Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – December 10, 2025 – VIN Cloning Scam: How Car Buyers Can Avoid This Costly Fraud
Every car has a Vehicle Identification Number or VIN that is unique for each car. Scammers are taking photos of the VIN number which can be found just below the windshield on the driver’s side of a car that is the same make, model and year of a car that the scammers have stolen and then make a new metallic VIN plate with the cloned number and swap it out for the VIN number of the car the stolen car. They then offer their stolen car for sale. Meril Bauter responded to an ad for a 2019 Toyota 4Runner on Facebook Marketplace. The scammer sent the VIN number which Ms. Bauter used to do a VIN search and a Carfax search and everything checked out fine even though the actual car was a stolen car whose real VIN had been removed. She then paid $40,000 in cash to the scammer and registered her car. It wasn’t until three years later that the scam was discovered and the car was seized by law enforcement due to its being a stolen car. Fortunately, Farmers Insurance, Bauter’s automobile insurance company paid her claim.
So how do you protect yourself from being a victim of VIN cloning?
TIPS
The VIN number is found not only on the dashboard by the windshield, but also in the front door. Make sure they both match. Also, run your finger over the VIN plate and look for signs that the VIN plate may have been switched. You also should compare the VIN number to the VIN number that appears on the Title and all other documents that relate to the car. It is also important to get a Carfax or other vehicle history report on the vehicle and review it carefully for any discrepancies. This scam often doesn’t involve cars that are the exact make model and year of the stolen car. Additionally, you should have a mechanic inspect any used car you are considering buying for indications that it is not as represented.
Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
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Scam of the day – December 9, 2025 – 700Credit Ransomware Attack: 8 Million Identities at Risk
It is my unfortunate duty to report to you another major data breach. This time the company is 700Credit which is a major credit reporting and identity verification company used by the automobile industry for automobile financing applications. Data breaches have become increasingly common with 1,732 reported data breaches in just the first six months of this year which is an 11% increase over 2024 according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. It appears that 700Credit was the victim of a ransomware attack and when negotiations between the hackers and 700Credit faltered, the hackers offered the stolen information on the dark web to other criminals. The compromised information included consumers’ names, addresses and Social Security numbers of as many as 8 million people who had submitted automobile financing applications between May and October of 2025.
A class action claiming negligent security practices has already been filed in the federal court for Eastern Michigan. Meanwhile 700 Credit is notifying affected customers and offering free credit monitoring. They have also set up a dedicated phone line to answer questions about the data breach. The number is 866-273-0345.
TIPS
As for the victims of this data breach, 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 – December 8, 2025 – AI Voice Scam Targets Walmart Customers with Fake $919 PlayStation Charges
Scammers using AI created voices are making robocalls in which they claim to be Walmart employees named “Carl” or “Emma.” In the calls they claim that the person receiving the calls Walmart account has been charged $919.45 for the purchase of a PlayStation 5. The robocall goes on to tell the targeted victim that they should press 1 or call back if they want to cancel the order or speak with a live operator. People responding to the prompt are then connected to a live scammer who asks for personal information which often is the Social Security number of the targeted victim under the guise of needing to confirm the person’s identity. Of course, anyone providing this personal information would soon become a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
Whenever you get a phone call, you can never be sure who is actually calling you because through a simple technique called “spoofing” your Caller ID can be manipulated to make the scammers call appear to come from whatever number they wish to show so your Caller ID could well indicate that the call you are receiving is from Walmart. Never give personal information or make a payment in response to a phone call. If you have any concerns that the call may be legitimate, you should independently confirm the call by contacting the purported company directly at a number that you know is accurate. In the case of Walmart, their customer service number is 1‑800‑925‑6278 (1‑800‑WALMART).
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Scam of the day – December 7, 2025 – Secret Sister Scam Returns for the Holidays: Why This Gift Exchange Is Illegal and Risky
Fans of the old horror movie Poltergeist 2 remember the classic line “They’re back” and so it is with the classic Secret Sister scam which returns each holiday season. I first reported to you about this scam in 2015. It seems harmless enough when you see it come up in your email or on social media, such as Facebook or X, where it has increasingly been found lately. It is often titled the “Secret Sister Gift Exchange.” Commonly it provides you with a list of six people and you are told to send a gift worth at least ten dollars to the first person on the list, remove that person’s name from the list, move the second person on the list to the first position, add your name to the end of the list and then send the list to six of your friends. In theory, you will receive thirty-six gifts for your small contribution of ten dollars.
