Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – February 6, 2025 – Winter Weather Brings Increase in Utility Scams
With the return of cold weather throughout much of the United States there has been a dramatic increase in telephone scams involving scammers posing as utility company customer service representatives demanding payments and threatening to turn off electrical power if a payment is not made immediately. Scams involving utility bills for electric, water, oil or gas services have long been popular with scammers. These scams have multiple variations.
In one common utility scam, potential victims receive telephone calls purportedly from their utility company informing them of a special company promotion for which they are eligible. They just need to provide some personal information. This, of course leads to identity theft.
In another version of the utility scam, potential victims are called on the phone and told that their utility service will be terminated for non-payment unless they pay by credit card, debit card. Zelle, Venmo or gift cards. A demand for payment by way of a gift card is a good sign that you are dealing with a scammer since legitimate utility companies never require payments or accept payments through git cards. You also should never pay for a business charge through Zelle or Venmo because of the lack of protections from fraud.
In a third version of this scam, potential victims receive an email that has a link to take them to their bill, but if you click on the link, you either download malware or are prompted to provide information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
TIPS
You can never be sure when you get an email, text message or a telephone call if it is really from a legitimate source. Email addresses can be hacked to appear legitimate and even if you have Caller ID, a scammer can use a technique called “spoofing” to make it appear that the call is from a legitimate caller. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone. Never provide personal or financial information to anyone in response to a telephone call, text message or email until you have independently confirmed that the communication was legitimate.
In the case of a utility bill, merely call the number on the back of your bill and you will be able to confirm whether or not the communication was legitimate. Also, never click on links unless you have confirmed that they are legitimate. The risk is too great. It is also important to remember that no legitimate utility company will require you to immediately pay your bill over the phone through a gift card.
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Scam of the day – February 5, 2025 – Amazon Testing Products Scam
For many people, working from home at a simple job that pays well is pretty attractive, which may explain why people are vulnerable to a scam offering to pay you to be a product tester for Amazon. Ads for Amazon product tester are found on social media such as Facebook and TikTok offering to pay you to test products that will be sent to you for free and then write a review. Some of these ads promise payments of $1,500 per month. The only problem is that these paid Amazon product testing jobs are a scam. What makes the scam a bit more believable is that Amazon does have a product testing program, Amazon Vine, which invites specifically selected reviewers to have products sent to them for free to review, but the program is invitation only and it does not pay anything. Here is a link with more information about Amazon Vine. https://www.amazon.com/vine/about
The scammers use social media and fake websites with easily counterfeited Amazon logos to trick people into applying for these phony jobs. The scammers also will post their phony job offerings on legitimate job sites such as LinkedIn and Monster. Anyone interested in the job fills out an application that provides sensitive personal information including their Social Security number which is then used by the scammers for purposes of identity theft.
TIPS
This is an easy scam to avoid by merely understanding that Amazon does not pay anyone to test their products and their non-paid testing and review products program Amazon Vine is by invitation only. Anyone else promoting an Amazon testing and review program is a scammer.
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Scam of the day – February 4, 2025 – AI Making Virtual Kidnapping Worse
The Peekskill, New York Central School District recently issued a warning about a disturbing new development in the virtual kidnapping scam after an increase in incidents of this crime. It should be noted that this is not a crime limited to New York, but is increasing nationwide according to the FBI.
I have been warning you about phony kidnapping scams, also known as virtual kidnapping, for twelve years and according to the FBI, the scam is increasing in frequency. Generally, the scam starts with a telephone call informing the person answering the phone that a child or other relative has been kidnapped and if the person receiving the call does not respond by wiring money right away, the relative will be killed. As with so many scams, we are often our own worst enemy and this scam is no exception. In many instances, the scammers gather personal information about the intended scam victims from information that the intended victims or members of their families post on social media. Armed with personal information gathered from social media, a scammer can describe the supposed kidnapped victim or provide personal information that would make it appear that indeed they actually do have the person in their custody.
