Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – February 27, 2025 – Mexican Drug Cartels Operating Time Share Scams
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.
TIP
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.
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Scam of the day – February 26, 2025 – Unpaid Toll Text Scam Getting Worse
The E-Z Pass transponder system is available to drivers in nineteen states and enables the drivers to avoid stopping to pay tolls when driving on toll roads. Instead they merely drive through a special lane where their transponder is electronically read. The tolls are then charged to a credit card on file with E-Z Pass. It is a very efficient system that works well. It also works well for scammers. In 2014 I told you about scammers sending phishing emails to residents of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and even Canada where they system is also used. The emails appeared official looking and carried the easily counterfeited logo of E-Z Pass. The message was short and read: “Dear customer, You have not paid for driving on a toll road. This invoice is sent repeatedly, please service your debt in the shortest possible time.” The phishing email of 2014 lured people into clicking on an infected link and providing personal information that would lead to identity theft.
Times have changed, but not that much. Recently officials in, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida and California have issued warnings about the new text message scams, however, the scam is being perpetrated throughout the country. Phishing text messages are called “smishing.” Again, the text message indicates that the account is overdue and provides a link to a fraudulent page where victims of the scam provide their credit card information to the scammers. I wrote about this scam only a month ago, but because it is getting worse and more prevalent, I am warning you again about it.
TIPS
Never click on links or download attachments in emails or text messages regardless of how official they may appear. You can never be sure as to whether it is legitimate or not. Your best course of action is, if you have any inclination that it may be legitimate, to contact the real company or agency and inquire as to the legitimacy of the contact. The websites the scammers lure you into going to in order to pay the phony overdue tolls often look legitimate, such as myturnpiketollservices.com. You can’t trust them.
It is also important to remember that scammers can manipulate your Caller ID through a technique called spoofing to make their text message appear to come from the legitimate number of a legitimate source. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. If you have any concerns that you may owe tolls, call your E-Z Pass provider for your state making sure you are calling the real number or go the real website.
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Scam of the day – February 25, 2025 – Ponzi Schemer Convicted of Murder
Natalie Cochran was recently convicted of first-degree murder for killing her husband in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Natalie was already serving a 135-month sentence for money laundering and wire fraud connected with a Ponzi scheme she perpetrated between 2017 and 2019. In 2017, Natalie Cochran, with no experience in weapons or government contracts quit her job as a pharmacist and, along with her husband Michael Cochran, formed Tactical Solutions Group (TSG) a company they said would bid on contracts to sell weapons and other goods to the federal government.
Natalie Cochran went to at least eleven friends and family and convinced them to invest approximately $2.5 million with promises of big profits based on government contracts she said they would obtain. Unfortunately, there were never any contracts, and no money was ever earned by the company which managed to appear successful for a time by, as typical with a Ponzi scheme, paying early investors with money obtained from later investors while she used the funds invested to pay for a lavish lifestyle including three homes, expensive vacations, jewelry and a 1965 Shelby Cobra automobile.
Over the years Ponzi schemes have been used by many scammers to steal billions of dollars from unwitting victims who made the mistake of investing their money with such criminals. Although Charles Ponzi was not the first to use the technique of paying off early investors with the investments of later investors in an effort to make a total sham look as if it is a profitable business, that dishonor should go to Sarah Howe who first used this scheme in the 1870s, it was Ponzi in 1920 who perfected the scam to steal millions of dollars from unwary investors in his scheme through which he told them that he was able to take advantage of fluctuating currency values to purchase international postal reply coupons at a discount and then sell them at face value in the United States. Ponzi promised, and delivered to early investors, a 50% profit on investments within 45 days and a 100% profit within 90 days. Of course, the entire scheme was a total fake, but eager investors blinded by their greed flocked to him to invest. Eventually, as ultimately always happens in a Ponzi scheme, the scam was exposed and Ponzi went to prison.
Now in an usual twist, Natalie Cochran was convicted of the 2019 murder of her husband Michael Cochran. Prosecutors argued successfully to the jury that Natalie Cochran had killed him in an effort to keep him from exposing her Ponzi scheme/ Prosecutors said that Michael Cochran was not a part of the Ponzi scheme, but had become suspicious.