So where is the harm?
First of all, it is a blatantly illegal chain letter and violates Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1302. In addition, like all chain letters, ultimately, it is destined to fail because it is a pyramid scheme where ultimately we run out of people on the planet. In one particular version of this illegal chain letter, you are required to provide personal information that can lead you to become more vulnerable to scams and identity theft schemes.
Holiday pyramid schemes come in a wide variety of disguises including exchanging bottles of wine and the Secret Santa Dog scam where you are lured into sending a gift to your “secret dog,” but they all are just scams that entice you into sending a gift or money to scammers while participating in an illegal pyramid scheme.
TIPS
Avoid all chain letters regardless of the guise under which you receive them. They are illegal. In addition, although in some instances these chain letters are turning up on Facebook pages, it is a violation of your Facebook terms of agreement, so you potentially face the loss of your Facebook account if you participate in the scheme.
Scam of the day – December 6, 2025 – Utility Bill Scams Surge: Dominion Energy Issues Warning Amid Cold Weather
With the return of cold weather throughout much of the United States there has been a dramatic increase in telephone scams involving scammers posing as utility company customer service representatives demanding payments and threatening to turn off electrical power if a payment is not made immediately. Scams involving utility bills for electric, water, oil or gas services have long been popular with scammers. These scams have multiple variations.
Recently Dominion Energy, a Virginia utility company that provides electricity and natural gas issued a warning about these scams.
In one common utility scam, potential victims receive telephone calls purportedly from their utility company informing them of a special company promotion for which they are eligible. They just need to provide some personal information. This, of course leads to identity theft.
In another version of the utility scam, potential victims are called on the phone and told that their utility service will be terminated for non-payment unless they pay by credit card, debit card. Zelle, Venmo or gift cards. A demand for payment by way of a gift card is a good sign that you are dealing with a scammer since legitimate utility companies never require payments or accept payments through git cards. You also should never pay for a business bill through Zelle or Venmo because of the lack of protections from fraud.
In a third version of this scam, potential victims receive an email that has a link to take them to their bill, but if you click on the link, you either download malware or are prompted to provide information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
You can never be sure when you get an email, text message or a telephone call if it is really from a legitimate source. Email addresses can be hacked to appear legitimate and even if you have Caller ID, a scammer can use a technique called “spoofing” to make it appear that the call is from a legitimate caller. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Never provide personal or financial information to anyone in response to a telephone call, text message or email until you have independently confirmed that the communication was legitimate.
In the case of a utility bill, merely call the number on the back of your bill and you will be able to confirm whether or not the communication was legitimate. Also, never click on links unless you have confirmed that they are legitimate. The risk is too great. It is also important to remember that no legitimate utility company will require you to immediately pay your bill over the phone through a gift card or ask you to pay by cryptocurrencies.
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Scam of the day – December 5, 2025 – FBI Warns of Gold Bar Scams and Rising Fraud Cases
Earlier this Fall, I told you that the Boston office of the FBI had issued a warning scams involving people lured under false pretenses to cash in their savings, buy gold bars and deliver the gold to scammers. Also earlier this year ABC News did a story entitled “Gold Grifters” also exposing these scams. I have been warning people about this scam since I described it in the Scam of the day for May 7 2024 when I told you about Ravinkle Mathon who was convicted in Maryland of attempting to scam an elderly man out of $200,000 in an elaborate scam that has increased dramatically in the last year. The scam began with a phone call from Mathon to an elderly man in which Mathon posed as a federal agent telling the targeted victim that his identity had been stolen and that he needed to protect his savings by withdrawing all of his funds, purchasing gold with the funds and then turn the gold over to the alleged scammer for safe keeping. Fortunately, a family member of the targeted victim became aware of the scam and notified police who set up a sting and arrested Mathon when he came to collect the gold..