The new development to this scam, as noted in the warning from the Peekskill Central School District, involves the use of AI voice cloning technology to clone the voice of the child from audio obtained through social media posts to make the call from the kidnapper appear to be more believable. With voice cloning becoming so easy to do, even technologically unsophisticated scammers are able to utilize it to make their scam seem legitimate.
TIPS
Always be skeptical if you receive such a call. Never wire money to anyone for anything unless you are totally convinced that what you are doing is legitimate because unlike paying for something with a credit card, once your wired funds have been sent, they are impossible to get back. Talk to the alleged kidnapper as long as possible, thereby giving someone else with you the time to call or text the alleged kidnap victim on his or her phone. If the purported kidnapping victim is a young child, call the school to confirm that he or she is safe. You also could ask the kidnapper to describe your relative as well as provide information, such as his or her birth date, which could be found on a driver’s license, however, it is important to remember that much of this kind of information may be available through social media or elsewhere on the Internet. It also can be helpful for the family to have a code word to use to immediately recognize that this is a scam. If the kidnapper can’t provide the code word, it is clear that it is a scam.
Parents should also check the privacy settings of the social media of their children and consider limiting the availability of their children posts.
Finally, even paranoids have enemies. A good protective measure to take to protect yourself from virtual kidnappings is to have a secret password to use in the event of an emergency that can be used to determine if a family member truly is in trouble.
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Scam of the day – February 4, 2025 – Docusign Phishing Scam
DocuSign is a company that provides technology for the transmission of contracts and other documents with features for electronic signatures and is used by many businesses. There has been an increasing number of scams in which phony DocuSign messages are being used to send malware infected links luring people into providing personal information that is used for identity theft purposes.
Copied below is an email I received that purports to be sent by my landlord in regard to a change in the terms of my lease that required my immediate attention. This phishing email prompts me to click on a link to open a document that needed my signature. The phishing email looked very professional and contained the DocuSign logo and appeared legitimate. However, the email address of the sender was one totally unrelated to either DocuSign or anyone with whom I do business. Most likely it was the email address of someone whose email account had been hacked and made a part of a botnet used by the cybercriminal to send out large numbers of these emails. Additionally, I do not rent any real estate so the email couldn’t apply to me. Scammers send these emails out in large numbers hoping that many people who do rent their homes will be lured into clicking on the link
This phishing email was designed to lure the person receiving the email to click on the link and either provide personal information that could be used for identity theft, or, as more likely in this particular phishing attempt, merely by clicking on the link would have downloaded malware such as ransomware or keystroke logging malware into the computer of the person clicking on the link. Keystroke logging malware would have enabled the cybercriminal to steal all of the personal information from the computer and make that person a victim of identity theft. I removed the link from the email displayed below.
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TIPS
In this case, I actually followed my own advice as to never click on a link regardless of how legitimate the email or text message may appear until confirming that the message is legitimate. In this case I didn’t even need to confirm that it was not legitimate because of the telltale evidence of the email address of the sender and the fact that I do not have any leases.
The lesson here is clear. You can never be sure when you receive an email as to who is really contacting you. Although sometimes it is obvious when the email address of the sender does not correspond to who is represented as sending the email, other times the email account of someone or some company you trust could have been hacked and used to send you the malware. Therefore you should never click on a link or download an attachment in an email until you have absolutely and independently confirmed that it is legitimate.
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Scam of the day – February 3, 2025 – Delaware AG Issues Warning About Bitcoin ATM Scams
The Delaware Attorney General recently issued a warning about a dramatic increase in scams involving Bitcoin ATMs. A report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicates a 1,000 % increase in money lost to scammers through Bitcoin ATMs in the last three years with consumers reporting losses of more than 111 million dollars in 2023. Bitcoin ATMs look just like traditional ATMs, but instead of distributing cash, they take cash in exchange for cryptocurrency and enable the transfer of the deposited cash turned into Bitcoin into crypto wallets. Due to the anonymity and immediacy of the Bitcoin transfers done through a Bitcoin ATM, it is a favorite method of payment for scammers.
