Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – November 16, 2025 – Timeshare Resale Scams: How Mexican Cartels Target Owners
Timeshares are a legitimate vacation option for many people with about 9.6 million Americans owning timeshares. However, resales have often been difficult for timeshare owners and scammers have been preying upon timeshare owners trying to sell their interests with promises of buyers that never materialize after charging the timeshare owners upfront fees of sometimes thousands of dollars. Part of the problem is that the timeshare resale firms are largely unregulated although the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought a number of lawsuits against timeshare resale companies for false and misleading marketing. Many older timeshare owners are specifically targeted by scammers through the mail, telemarketing and seminars in which they promise easy sales and big profits. Most of these companies charge upfront fees of between $2,500 and $10,000. Many of them provide a money back guarantee, but the guarantee of a scammer is worthless.
But now, as I often say, “things aren’t as bad as you think, they are far worse” because the Mexican drug cartels Jalisco New Generation and the Sinaloa Cartel have gotten in the timeshare resale scam business. According to federal officials, they have scammed Americans and Canadians owning timeshares in Mexico whom they call by phone offering to sell their timeshare out of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last ten years. Most often they target elderly timeshare owners. Making the matter even worse, after the cartel scammers have scammed their victims out of money for sales that never occur, the scammers contact their victims posing as government agents who have become aware of the scams and offer to help get their money back. Of course, before doing so they require a payment which just adds to the losses of the scam victims.
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Anyone considering selling their timeshare unit should check out the legitimacy of any company proposing to help you sell your timeshare. You can check with your state’s attorney general and your local consumer protection agencies. You also can do a search engine search typing in the word “scam” along with the name of the company you are considering. Make sure you have a lawyer review any contract before you sign it and you should never pay in advance for the services of someone purporting to assist you in reselling your timeshare unit. Probably the best way to sell a timeshare unit is to deal with the resort management company or timeshare developer on your own.
Also, no government agency requires a payment to help you after you have been scammed.
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Scam of the day – November 15, 2025 – Mystery Shopper Scams Continue to Snare Victims
I have written many times over the last fourteen years about the mystery shopper scam because it continues to ensnare unwary victims. These scams continue to be effective and are increasing in number so it is important to remind you about them again. Mystery shoppers are people hired to shop at a particular store and report on the shopping experience for purposes of quality control. Unlike many scams, there actually are legitimate mystery shopper companies, but they never advertise or recruit through emails, text messages or letters.
The manner in which the scam generally works is that when you answer an advertisement, or respond to a letter, email or a text message to become a mystery shopper, you are sent a bank check. You deposit the check into your own account and spend some of the money on the goods that you purchase which you are allowed to keep and also are directed to keep some of the balance of the check as payment for your services. You are instructed to return the remaining funds by a wire transfer. Of course, the check that was sent to you is counterfeit and bounces, but the funds wired by the victim of the scam is gone forever from his or her bank account.
In a Walmart themed mystery shopper scam, the targeted victim was sent a legitimate appearing, but counterfeit check for $2,940 and told to keep $540 as payment and then go to the nearest Walmart and use the remainder of the check to buy six $400 Kroger gift cards and provide the numbers to the scammer. The scam victim was then told to keep the gift cards for their next assignment although there never is another assignment and the scammers use the numbers on the Kroger gift cards to make purchases, making the actual cards worthless. The victim of the scam loses the $2,400 used to purchase the gift cards from the victim’s own bank account when the check bounces.
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One reason why this scam fools so many people is that there really are mystery shopping jobs although the actual number is quite few and the companies that do mystery shopping do not go looking for you. A firm indication that you are involved with a scam is when you receive a check for more than what is owed you and you are asked to wire the difference back to the sender. This is the basis of many scams. Whenever you receive a check, wait for your bank to tell you that the check has fully cleared before you consider the funds as actually being in your account. Don’t rely on provisional credit which is given after a few days, but which will be rescinded once a check bounces and never accept a check for more than what is owed with the intention to send back the rest. That is always a scam. Also be wary whenever you are asked to wire funds or send gift cards because this is a common theme in many scams because it is difficult to trace and impossible to stop. Legitimate companies do not use gift cards as payments.
For more information about legitimate mystery shoppers, you can go to the website of the Mystery Shopping Professional Association https://www.mspa-americas.org/scam-alerts/
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Scam of the day – November 14, 2025 – VA Scam Alert: How Veterans Can Spot Overpayment Fraud
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is warning veterans about scams in which veterans are being contacted by phone, email or text messages from scammers posing as VA representatives who tell the veterans that they were overpaid benefits and must return the funds immediately. The emails may contain the VA logo and phone calls and text messages may appear to come from the VA, but it is important to remember that the VA will never call, text or email a veteran if there had actually been an overpayment. Instead the veteran would get a formal letter from the VA explaining the amount claimed to be owed and the right of the veteran to appeal the determination or set up a payment plan.
