Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – July 20, 2025 – George Strait Fundraiser Scam
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. The devastating floods recently in central Texas have caused tremendous damage and loss of life. I wrote about charity scams related to the floods in the Scam of the day for July 10th, but it is worth writing about these scams again as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has indicated his office is investigating numerous charity scams related to the floods.
Among the people stepping up to help the victims of the floods in Texas is country music legend George Strait who is putting on a concert on July 27th to benefit the victims of the floods. However, scammers have posted phony advertisements for the concert on Facebook with an email address extremely close to the real email address for obtaining tickets which tricked a couple into sending $10,000 for four tickets to the concert to the scammers. For information about tickets to the real concert use this link. https://www.georgestrait.com/news/
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 should check out the charity with http://www.charitynavigator.org where you can learn whether or not the charity itself is a scam. You can also see how much of the money that the legitimate charity collects actually goes toward its charitable purposes and how much it uses for fund raising and administrative costs.
Here is a link to charitynavigator’s picks for the best charities for donations to help the victims of the Texas floods. https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/central-texas-flooding/
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Scam of the day – July 19, 2025 – What to do if Your Email is Hacked
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Scam of the day – July 18, 2025 – Phony Sirius XM Invoice Scam
The phony invoice scam is a common scam popular with scammers because it is quite effective. It starts when you receive an email that purports to be from a popular company with which many of us do business that indicates that you owe them a significant payment. The scammers count on people being concerned that they are being wrongfully charged for a product they did not order. You are provided a telephone number to call if you dispute the bill. If you call the number, you will be prompted to provide personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
The copied email below was provided by a longtime Scamicide reader attempts to lure you into clicking on a link in order to renew an expired satellite radio Sirius XM account for free which right away should be a red flag that this is a scam. As always, the purpose of a phishing email is to lure you into clicking on links contained within the email or providing personal information. If you click on links in phishing emails, you end up either downloading malware or providing information used to make you a victim of identity theft.
There are a number of red flags that indicate that this is a scam. Your name does not appear anywhere in the invoice. Also, the email was sent from an email address that has no relation to Sirius XM.
Here is a copy of the invoice being circulated.
TIPS
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. Rather, 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.
If you receive this particular phishing email and want to check on your account, here is a link you can trust with contact information for Sirius XM. https://www.siriusxm.com/contact-us
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Scam of the day – July 17, 2025 – Free Piano Scam
Cybersecurity company Proofpoint discovered a scam in which people are receiving emails offering a free piano which is available often purportedly due to a death in the family. The scam has largely targeted students and professors at colleges and universities. Often in the email, the scammer poses a someone from the same college or university as that of the targeted victim. According to Proofpoint they have identified about 125,000 of these emails sent since the beginning of the year. In order to receive the free piano, all the targeted victim has to do is contact the moving company that presently has the piano to arrange for delivery. Delivery options in some of the emails have ranged from two day delivery for $915 to ten day delivery for $595. However, in order to have the delivery made, the targeted scam victim is required to pay the moving company in full for the cost of delivery.
A big indication that this is a scam is that the moving company asks for payment by Zelle or cryptocurrencies. No legitimate business asks for payment by Zelle or cryptocurrencies, but scammers often do because of the anonymity for these types of payments and the difficulty in tracing or reversing payments made in this manner.
Of course, anyone paying the moving company for the piano never receives a piano and loses whatever money the targeted victim pays. Proofpoint has found that many of these scam phishing emails originate in Nigeria.
TIPS
B.S. Be Skeptical. People may trust emails such as this due to affinity fraud where we tend to trust people with whom we share some kind of connection and getting an email such as this that appears to come from someone at your college or university may cause the person receiving the email to trust it to be legitimate. Particularly if the offer appears to be about getting something for nothing, you should investigate the name of the person offering the free piano as well as confirm that the moving company is legitimate as well. The scammers use the names of legitimate moving companies, but when you contact them or go to their website, you are taken to a phony website or phone number.
Requiring payment by Zelle or cryptocurrencies is another indication that this is a scam.
Finally, it should be noted that while this scam is largely originating in Nigeria, the use of AI makes the emails very believable even where the person creating the email may not have American English as his primary language.
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Scam of the day – July 16, 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 are eligible to receive a tax refund of $825.71. The email has a pdf attachment that appears to be on IRS stationary and, unlike many of these types of emails in the past, is grammatically correct, most likely due to the use of AI in creating the phony letter. It provides a link for you to go to in order to receive your refund, but if you click on the link you risk downloading malware or providing 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;”
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. If you have questions about your refund from the IRS, you can use this link for information about it. https://www.irs.gov/refunds/about-wheres-my-refund
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 – July 15, 2025 – Car Wrap Scam
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a report about the prevalence of scams that are initiated through text messages and among the top five in the FTC’s list was car wrap scams. In a previous Scam of the day, I told you about Caitlin Driscoll of Pennsylvania who received a text message offering her $400 a week to wrap her car with a decal for Cadbury the candy maker. It was a scam, but because Ms. Driscoll works for the Better Business Bureau she recognized it as a scam immediately. In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning about scammers posing as employees of Marlboro or Purell in emails and on social media seeking people to advertise their company through car wraps.