Most of the scams using Bitcoin ATMs involve imposter scams where the scammer poses as either a law enforcement officer, government official or someone providing tech support for a non-existent problem. What all of these imposter scams have in common is that they scare the targeted victim with a story about an emergency that requires them to take cash from their bank account and use a QR code provided by the scammer to deposit the money into the account of the scammer at a Bitcoin ATM under the guise of protecting the funds.
According to the FTC, people over 60 years old were more than three times more likely to report losing money to a Bitcoin ATM scam with an average loss of $10,000.
TIPS
Protecting yourself from these imposter scams starts with recognizing that you can never be sure who is actually contacting you when you are contacted by phone, email or text message so you should never click on a link, download an attachment or provide personal information in response to any of those communications unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication was legitimate. Further there is no circumstance where you will be asked by anyone legitimate to withdraw funds from your bank, deposit them into a Bitcoin ATM and transfer the funds to them. Only scammers make those requests.
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Scam of the day – February 2, 2025 – Accused Sextortion Scammer Arraigned
I have been warning you about sextortion scams for nine years. In 2023 I told you that the South Carolina Legislature had passed a bill called Gavin’s Law that further criminalized extorting minors or at-risk adults. It was named after the son of a South Carolina legislator whose teenage son committed suicide after being a victim of sextortion. Now, Hassanbunhussein Abolore Lawal the man accused of being the sextortionist whose actions led to the suicide of Gavin Guffey has been arraigned in a South Carolina court on charges of child exploitation resulting in death, distribution of child sexual abuse material, coercion and enticement of a mionor, cyberestalking, interstate threats with intent to extort and aideing and abetting. Lawal was arrested in Nigeria folliowng joint efforts of law enforcement in Nigerian and the United States and extradited to the United States to face charges.
Some sextortion scams begin with an email in which you are told that your computer and web cam have been hacked and that the scammers have video of you watching porn online. In the email, the scammer threatens to send the videos to people on his contact list unless you pay a ransom in Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency.
According to the FBI adult predators, often posing as young girls, contact teenage boys on a variety of online platforms such as games or social media and then convince the teenage boys to engage in explicit sexual activity while unbeknownst to the teenaged boy, the predator is recording it. The scammer then reveals to the teenager that the scammer has the recording and threatens to post it online unless a substantial payment is made. According to the FBI there has been a significant increase in the instances of his scam. Many of these scams are organized and based outside the United States, primarily in West African countries such as Nigeria and the Ivory Coast.
TIPS
The FBI advises parents to tell their children to be very careful as to what they share online. Social media accounts which are open to everyone provide predators and scammers with a lot of information that the scammers can use to lure people into scams. Discuss the appropriate privacy settings with your children for all of their accounts.
The FBI also tells parents to remind their children that they can never be sure as to who they are communicating with online and they should be particularly skeptical if they meet someone on a game or app who then asks to communicate with them on a different platform.
In regard to your web cam being hacked, while often this is merely a threat and the scammer has not hacked your web cam, web cams can be hacked. One thing you can do to protect your webcam from being hacked is to make sure that you change the default password on your webcam when you first install it. Another simple thing I do and you can, as well, is to merely put a post-it note over your webcam when it is not in use.
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Scam of the day – February 1, 2025 – Trader Joe’s Gift Card Scam
The website TJSummers.com is falesly offering a $750 Trader Joe’s gift card in retrun for completing simple surveys, but there are no gift cards and it is merely a scam designed to gather personal information that can be used for identity theft or to make unauthorized charges on your credit card. People are directed to the TJSummers.com website through ads, emails or social media links. Sometimes, unfortunately, unsuspecting people who see the ads forward them to their friends thinking they are doing them a favor rather than setting them up to be scammed.
If you click on the link to take the survey it takes you to a phony Trader Joe’s website where you are prompted to take a survey that starts out simply enough asking about your shopping habits, however, at the end of the survey you are asked to provide personal information such as your name, email address, phone number and even credit card details purportedly needed for “processing fees.” After completing the survey and providing the information, however, you never receive the promised gift card.