TIPS
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.
Generally, before stocks, bonds or other securities can be sold to the public, they must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) although in limited instances, the SEC does allow exceptions to this rule. However, anyone considering investing in unregistered securities should be particularly thorough in their investigation into the investment because unregistered securities have often been the basis of many scams.
It is also important to remember that you should never invest in something that you do not completely understand. Commodities futures are a complicated investment and not one in which you should invest unless you totally understand the investment.
This scam is also a good example of what is called affinity fraud where people put undeserved trust in someone offering an investment opportunity because that person is “someone like me.” Affinity fraud works because people trust other people who may share a common bond, such as family, religion or, in this case, ethnicity. The list goes on and on. Scammers take advantage of every connection they can make with their victims to gain their trust and then steal their money.
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.
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Scam of the day – February 24, 2025 – Customer Service Number Scam
In the past I have told you about scammers increasingly setting up phony websites that appear to be for customer service or tech support of many of the companies with which we do business. Often the scammers either purchase an ad to appear at the top of a search engine search or they manipulate the algorithms used by Google and other search engines to make their phony customer service number appear high on a search.
A variation on this scam occurs also where scammers purchase telephone numbers that are a single digit off of the legitimate phone numbers for many companies’ tech support or customer support in order to take advantage of common consumer misdials. A Scamicide reader had an issue with his Sprint account and called his customer support phone number where he was told that he was eligible for a special promotion and a gift card if he just provided some personal information. It was at this point that the savvy Scamicide reader realized he had mistakenly called the wrong number which was merely a digit off from the correct Sprint customer support number. He hung up and avoided being scammed.
Others have not been so lucky and have provided personal information that leads to identity theft after misdialing a customer support number.
TIPS
The best place to look for a telephone number for customer support or tech support is right on your bill or the legitimate website of the company. Even when you do call legitimate tech support or customer service telephone numbers take extra care to make sure that you are dialing correctly and not calling a clever scammer who may have purchased a telephone number that is a digit off of the correct phone number in an attempt to ensnare people who may misdial the number.
Also, remember you can’t trust Alexa or Siri to provide you with the correct number because they only access the information appearing at the top of a search engine search. As I indicated earlier, often those numbers are fake numbers put their by scammers.
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Scam of the day – February 23, 2025 – Clever PayPal Phony Invoice Scam
Today’s Scam of the day is one I first warned you about in the Scam of the day for March 3, 2023, but it is still being effectively used by scammers. Just yesterday I warned you about a PayPal scam in which you receive a phony invoice that appears to come from Paypal or some other company with which you do business, but if you look at the email from which it is sent, you will see that the email was sent from someone who has no relation to the company it purports to be. However, in this new scam, you get a phony invoice that not only appears to come from PayPal, but actually does come from PayPal and a link in the email to “View and Pay Invoice” that actually would take you to PayPal and an active invoice. The email has a phone number for you to call if you have a question about the invoice and if you do call the phone number, a scammer will promptly answer the phone where you will be advised to download a remote administration tool that gives the scammer remote access to your computer purportedly to help find the problem, but in actuality what you will have done is give the scammer access to your computer and all of the passwords to all of your accounts.
The truth is that the scammers open PayPal Business accounts which enables them to be able to send invoices from PayPal which makes them appear legitimate when they indeed are sent to you by PayPal. The customer service number that they provide in the invoice does not, however, take you to PayPal, but rather to the scammer who then asks you to give them remote access to your computer to straighten the matter out.
TIPS
Whenever you get an email or invoice such as this which appears to come from a legitimate source, don’t click on links or call the phone numbers in the invoice. Rather call the real customer service number which you can get online. It is also interesting to note that if you call the real customer service number for PayPal, you will have to go through a number of prompts before you get to speak to a real person, however, the scammers customer service number is immediately answered by a person.
This scam and many tech support scams ask you to give remote access to your computer which is something you should not do under almost all circumstances. Giving someone remote access to your computer gives them access to everything on your computer and can lead to serious identity theft.
