Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – April 24, 2025 – Gold Scams
Gold is becoming an increasingly popular investment with concerns that the stock market is too volatile in response to the recently instituted tariffs. In times of political turmoil, such as we are experiencing at this time, gold becomes more attractive to investors. Unfortunately, along with legitimate gold merchants, there are many scammers who often contact their victims by telephone or email as well as through radio, television and online advertisements offering tremendous opportunites to invest in gold. Unfotunately, these scammers sell overpriced gold or even sell gold that they never deliver to their victims.
TIPS
An essential rule of investing is to never invest in anything that you don’t fully understand. Another important thing to remember is that merely because an advertisement appears in legitimate media, such as television and radio does not mean that the company doing the advertising is legitimate. Most media do little or no investigation into whether or not an advertiser is scamming the public.
Specifically for prospective gold purchasers, you should make sure that the dealer selling you gold is a reputable dealer which you can do by checking out the dealer with the American Numismatic Association at its website http://www.Money.org. Also do not have the dealer store your gold for you. Always take delivery of the gold yourself. Finally, only do business with dealers that offer a buy-back guarantee within 72 hours. As for gold sellers who contact you by phone and pressure you to buy, you should just hang up the phone.
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Scam of the day – April 23, 2025 – FTC Reports Huge Increase in Smishing
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 gotten much worse over the last year. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Americans lost $470 million dollars to text message scams and the real number is probably considerably higher as many victims of text message scams do not report being scammed . Many smishing text messages appearing to come from Amazon, USPS, Federal Express, Cash App, Netflix and others. Text message scams involved with Fast Pass toll payments were particularly prevalent last year. 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
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Scam of the day – April 22, 2025 – Protecting Your iPhone
Theft of iPhones is a major problem. As long ago as 2014 the FCC indicated that a million iPhones were stolen annually in the United States and there is no reason to believe that the number hasn’t gone up even further since then. The reason for iPhone theft is twofold. First, the phone itself can be sold on the black market for a signficant profit and, perhaps even more troubling, your phone, if not properly protected, can provide information that can lead to identity theft including accessing your bank accounts.
TIPS
So what should you do to protect yourself?
You should consider using Apple’s Device Protection which will protect the security of your phone when it is away from home or work. To turn on Stolen Device Protection, you must use two-factor authentication for your Apple Account and set up or enable the following on your iPhone: a device passcode; Face ID or Touch ID; and Significant Locations* (Location Services). This will protect you even if the thief knows your passcode.
Use a strong passcode. Avoid simple passcodes like “1234” or “abcd”. Consider using Face ID or Touch ID for added security.
Turn off Wallet Access when locked. This will prevent a thief from being able to access to payment cards, concert tickets or sport event tickets stored in your Apple Wallet. To do this go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode, toggle off “Wallet” under “Allow Access When Locked”.
Finally, and of great importance, don’t store unencrypted passwords on your phone and turn off autologin/autofill by going to Settings s > Passwords > Autofill Passwords, toggle off the autofill option.
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Scam of the day – April 21, 2025 – Gift Cards are a Scammers Best Friend
Scammers are big fans of gift cards because they are easy to purchase, easy to send to the scammer and impossible to trace to the scammer. According to the FTC, consumers lost 228 million dollars to gift card scams last year. It is not even necessary for the scammer to be in possession of the actual gift card to use it. Sending the gift card numbers or taking a picture on your phone and transmitting it to the scammer is sufficient for the scammer to use the gift card to buy things that can then be sold and converted into cash.
In many instances the scams involved scammers posing as large companies or government agencies such as the IRS demanding payments. It is important to remember that no legitimate company and no government agencies asks for or accepts gift cards as a payment method so anytime you are asked for a payment by gift card, you can be confident it is a scam. For example Apple gift cards cannot be used for anything other than buying Apple products which are a favorite of scammers who use them to buy high end Apple products and sell them on the black market to launder the stiolen funds.