We have all seen car wraps, which are advertisements for a company wrapped around a car. For someone looking for some money in return for very little effort, this may seem like a match made in heaven. But if you are not careful, it could be a match made in scam hell.
Car wrapping is actually legitimate, which is part of the problem. Scammers exploit legitimate advertising through car wraps by either putting an ad on the Internet or contacting you through a mass email or now text messages in which they seek people to have their cars used for advertising through this technique called shrink wrapping. Unsuspecting victims respond to the advertisement and are sent a check for more than the amount that the victim is to be paid for the service. The victim is instructed to deposit the check in his or her bank account and wire the rest to a company that is supposed to wrap your car. This is where the scam comes in. The check that the scammer sends you is a counterfeit. However, unfortunately, the money that you wire the scammer comes right out of your bank account and is impossible to retrieve.
TIPS
While there are legitimate companies that pay for car wrapping. None of them will ever send you an unsolicited email offering to pay you a specific amount to have your car wrapped. The legitimate car wrap advertising companies generally pay about $100 per month and none send money to you to forward to anyone else. Legitimate car wrapping companies always ask for information about your car, how much you drive and where you drive. The FTC warns people about being particularly wary of car wrap opportunities that appear in text messages or on social media and job boards. They are generally scams.
Always be wary if someone asks you to wire money to them as a part of a business transaction. Scammers do this all the time because it is quick and impossible to stop. In addition, even if you get what appears to be a certified check and wait a few days for the check to clear, you will still be out of luck because it takes weeks for a check to fully clear. Banks are required by law to give you provisional credit after a few days, which means that ultimately when the check turns out to be counterfeit, the credit is removed from your account and if you have, in turn, wired funds from your account assuming the check was legitimate, you are out of luck and will have lost your own money.
A check sent to you by someone with whom you are doing business for whatever purpose that is more than the amount you are owed that comes with a request for you to send the overpayment amount back is always a scam.
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Scam of the day – July 14, 2025 – FTC “Agents” Aren’t Calling You
Recently the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning about an imposter scam that starts with a phone call that appears to come from your bank, Amazon or a tech company telling you about an urgent problem with your account and that your money is in jeopardy. They then transfer you to someone they refer to as an FTC “agent” to help resolve the non-existent problem. The phony FTC agent even has a fake ID with a fake badge to confirm that they are legitimate. They then convince you that unless you temporarily transfer money out of your bank account, you are in danger of losing your entire account. They then provide you with an account to which you need to immediately transfer your funds. Unfortunately, if you do transfer the funds as directed, you lose your entire bank account.
This is exactly what happened recently to Robby Jacobs, a youth soccer coach in Arizona who received such a call, purportedly from his bank, telling him that scammers had used his credit card to make a $1,300 purchase and that in order to protect his account, he needed to transfer it to an account the phony bank representative provided to him. Unfortunately, but understandably, Jacobs fell for the scam and ended up losing his entire life savings.
TIPS
In regard to FTC agents, there is no such position. The FTC does not have agents so anyone claiming to be one is a scammer. It is easy for a scammer to counterfeit an ID and badge to make them appear legitimate, so even if you are presented such identification, you cannot trust it.
The biggest red flag in this type of scam is to remember that no bank or governmental agency will ever under any circumstances direct you to withdraw your funds and put them into another account provided by the scammer.
If you do receive a call, text message or phone call about a threat to your account, you can never be sure that the person contacting you as legitimate, so you should never provide personal information, make a payment or click on a link in any such communication. Rather, if you think the communication may be legitimate, merely call your bank or other company involved at a phone number you know is accurate to find out the truth.
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Scam of the day – July 13, 2025 – Geek Squad Renewal Invoice Scam
Geek Squad is a subsidiary of big box store chain Best Buy and it offers excellent tech support for electronic devices including televisions and computers. They are a popular company used by many people. Lately, scammers have been sending phishing emails that appear to be Geek Squad invoices.These types of phishing emails are intended to lure you into contacting the scammers where you will be prompted to provide information that will lead to your becoming a victim of identity theft.
Copied below is another phony invoice that appears to come from Geek Squad and is intended to get you to respond by calling the phone number contained in the email to dispute the bill. If you do call the number you will be prompted to provide personal information that would be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
Here is the email that is presently circulating:
Payment Processed to GEEK~SQUAD Dear Customer, Thank you for your order. Please review your payment amount below, we have attached a PDF detailing your order invoice and terms of your subscription.
Contact Support +1 802 209 0705 Reach out to us anytime. We’ll be happy to help you. ——Product Details: ——
GEEK~SQUAD® Network Security – Auto Renewal 3 Years subscription
Invoice Number: GT-261994
Invoice Date: 06/10/2022
Payment Method: Online
Amount: 339.99 USD
We have charged you 339.99 USD for the next 3 Years subscription. We tried to contact you on your registered Phone number, Deduction of amount will appear on your bank account within 48 hours.