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Scam of the day – February 22, 2025 – PayPal – Docusign Phishing Scam
Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated and one that I personally received. Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure you into either clicking on links contained within the email which will download malware or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, are nothing new. They are a staple of identity thieves and scammers and with good reason because they work. As always, they lure you by making it appear that there is an emergency that requires your immediate attention or else dire consequences will occur. An indication that this is a scam is that the email address of the sender, while it appears to come from docusign ends with docusign.net and the email for customer care indicated in the email ends in gmail.com.
Here is the email presently circulating. I have deleted a link to click on to “Review the Document.”:
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We’ve identified an unauthorized transaction made from your PayPal account to Coinbase: Amount: $594.45 To safeguard your account and ensure a full refund, Our representatives are available 24/7 to assist you in resolving this issue and preventing any additional unauthorized activity. Your account’s security is our top priority, and we’re fully committed to helping you address this matter swiftly. We appreciate your immediate attention to this alert. Best regards, |
TIPS
Legitimate emails from a company with which you do business would include the last four digits of your account and include your name. The email looks legitimate and has the logos for both docusign and PayPal, but both of those logos are easily counterfeited and AI can be used to maket the email appear to be legitimate.
As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided or contact the scammer by a phone number provided. Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony webpage 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 will download malware such as keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.
If you call a phone number contained in the email, you will be prompted to provide credit card information or other personal information that will lead to your becoming a victim of identity theft. If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call the company from which the email purports to originate at a telephone number that you know is accurate and you will be able to confirm that it is a scam. The phone number for customer service contained in the email is not a phone number used by PayPal. The customer service number for PayPal is 888-221-1161
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Scam of the day – February 21, 2025 – New York DMV Warns About Staged Automobile Accidents
Staging of automobile accidents is often a well organized scam involving criminal doctors, lawyers, auto repair shops and others. Scammers will stage automobile accidents in many ways, such as slamming on their brakes while driving in front of you without giving you an opportunity to stop, causing you to hit them from behind. Generally, the scammers will have phony witnesses to bolster their case. Sometimes they are willing to settle with you for cash rather than involve your insurance company, but other times they are looking to defraud your insurance company for a bigger payout.
Recently, the New York Division of Motor Vehicles issued a new warning about staged automobile accident scams. According to the NY DMV there were 1,729 staged automobile accidents in New York in 2023 placing New York second only to California which had 5,366 incidents.
TIP
If you are involved in an automobile accident, call the police. When you exchange license and registration information, be careful not to provide more information than necessary in order to protect yourself from identity theft. Report all accidents to your insurance company and make sure that you get the license and registration of the other driver or identifying information about pedestrians who may be involved. Make sure you see the actual license and registration rather than just take the information provided by the other driver or involved pedestrian.
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Scam of the day – February 20, 2025 – The Danger of Pop-Up Ads
Pop-up advertisements that appear on your phone, computer or other device are considered by many people to be merely a nuisance, but they can also, in some circumstances, present a serious threat to your well being. While often the pop-up ads may be legitimate advertisements, in other cases they are created by scammers who lure you into clicking on links and being directed to websites that either convince you to provide personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, in a worst case scenario, merely by either clicking on the link or being redirected to another website, you may unwittingly download malware such as ransomware or keystroke logging malware that can steal from your phone or computer sensitive personal information that can be used to access your bank account or make you a victim of identity theft in other ways.
Part of the problem is that many of these pop-up ads appear on websites that you trust, which is because the advertising on legitimate websites often originates with third party advertising companies that may not properly screen the advertising that they accept. A few years ago the Equifax website was infected with a phony Adobe Flash update pop-up that when clicked on downloaded malware.
TIPS
The major browsers such as Google Chrome, Bing, Internet Explorer and Firefox all permit you to adjust your settings to eliminate pop-up ads from appearing and I can personally attest to the fact that adjusting your browser settings to avoid pop-up ads can be very effective. Unfortunately, the software used by these browsers as well as specific ad blocker apps are never going to be fully effective at blocking all pop-up ads. Malicious pop-ups that take advantage of newly discovered vulnerabilities will always be a problem, however if you adjust your browser settings to avoid pop-ups and keep your phone and computer security software updated with the latest security patches, you will go a long way toward keeping yourself safe.