In an interesting development, the FTC noted that Target gift cards were the most popular choice for scammers with scammers asking specifically for Target gift cards in twice as many instances as the next most popular gift card and even when the gift card requested by the scammers was not a Target gift card, the scammers asked their victims to purchase the particular gift cards at a Target store.
TIPS
Although it is impossible to stop payment on a gift card or trace the user after the scammer has used it, if you recognize immediately that you have provided a gift card to a scammer, you can report it to the issuer to cancel the card. Here is contact information for some popular gift cards.
Amazon
- Call 1 (888) 280-4331.
- Keep the Amazon card itself and your receipt for the Amazon card.
- Learn about Amazon gift card scams and how to report them. Click on “Contact us.”
Google Play
- Report the gift card scam to Google.
- Keep the Google Play card itself and your receipt for the Google Play card.
- Learn about Google Play gift card scams and how to report them.
iTunes
- Call Apple Support right away at 1 (800) 275-2273. Say “gift card” to connect with a live representative.
- Ask if the money is still on the iTunes card. If so, Apple can put a freeze on it. You might be able to get your money back from them.
- Keep the iTunes card itself and your receipt for the iTunes card.
- Learn about iTunes gift card scams and how to report them.
Target
- Call Target GiftCard Services at 1 (800) 544-2943
MoneyPak
- Report gift card scams to MoneyPak.
- Keep the MoneyPak card itself and your receipt for the MoneyPak card.
- Learn about MoneyPak gift card scams.
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Scam of the day – April 20, 2025 – MyChart Phishing Scam
This is a very convincing phishing email. It contained the first name of the Scamicide reader who forwarded it to me. I have blocked out the name to protect the reader’s privacy. I also have disarmed the links contained in the email which, if clicked on, would have taken you to an official appearing site where you would have been prompted to provide your username and password. Providing this information to a scammer would result in identity theft.
Here is a copy of the MyChart phishing email presently being circulated
Hello XXXX,
You have a new message in MyChart! Please sign in to read your message.
Thanks for using MyChart
Sign In to MyChart
MyChart is available on the go!
To change what notifications you receive and how you receive them,
log in to MyChart and choose Notifications from the Preferences menuTIPS
This is a particularly insidious phishing email because the email address from which it was sent could appear to be legitimate and is not one that is obviously the email address of someone whose email account was hacked and made a part of a botnet of computers used to send out such phishing emails. Also, the targeted victim’s name was included in the email.
As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided. Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony website where you will be prompted to input personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you may download keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer or smartphone and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.
If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call your health care provider where you can confirm that it is a scam, but make sure that you dial the telephone number correctly because scammers have been known to buy phone numbers that are just a digit off of legitimate numbers to trap you if you make a mistake in dialing the real number.
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Scam of the day – April 19, 2025 – Hertz Data Breach
Data breaches are all too common and the latest data breach involves car rental company Hertz which also operates the Dollar and Thrifty car rental companies. Customer information for the three car rental companies was compromised in a data breach involving Cleo Communications, a company that is a third party vendor that provides file transfer services for the Hertz parent company. The breach occurred between October 2024 and December 2024, but was just now disclosed to the public. The compromised information included names, contact information, birth dates, credit card information, driver’s license information as well as Social Security numbers for what Hertz says was a smaller group of people.
The compromised information can readily lead to identity theft.
TIPS
Victims of this data breach should 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 all 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 – April 18, 2025 – The Tariff Scams are Coming
With the political and economic news constantly filled with reports about tariffs being imposed by President Trump on 90 countries around the world with the amount of the tariff varying from a low of 10% which was the amount imposed on the Heard Island and McDonald Islands which are inhabited only by penguins to a high of 125% on China. As they always do when something is prominent in the news, scammers are eager to take advantage of the situation for new scams. In the last few months scammers have registered more than 300 websites including one entitled “U.S. Customs and Tariffs” that we can expect they will be using to scam businesses and individuals into making payments. We can expect companies and even individuals to start receiving phishing emails with phony invoices for goods that contain an indication of a charge for the tariffs and direction to the phony AI created websites to make the payments.