Now two men in Wisconsin have been charged with operating a similar scam in which they convinced an elderly woman that her bank account had been hacked and used for criminal purposes and that she needed to cash in her life savings, use it to purchase gold and turn it over to the scammers who posed as federal agents.
With the value of gold increasing, scammers have increasingly turned to this type of scam which according to the FBI resulted in losses of $126 million in 2024. According to the FBI, many of the perpetrators of this crime are foreigners who have little difficult leaving the country with gold bars.
TIPS
The primary thing to keep in mind in order to avoid this scam is to remember that no government agency or legitimate business will ever request that you purchase gold or other precious metals for any purpose and certainly not to protect them from criminals nor will they tell you that you need to provide the gold to government agents for safekeeping.
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Scam of the day – December 4, 2025 – Holiday Toy Scams: How to Avoid Fake Online Deals and Protect Your Money
The holiday shopping season is in full swing and every year there are a few toys that are in especially high demand. Often it is difficult to find these toys and the prices when you do manage to find them can be pretty expensive which is why so many people are susceptible to being scammed by criminals offering to sell these desirable toys on line at bargain prices. People falling for this scam end up both not getting the toy that they thought they ordered and losing their money in the process. This year’s most sought after toys include Po the AI Story Bear an AI powered plush toy that tells stories. Scammers are setting up phony retail websites and social media ads to lure people into this scam. Often scammers target people by using AI to track their search behavior to find vulnerable scam victims.
TIPS
As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is, so you should be particularly skeptical when you find an online seller of a highly in demand toy for a dramatically discounted price. Always use a credit card when you buy anything online or in a brick and mortar store because of the strong consumer protection laws that protect you from liability in the event of a scam. When you use your debit card, you do not get the same strong protections from fraud. Scammers also often require payment through cryptocurrencies or wired funds which is a red flag for a scam.
You are better off dealing with reputable retailers with which you are familiar, but even then you should make sure when you buy anything online that you are dealing with the real retailer and not a counterfeit website set up by a scammer. You can confirm whether or not the website is legitimate by going to the website whois.com where you can find out who owns the particular website. If you find that the website which appears to be WalMart is owned by someone in Nigeria, for example, you can be sure that it is a scam. It is important to remember that even if you get the URL for a popular retailer’s website through a Google or other search engine search, it does not mean that the website they are sending you to is a legitimate site. Sophisticated scammers can manipulate the algorithms used by search engines to enable their phony websites to be ranked high in a search.
Don’t click on social media ads even if they appear to be ads from legitimate retailers with which you are familiar. The risk of the ad being from a scammer is too great. Instead go to the website of the real retailer.
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Scam of the day – December 3, 2025 – Smishing Scams: How Text Message Fraud Works and How to Protect Yourself
Although the name may not be as familiar as “phishing” which is the name for emails that lure you into clicking on malware infected links or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, “smishing” is the name given to text messages that lure you into clicking on links or providing personal information in response to a text message from what appears to be a trusted source, such as a company with which you do business.
Smishing scams have increased in frequency over the last year. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Americans lost $470 million to text message scams last year and a recent Consumer Reports survey found texting and messaging scams increased by 50% last year with Gen Z most victimized. Many smishing text messages appearing to come from Amazon, USPS, Federal Express, Cash App, Netflix and others. Like phishing emails, the purpose of a smishing text message is to either lure you into providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or to click on a link in the text message that will download dangerous malware.
Making matters worse, scammers are able to use bots to send thousands of smishing text messages in a matter of seconds and while many phones have anti-spam filters to recognize repetitive text patterns used by scammers, scammers are able to use AI go created slight variations of their smishing text messages to avoid detection.
TIPS
Among the topics of smishing text messages are free prizes, gift cards or coupons, credit card offers, student loan assistance, suspicious activity on an account of yours, or a need to update your payment information with a company with which you do business. Smishing emails that appear to come from your bank are also quite common.
As I always say, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” You can never be truly sure when you receive a text message seeking personal information such as your credit card number whether or not the email is a scam. The risk of clicking on a link or providing the requested information is just too high. Instead, if you think that the text message might be legitimate, you should contact the company at a telephone number that you know is legitimate and find out whether or not the text message was a scam.