An easy way to recognize this scam is that the scammers, as they often do, request payments by cryptocurrencies or gift cards which scammers love for their anonymity, but are never asked for or accepted by the VA.
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Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. If you do receive such a communication, you should not respond to it directly, but rather go to your VA.gov account where you can see if you actually have been overpaid. If you have been overpaid you can call the VA’s Debt Management Center at 1-800-827-0648 to set up a repayment plan.
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Scam of the day – November 13, 2025 – IRS Phishing Email
Today’s Scam of the day is about a phishing email presently circulating that appears to come from the IRS informing you that you that there are issues with your income tax return that require you to download software to review your return to avoid penalties. Like so many scams, it attempts to convince you that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention. However, if you click on the link, you will either download dangerous malware or be prompted to provide personal information that will lead to identity theft.
This particular phishing email is not particularly convincing and is riddled with indications that it is a scam. First, the email address of the sender has no relation to the IRS; Second, it never refers to the person it is being sent to by name, but only to “Dear Taxpayer,” Third, it contains grammatical and spelling errors, Fourth, there is no such entity in the IRS called IRS Administration Support. It also is odd that it is being sent now since only people who got an extension on the filing of their income tax return would be filing a return in October.
Here is a copy of the phishing email which contains the IRS logo, but that is easily counterfeited.
It is easy to know when you get an email from the IRS as to whether it really was sent by the IRS because the IRS will never initiate contact with you by an email, text message or phone call.
BS, Be Skeptical. It is always a good rule to follow to never click on a link in an email or text message or provide personal information in response to an email or text message unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate.
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Scam of the day – November 12, 2025 – Fraud Recovery Scams
Scammers are targeting people who have already been the victim of scams posing as either investigators, government agencies or law firms telling the scam victims that they can can recover the funds lost in the original scam. They demand an upfront fee and then disappear. Scammers often keep detailed records of their victims and sell these lists, often referred to as “sucker lists” to other scammers on the Dark Web, that part of the Internet where scammers sell their goods and services. Scammers also get the names of scam victims through monitoring consumer complaint websites or social media. Some of these recovery scammers use AI to create believable websites or call centers.
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Legitimate recovery entities such as the FBI or law firms do not charge upfront fees for investigating crimes or for efforts to return funds to people who have been scammed. and they never guarantee asset recovery. Governmental agencies do not charge any fees for asset recovery.
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Scam of the day – November 11, 2025 – Google Releases Emergency Chrome Update
It is always important to update all of the software you use with the latest security updates and patches as soon as they are available. Numerous hacks and data breaches could have been avoided if individuals as well as companies installed security updates as soon as they became available. Hackers take advantage of the fact that many of us procrastinate installing security software to our great detriment. The major data breach at Equifax in 2018 that affected 148 million people involved a security flaw in Apache software for which a patch had already been issued months earlier, but Equifax had not yet installed at the time of the data breach.
Google recently issued an emergency Chrome update to respond to five critical security vulnerabilities. Chrome usually updates itself automatically, however Android updates depend on he device manufacturers and carriers so not all devices receive updates immediately or automatically so it is a good idea to check for the update and install if if it has not been done automatically. Here is how to do it:
- Open Chrome.
- Click the three dots in the top-right corner.
- Go to Help > About Google Chrome.
- Chrome will check for updates and install version 142 if available.
- Restart Chrome to complete the update.
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Always update your programs as soon as security updates are available. Enabling automatic updates is the best way to do it, but it is a good idea to confirm that updates have been installed.
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Scam of the day – November 10, 2025 – Phony McAfee Invoice Phishing Scam
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There are a number of red flags that indicate that this is a scam. Your name does not appear anywhere in the invoice. Only your email address appears in the phony invoice. Also, the email was sent from an email address that has nothing to do with McAfee, but is most likely from a botnet of infected computers used to send out such scams. Additionally, the invoice indicates that your membership starts and ends on the same day which is a glaring error. Finally, the phone numbers provided are not phone numbers for McAfee whose customer service number is 1-866-622-3911.
Once, I received a large invoice from a company with which I do business for goods I did not order, but rather than click on the link provided in the email, I went directly to the company’s website to question the invoice. When the website came up, the first thing I saw was a large announcement that the invoice was a scam and that many people had received these phony invoices. If you ever receive a phony invoice such as this and you think that it may possibly be true, don’t click on links or call phone numbers provided in the email. Instead, you should contact the real company directly at a phone number or website that you know is legitimate where you can confirm that the phishing invoice was a scam.