Another tariff related scam starts with an email that appears to come from Federal Express, UPS or some other delivery service claiming that they have a package for you, but in order to have it delivered you need to pay a tariff through a link to a legitimate appearing, but phony website. In a variation on the previous delivery scam, someone posing as a Federal Express or other delivery service employee actually comes to your home the day after you received a delivery asking you to pay for the tariff on the delivery you received. In this case the scammer has learned of the delivery through hacking your computer.
TIPS
The truth is that tariffs are typically paid by importers when goods enter the country. These costs are often passed on to consumers as part of the purchase price of the product, but are not included as a separate item on a bill for a consumer good. Anyone or any company that is not an importer receiving a bill asking them to pay a tariff is being contacted by a scammer and you should ignore it. Also, neither Federal Express nor any other delivery service collects tariffs from people to whom they deliver items.
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Scam of the day – April 17, 2025 – Facebook Cloning Continues to be a Problem
Recently I got a Facebook friend request from a good friend of mine. The only problem was that we were already were Facebook friends.
If one of your friends received a Facebook friend request that appeared to come from you, it does not mean that your account was hacked. It does mean however that, most likely, your account was cloned in the sense that someone has set up a Facebook account or some other social media account in your name or a slight variation of it in order to trick people into trusting messages that they post, to lure them into scams or to trick them into clicking on links containing malware.
This is nothing new. Facebook estimates that there are as many as 60 million phony cloned Facebook accounts including hundreds of its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook tries to remove the cloned accounts when it becomes aware of them, but they consistently spring up again soon thereafter. You also should let your friends know that your account has been cloned and warn them not to accept any new friend requests from you. If you do find that someone has set up a Facebook account in your name, you should contact Facebook as soon as possible in order for Facebook to take action to cancel the phony cloned account. Here is a link you can use to report such a phony or cloned account. https://www.facebook.com/help/306643639690823?helpref=uf_permalink
TIPS
As indicated above, if you do receive a friend request from someone who already is a Facebook friend of yours, you should contact the friend to let them know that their Facebook account has been cloned so they can report it to Facebook and get the phony, cloned account taken down. It is also important to remember that there will be times that you are contacted by what appear to be real friends or acquaintances where the truth is that it really is not them contacting you, but someone posing as them. Never click on links in any email or text message unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication is legitimate. Never provide personal information in response to any communication as well until you have confirmed that it is legitimate. As I always warn you, trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
This is probably also a good time to remind you about steps you can take to actually make your Facebook account more impervious to actually being hacked. The first thing you should do is make sure you have a strong password. For some advice about choosing a strong password, go to the Search scams tab in http://www.scamicide.com and write in “strong password” which will bring up a number of Scams of the day in which I described how to pick a strong password.
You should also enable two factor authentication for your account which will dramatically strengthen the security of your Facebook account. Here is a link with more information about how to install dual factor authentication for your Facebook account. https://m.facebook.com/help/148233965247823?helpref=faq_content
You also may want to review your privacy settings on Facebook to make them less vulnerable to hackers. Here is a link with more information about adjusting your privacy settings on Facebook. https://m.facebook.com/help/193677450678703?helpref=hc_fnav&refid=69
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Scam of the day – April 16, 2025 – Sophisticated Airbnb Scam
Airbnb is a deservedly popular service that connects homeowners wishing to rent a room or their entire house with vacationers and other travelers in 191 countries around the world. I have used Airbnb many times. Unfortunately, anything popular with the public is also popular with scammers and reports are increasing about scams involving people paying scammers for renting a non-existent room or a home that the scammer does not own. Many of the victims of these scams do not find out that they have been scammed until they show up at the rental,which may be far away, only to learn that it is not for rent and their money is gone.
Generally, a telltale sign that the Airbnb listing is a scam occurs when the “homeowner” or “host” as they are referred to in Airbnb asks to communicate with the victim off of the Airbnb website. They also ask for the money to be wired to the scammer’s account . As I have told you many times before, once you have wired funds, they are gone forever.