As for Netflix, which has been used as a hook in many recent smishing scams, the real Netflix will never ask in an email or text message for any of your personal information so anytime you get an email or text message purportedly from Netflix asking for your credit card number, Social Security number or any other personal information, it is a scam. Here is a link to Netflix’s security page for information about staying secure in regard to your Netflix account. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13243
All of the cell phone carriers also have tools to block smishing text messages such as Verizon’s AI powered blocking system and AT&T’s ActiveArmor Mobile Security. Check with your carrier to see what tools are available to you.
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Scam of the day – December 2, 2025 – Holiday Job Scams: How to Spot Fake Job Ads and Protect Your Identity
Phony advertisements for non-existent jobs that lure people into either giving the scammer money or personal information that can be used for purposes of identity theft have been a common scam for many years, but particularly during the holiday season when many companies are looking for seasonal workers, the scam gets worse. Scammers use ads on job sites, social media, newspapers and even television and radio, the same platforms used by legitimate employers to attract their victims. Sometimes the scammers use the names of legitimate companies and sometimes they make up phony companies just for the purpose of offering phony jobs through these companies.
According to the FBI, which has warned about the increasing frequency of job scams, the scammers often first set up a phony website that appears to be that of a legitimate company with which you might be familiar. They then post the phony job opportunity on legitimate job sites and direct the job applicants to the phony website These scammers will do interviews of prospective employees in much the same way that real companies do to make their scam appear legitimate, however, unlike legitimate job interviews, the interviews done by scammers are generally relatively short and don’t require repeated interviews before the targeted victim of the scam gets “hired.” At that point, the scammer then requests personal information such as your Social Security number which a legitimate employer would also do which is one reason this scam is so dangerous. They also may ask for money or your credit card number to pay for background investigations or equipment for the company which legitimate businesses do not do.
TIPS
Although LinkedIn, Indeed and other websites that carry job postings try to identify and either prevent or remove phony ads from appearing on their websites, you cannot depend on these companies to fully protect you. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Certainly a little skepticism helps when you see a job posting for a job that sounds too good to be true. Ads that ask for you to pay upfront costs for any reason should be considered to be a scam as well as any company that requests your credit card information for any reason whatsoever.
To check on the legitimacy of photographs in these ads you can do a reverse image search using Google or websites such as tineye.com. You can also check to see if the wording of the advertisement has been used elsewhere by merely copying a substantial amount of the text into your search engine and see what comes up. Also, research the company itself to determine if it is a legitimate company. Check out the website of the company supposedly offering you a job to see if the legitimate company is offering such a job. Make sure you are using a domain name that you have confirmed is legitimate and not just the one contained in the email sent to you by the scammer. If the job doesn’t appear on the real company’s website, you know it is a scam. It also is a good idea to confirm any job offer you might receive with the HR department of the real company before providing personal information such as your Social Security number.
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Scam of the day – December 1, 2025 – Porch Pirates and Package Theft: How to Protect Your Deliveries This Holiday Season
The popularity of online shopping has brought a dramatic increase in the number of packages delivered by companies such as UPS and Federal Express. The popularity of online shopping has also resulted in a new term entering the lexicon in recent years, namely, “porch pirate,” which is the name given to criminals who cruise through neighborhoods looking for packages to steal that have been left on the doorsteps of homes by delivery services. It has been estimated that more than 104 million packages will be stolen from their front doorsteps this year Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take to protect yourself from becoming a victim of this crime.
TIPS
If you are not going to be home at the expected time of a delivery, an easy solution is to either have the package delivered to your place of work or have a neighbor who will be home be on the lookout for deliveries to your home. You also can request that all deliveries require a signature, although this can slow down the delivery process if you aren’t home and end up requiring you to drive to a distribution center if repeated attempts at delivery are thwarted because no one is home to sign for the package.
Another option for protecting yourself is renting a locker at a local package receiving center. These can be found in most big cities. One of the companies that provide this service in New York City is https://www.golocker.com/ You also can rent an Amazon Locker where your Amazon deliveries can be sent. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GXCWH4CXLKJD8Z52
Amazon Prime also offers Key In-Garage Delivery which is a simple and secure way to have Amazon deliveries delivered to your garage if you are not home. Here is a link with more information:https://bit.ly/49F58UQ
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