can manipulate your Caller ID to make it appear that the call is coming from a legitimate charity when it is not. Similarly, when you are solicited for a charitable contribution by email, social media or text message you cannot be sure as to whether the person contacting you is legitimate or not.
Through the use of AI, scammers are contacting people through social media with pleas for charitable donations. Often these social media posts will contain AI enhanced photos and videos and you can never be sure if the posts are legitimate.
TIPS
Never provide credit card information over the phone to anyone whom you have not called or in response to an email or text message. Before you give to any charity, you may wish to check out the charity with http://www.charitynavigator.org where you can learn whether or not the charity itself is a scam.
Here is a link to charitynavigator’s picks for the best charities for donations to help the victims of the Hawaii floods https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/hawaii-flooding/#charity_list
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Scam of the day – March 26, 2026 – TD Canada Trust Impersonation Scam: Fake Inheritance Emails Target Victims
Scammers are sending emails with attached letters that appear to come from an employee of TD Canada Trust Bank, a real Canadian bank. The letter carries the logo of the bank. The letter, a copy of which is shown below claims that the person receiving the email is a long lost relative of a wealthy Canadian who died without a Will or close relatives and that the person receiving the email is a possible heir of a huge fortune. I have blocked out the name used in the email of the Scamicide reader who received this particular email.
“My name is Miguel Mansour, Administrator within the Estate Management Department at TD Canada Trust Bank in Toronto, Ontario. I am writing to you regarding the estate of a late client of our bank, Mr. XXXX, a fellow citizen of your country who resided in Toronto until his passing in 2015. Mr. XXXX unfortunately passed away intestate (without leaving a will) and without any identified heirs. Despite extensive efforts over the past decade to locate his family, no
rightful claimant has been established. As a result, his estate has remained dormant under my supervision.
At present, the estate account holds a balance of USD $15,245,000.00 (Fifteen Million, Two Hundred Forty-Five Thousand Dollars). Given the absence of direct heirs, I would like to discuss with you the possibility of being recognized as the next of kin to Mr.XXXX and lawfully presenting a claim to the estate. If this matter interests you, please reach out to me directly at miguel@mansourgroupe.com at your earliest convenience. Kindly confirm whether you would like to explore this opportunity further.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely, Miguel Mansour
TD Canada Trust Bank – Estate Management Department Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Email: miguel@mansourgroupe.com.”
If you respond to this email you are asked for personal information including bank account numbers and Social Security number which, if provided will lead to identity theft. In addition, the scammer posing as a bank representative also asks for money to pay for taxes and fees related to the phony inheritance.
TIPS
The first indication that this is a scam is that the email address of the scammer posing as a bank employee has no relation to TD Canada Trust. While the letter contained the logo of the bank, it is a simple matter to counterfeit the logo. Legitimate law firms and bank officers do not ask for upfront fees or request personal information through such emails. If you receive such an email and have any thought that it might be legitimate (it isn’t), you can merely call the real bank and confirm that it is a scam.
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Scam of the day – March 25, 2026 – Deadline Approaching For Victims of Bitcoin ATM Scams in Maine
In the Scam of the day for January 15, 2026 I told you that the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection had announced a settlement with the cryptocurrency company Bitcoin Depot related to Maine residents who had used Bitcoin Depot’s Bitcoin ATMs to transfer money to scammers. Under the terms of the settlement, Bitcoin Depot is paying Maine regulators $1.9 million to be returned to victims of the scams. The deadline for victims of Bitcoin ATM scams in Maine to file a claim is April 1, 2026. To be eligible for a refund you must have been a Maine resident between 2022 and 2025 and have been victimized during that time by a Bitcoin ATM scam. Here is a link to where you can file a claim if you qualify. https://www.maine.gov/pfr/consumercredit/enforcement/bitcoindepot/claim.html
A report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicates a 1,000 % increase in money lost to scammers through cryptocurrency ATMs in the last three years. 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 cryptocurrency 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 many 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. In other versions of the scams, victims are told they must make a payment through a cryptocurrency ATM to avoid prosecution for missing jury duty or some other pretense.
TIPS
Protecting yourself from these imposter scams that form the basis of cryptocurrency ATM 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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