However, in the last six years a more sophisticated Airbnb scam has arisen. Computer savvy criminals created a subscription service called Land Lordz which they lease to less sophisticated criminals to assist them in victimizing Airbnb customers. Land Lordz helps criminals create and manage phony listings on phony websites that look like Airbnb. The phony listings are generally copied from legitimate Airbnb listings and will include fake reviews as well. The phony Airbnb site emphasizes that all payments will go through Airbnb and will therefore be safe and secure. If someone asks for further details, which is common, the scammers email a response with a link that appears to take you to the real Airbnb website, but instead takes you to a phony website that merely appears legitimate and with the use of AI, it is a simple matter for a criminal to create a legitimate appearing website. When the targeted victim of the scam logs into the phony Airbnb website, the scammers are notified and respond by demanding a deposit be wired to them. Once the money is wired, the funds are lost forever.
TIPS
Only communicate with hosts through the Airbnb website and use the Airbnb payment system with a credit card. The credit card companies are quite good at refunding funds lost to scams. Airbnb does not forward payment to the host sooner than 24 hours after the guest checks in. Never use wired funds, certified checks, debit cards or any other method of payment other than a credit card through the Airbnb payment system to pay for accommodations. Always check your browser’s address bar to make sure that you are indeed on the real Airbnb website and don’t click on links to go to a website, but rather always type in the website address independently. Airbnb also provides for dual factor authentication which I urge you to use if you have an Airbnb account for greater for protection.
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Scam of the day – April 15, 2025 – Mavis Wanczyk Lottery Scams Continue to Snare Victims
She’s back! Actually, she has never left. I have been writing about scams related to Mavis Wanczyk for eight years but recently I have received many emails from Scamicide readers telling me about various new incarnations of a variety of scams that share the same hook which is that Mavis Wanczyk is giving money away to lucky people. Many of you may not remember the name of Mavis Wanczyk, but she was the lucky winner of a 758 million dollar Powerball drawing in 2017. Not long after she claimed her prize, a scam started appearing in which many people received emails with the message line referring to the Mavis Wanczyk Cash Grant. The email indicated that you were chosen to receive a large cash grant from Mavis Wanczyk. All the lucky strangers receiving the emails had to do was provide personal information in order to qualify for the grant. In addition, phony social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were also set up in Ms. Wanczyk’s name through which people were contacted with the same phony offer of free money informing them that in order to qualify for the grant they merely needed to provide personal information.
Numerous Scamicide readers have told me that they have encountered the phony Mavis Wanczyk scammers on Instagram including one Instagram post that reads “I’m Mavis Wanczyk, the mega winner of $758 Million in Mega Millions Jackpot. I’m donating $50,000 to first 100 followers as a lucky winners.” Apparently, the fake Mavis Wanczyk is not very good at grammar or even remembering that the real Mavis Wanczyk won Powerball not Mega Millions. Instagram takes down the phony Mavis Wanczyk accounts as soon as they learn about them, but they continue to reappear shortly thereafter.
TIPS
It is difficult to win a lottery you have entered. It is impossible to win one that you have never entered and neither lottery winners, nor anyone else is sending out messages through the Internet offering free money to anyone who responds with personal information. Never give out personal information that can make you vulnerable to identity theft unless you have absolutely verified that the party requesting the personal information is legitimate and has a legitimate need for the information. Also never pay anything to a lottery claiming you owe fees in order to claim your prize. This is a telltale sign of a scam. No legitimate lottery requires the payment of a fee to collect your winnings or requires you to pay the lottery income taxes on the prize. While income taxes are due on lottery winnings, those taxes are either deducted by the lottery sponsor before giving you your prize or the prize is given to you in full and you are responsible for the payment of any taxes. No lottery collects taxes on behalf of the IRS.
You should never give anyone access to your social media accounts because scammers use your account to scam others who trust you and fall for scams that appear to come from you.
Finally and most importantly, remember neither Mavis Wanczyk nor any other lottery winner is giving away money to strangers.
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