If you have any Question or Wish to cancel the Renewal, Please connect us on +1 802 209 0705
Sincerely,
© 2022 GEEK~SQUAD – All Rights Reserved
+1 802 209 0705
You’re receiving this email because you signed up for a GEEK~SQUAD account.
TIPS
Never click on links or download attachments in emails or text messages unless you have absolutely confirmed that they are legitimate and don’t call companies at telephone numbers that appear in the email such as this one. Instead, if the email appears to come from a legitimate company, you can call them at a telephone number you confirm is legitimate. In the case of Geek Squad their customer service number is actually 800-433-5778. The phone number in the email is not that of the Geek Squad and the area code is that of Hawaii. Never call the number that appears in these types of emails.
An indication that this is not legitimate and is a phishing email is the fact that nowhere in the email does your name appear.
Unlike other similar Geek Sqaud phony invoice emails, this particular phishing email didn’t even carry the logo of Geek Squad although even it did, it would not be an indication that it is legitimate as it is quite simple to counterfeit a legitimate logo to give the email the appearance of legitimacy.
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Scam of the day – July 12, 2025 – Scammers Exploiting YouTube
Whatever is popular with many people is going to be popular with scammers and so it should come as no surprise that scammers are using YouTube as a platform for perpetrating a wide variety of scams. More than 2.7 billion people use YouTube making it the third most popular app behind Google and Facebook, both of which are also prime platforms for scammers. Recently the security company Avast issued a report in which it detailed how scammers utilize YouTube.
Scammers send phishing emails to YouTube creators proposing phony collaboration opportunities and then send malware infected links to them. Scammers also lure people into clicking on video descriptions that have been infected with malicious links and trick them into downloading the malware. In other instances the scammers even hack entire YouTube channels and use them to spread a wide variety of scams, such as cryptocurrency scams which appear on YouTube in large number.
With the ease and availability of AI, deepfake videos are dramatically increasing on YouTube to lure people into scams, particularly cryptocurrency scams. In my Scam of the day of July 15, 2023 I first told you about one particular deepfake investment scam on YouTube where a deepfaked CEO for a phony investment company tried to lure people into a cryptocurrency investment scam.
TIPS
Remember my motto: “Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Many of us know not to trust an email, text message or phone call and never click on a link, download an attachment, make a payment or provide personal information in response to any of those modes of communication unless you have absolutely confirmed the legitimacy of the communication. Now you need to extend that skepticism to YouTube videos. In particular YouTube is not the place to go for investment advice. It is also important to remember that you should never invest in something that you do not completely understand. This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff’s victims made. You also may want to check out the SEC’s investor education website at www.investor.gov. Scammers can be very convincing and it may sound like there is a great opportunity for someone to make some money, but you must be careful that the person making money is not the scam artist taking yours. Investing with someone merely because you trust them because you have seen them on YouTube is dangerous.
Also, before investing with anyone, you should investigate the person offering to sell you the investment with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Central Registration Depository. This will tell you if the broker is licensed and if there have been disciplinary procedures against him or her. You can also check with your own state’s securities regulation office for similar information. Many investment advisers will not be required to register with the SEC, but are required to register with your individual state’s securities regulators. You can find your state’s agency by going to the website of the North American Securities Administrators Association. https://www.nasaa.org/investor-education/how-to-check-your-broker-or-investment-adviser/ Many investment advisers will not be required to register with the SEC, but are required to register with your individual state securities regulators. You should also check with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for information about the particular investment adviser. https://www.finra.org/investors/protect-your-money/ask-and-check
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Scam of the day – July 11, 2025 – Injured Pet Scam
The Federal Trade Commission is warning people about a new scam in which pet owners are receiving calls or text messages purportedly from the local SPCA or another animal shelter telling them that their car or dog was hit by a car and that an immediate payment of $500 is needed to pay for immediate emergency care. This is an easy scam to recognize if you are home when you receive the call or text and your pet is healthy and with you. However, a loving pet owner who is away from his or her pet may fall prey to the emotional appeal and make the payment which the scammers often demand be by gift card, Zelle, Venmo or cryptocurrency.
TIPS
Scammers are aware that scaring people with phony emergencies triggers the amygdala which is a part of the brain also called the lizard brain which makes us act quickly and emotionally without rationally considering the situation which is why so many people are able to be victimized by scams like this. It is for this reason that whenever you are asked to make a payment in response to some emergency, you should take your time and analyze the situation and confirm the legitimacy of the emergency.
In this case, a quick call to the local SPCA or animal shelter which the scammers are posing as will indicate that this was all a scam. In addition, whenever you are asked to pay for a service by way of a gift card, Zelle, Venmo or cryptocurrency, you can be confident that it is a scam. Scammers love these forms of payment because they are quick, easy and anonymous.
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