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Scam of the day – November 9, 2025 – Small Business Data Breaches
While we are all familiar with the rash of data breaches at major companies such as Stellantis, TransUnion, Allianz Life, Workday, Pandora, Cisco, Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Farmers Insurance and Qantas. a recent study by the tech company Proton found that small businesses are primary targets of hackers. Companies with between 10 and 249 employees have accounted for 48% of data breaches so far in 2025 and companies with fewer than ten workers account for 23% of the data breaches this year. It is not surprising that small companies are largely targeted by hackers because these small companies have much sensitive data on their customers, but have smaller budgets to deal with cybersecurity and generally use fewer data protection resources.
So how do you protect yourself?
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As always it is important to use strong unique passwords and dual factor authentication for all of your online accounts. In addition, it is important to limit the personal information you provide to such companies as much as possible. Most importantly, while many small companies may ask for your Social Security number for their records, they do not need that information and you should not provide it unless it is absolutely necessary which will be rare indeed. Compromised Social Security numbers can readily lead to identity theft.
You should also ask any company with which you do business about their protocols and policies for protecting customer data and securing payment gateways. If the answers are not satisfactory, you should consider not doing business with them.
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Scam of the day – November 8, 2025 – How Scammers Hack Your Bank Account
Two years ago I told you about a scam where scammers lured people into providing their bank account number and bank’s routing number to the scammer under the pretense of needing the information in order to send you a reward for finding a stolen car that, in fact, had not been stolen. In that scam, the scammers posted a photograph of their car on social media indicating it had been stolen and asked people who saw the car to report it to the phony car theft victim and claim a reward. A bank routing number is the number used by your bank for wiring funds.
While it may not seem like your bank account number and the routing number of your bank would be very important information to protect, armed with this information a scammer can steal your money in a variety of ways. They can use that information to purchase goods online. They can set up recurring payments, such as for utilities. They can create counterfeit checks to access your bank account and make checks payable to themselves.
While some scammers trick people into providing their bank account number and bank’s routing number as was done in the Scam of the day for May 9, 2023, they also may get this information from stealing your checks.
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In order to protect your checks from being stolen, you should not mail checks and put the letters in your home mailbox. Scammers scout neighborhoods looking for mailboxes with the red flag up indicating that there is outgoing mail and then steal it. You can’t even trust mailing checks in the blue U.S. Postal Service mailboxes because, as I have written in the past, those mailboxes are broken into and mail stolen from them by scammers. If you must mail checks, do so at the Post Office.
If you do become a victim of this type of scam, freeze your account immediately and notify the police and the fraud department of your bank. Change your online banking password and make sure you are using dual factor authentication. Fortunately, if you notify your bank within sixty days of receiving your monthly statement indicating that your bank account has been accessed you are not liable for the money taken from your account.
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Scam of the day – November 7, 2025 – Jury Duty Scams Continue to Snare Victims
I have been warning you about the jury duty scam for twelve years, but it continues to snare many unwary victims. This scam generally starts with a phone call from someone posing as a police officer or court official telling you that you have missed jury duty and must pay a fine or risk being arrested. Often in these scams you are told that you can pay the fine through a credit card or, as is being done more and more, by a gift card or cryptocurrency which you are told to pay through a cryptocurrency ATM. Other times they ask for your Social Security number to confirm your identity. Of course, the phone call is a scam. Even if you have missed jury duty, you will never be called by legitimate court officers and shaken down for a payment.
Scammers will use a technique called “spoofing” to make the call appear on your Caller ID as if it is coming from a legitimate law enforcement agency or court. In some instances of the scam you are asked to confirm your identity by providing your Social Security number which will then be used to make you a victim of identity theft. The scam has evolved to where people are also being contacted by text messages or emails from scammers posing as a representative of the local court system.
Recently, the Kanawha County West Virginia Sheriff’s office issued a warning about an increase in jury duty scams in their area. In their warning they reminded the public that “no law enforcement office will ever request or accept payment over the phone to resolve a warrant or avoid arrest.”
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Initial contacts from courts regarding jury duty are always in writing through the mail although some systems will permit you to receive future notices through email. Under no circumstances will you receive telephone calls or text messages indicating that you have failed to report for jury duty. No court will demand payment over the phone for failing to appear for jury duty and no court ever requires a payment be made via cryptocurrencies or gift cards. Anytime you are asked to make a payment through a cryptocurrency ATM it is a scam.
If you do receive such a call and you think that there is even the possibility that you might have forgotten to report for jury duty, merely call the local clerk of courts in order to get accurate information. Of course anyone calling you and telling you that you can pay your fine to them over the phone using your credit card or a gift card is a scammer.
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