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Scam of the day – February 19, 2025 – You Can’t Trust Alexa
Alexa is tremendously helpful for so many things. If you need to know the score of last night’s basketball game, if you want to know what the weather will be today or even to turn down your thermostat. for you. And it is not just Alexa. Siri or Google Home will do the same tasks for you. However, there is one task that you should not trust Alexa and the other devices to perform. You should never ask it to call a tech support or customer service number for you.
For years I have warned you about phony tech support scams done by scammers who establish bogus tech support websites for your favorite tech companies, such as Facebook and Instagram. By manipulating the algorithms used by Google and other search engines, the scammers manage to get their bogus websites into top positions in Google and other search engine searches. These phony tech support websites are used to scam you out of money or personal information which they use to make you a victim of identity theft. Scammers also use similar tactics to scam people looking for help with the repair of common household appliances, such as refrigerators and washing machines.
People looking through a search engine for a telephone number for customer service or a company’s warranty center are often taken to one of the phony websites and when they call the telephone number found in the phony website they are told that they can set up an appointment for a repair person by merely providing their name and location. Then they are often told that they need to pay a small fee which they can do by credit card or debit card for a speedy next-day expedited service call. Unfortunately, this is all a scam. No service person comes the next day, however, your credit card, or even worse, your debit card is used by the scammer. But it isn’t just people who are taken to these phony search engine listings. Alexa, Siri and Google Home are susceptible to being scammed by merely picking the top position in a search engine search and putting you in touch with a scammer.
TIPS
Don’t bother Alexa with looking up and calling tech support or customer service numbers. The best place to look for a telephone number for tech support, customer service or warranty information is on the company’s official website, on your bill or in the warranty documents that came with your appliance or device. Also, be careful when you call the real number for tech support or customer service. Clever scam artists, the only criminals we refer to as artists purchase telephone numbers that are a single digit off of the legitimate phone numbers for many companies’ tech support or customer service numbers in order to take advantage of common consumer misdials.
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Scam of the day – February 18, 2025 – Facebook Marketplace Scam
Facebook Marketplace is a popular and convenient place for people to buy and sell things so, of course, scammers are drawn to it. Scams on Facebook Marketplace have increased dramatically in the last couple of years. A recent scam turning up on Facebook Marketplace starts when you list an item for more than a few hundred dollars. Shortly thereafter you are contacted by a scammer posing as a legitimate buyer who wants you to use Zelle, Venmo or some other P2P Service to pay you for the item. Peer to Peer Payment Payment Services (P2P) such a Zelle are used by many people to quickly and conveniently send money electronically from your credit card or bank account. Sending money through Zelle only requires you to enter the recipient’s phone number or email address.
Then the fun begins (for the scammer). You next receive an email that purports to have been sent by Zelle indicating that the buyer paid you through a Zelle “business account” and that you need to upgrade your personal Zelle account to a business account in order to receive the payment from the scammer posing as the buyer. You are then told that in order to upgrade your account, the amount sent to you needs to be increased by $300. The scammer then tells you that he or she will gladly send you an additional $300 through Zelle in order to enable the transaction if you merely refund the excess payment to them through Zelle. Of course, soon after refunding the $300, which was never paid by the scammer to begin with, the scam victim realizes he or she has just been scammed out of $300.
TIPS
Unfortunately, Zelle has proven to be easily exploited by scammers and unlike scams targeting your credit cards directly, you may not have as much protection under the law to get your money back if you do get scammed. Although the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued guidelines last year indicating that all online money transfers such as this that were done as a scam should be reimbursed by the bank, many banks are refusing to refund money lost by the scam victims.
Also, while Zelle has business accounts, you don’t need to upgrade your account in order to receive a payment from a Zelle business account. Frankly, I don’t think anyone should use Zelle, Venmo or any of the other P2P services for anything other than sending small amounts to friends and family. The potential for scams is too great and your ability to get reimbursed is low.
Finally, anytime someone sends you an overpayment for whatever reason and asks for you to send funds back, you should be skeptical as this is always a scam.
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