TIPS
The only saying, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is applies here. No one is giving $750 gift cards to people merely for completing a simple survey. Specifically as to Trader Joe’s, the company does not offer gift cards for sharing information or testing their products. B.S. Be skeptical whenever you see offers like this. The simplest way to find out if such an offer is legitimate is to merely go to the company website where you will find any legitimate offers the company is making.
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Scam of the day – January 31, 2025 – New IRS Phishing Scam
Often the scams that are the most effective are the ones that have just a bit of truth to them. For instance, mystery shopper scams often appeal to victims of the scam because they know there actually are people who are paid to shop. And so it is with the latest scam where scammers are posing as the IRS and sending emails and text messages to unsuspecting people telling them that they need to apply and provide personal information in order to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit, also known as an Economic Impact Payment. According to the IRS a million taxpayers who were eligible to take this credit on their 2021 federal income tax return failed to do so. Fortunately, however, taxpayers who didn’t claim this credit on their 2021 federal income tax return don’t have to do anything or provide any information to claim this credit. Eligible taxpayers will receive either a check or a direct deposit into their bank account for the credit.
Scammers however, are capitalizing on people being somewhat aware that the IRS is issuing these credits, but not necessarily aware that they do not have to do anything or provide any information to get their payment.
TIPS
As always even if the phone number sending the text message or the email address sending an email that appear to come from the IRS, you can’t trust it. It is a simple matter for a sophisticated scammer to make the phone number appear on your Caller ID to be from the IRS and the same goes for email.
It is also important to remember that the IRS will not send you an email or a text message asking form personal or financial information, but scammers posing as the IRS will and use any information you provide to make you a victim of identity theft.
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Scam of the day – January 30, 2025 – Mavis Wanczyk Scams Continue to Claim 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 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.
Recently a Scamicide reader told me about receiving a message through Facebook that purported to be from Mavis Wanczyk informing him that she was giving him $10,000 and that all she needed was for him to set up a Cash App account and provide the details to her so that she could transfer the money to him. Fortunately, he recognized that this was a scam and did not send the account information requested which if sent would have enabled the scammer to access the bank account or debit card linked to the Cash App account and steal his money. Similarly another Scamicide reader communicated with another Mavis Wanczyk impersonating scammer on the question and answer website Quora who lured him into sending money for a variety of reasons such as insurance and delivery costs in order to receive his “free” gift of $10,000 from Mavis Wanczyk.
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 or payments to receive a supposedly free gift.
Finally and most importantly, remember neither Mavis Wanczyk nor any other lottery winner is giving away money to strangers.
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Scam of the day – January 29, 2025 – CDC Phishing Email
Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure you into either clicking on links contained within the email which 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. Reproduced below is a copy of a new phishing email presently circulating that appears to come from DataTransfer.com a legitimate data transfer service.
As phishing emails go, this one is pretty good. It looks legitimate and the version appearing in your email comes with a legitimate appearing Data Transfer.com logo. Even the email address of the sender does not have obvious indications that it is a scam.
Here is a copy of the DataTransfer.com phishing email presently being circulated.
| Hi xxxxxxxxxx@aol.com, you have received some file(s) from cdc-support@cdc.gov with a total size of 56.49 KB. The file(s) will be deleted after 1 week. Files:Secure Archive.rar Message: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an urgent public health update. Please download and open the attached file immediately to review essential information and guidelines.
Nice day! |
TIPS
There are a number of indications that this is not a legitimate email from DataTransfer.com, but instead is a phishing email. Most notably, the salutation is addressed to the email address of the recipient rather than their name. in addition, the Center for Disease Control is not sending unsolicited emails to people and it is unlikely that if they did, they would conclude their message with “Nice Day!”
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 cellphone 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 the company or organization it purports to be from which in this case is the CDC where you can confirm that it is a scam.
I have disarmed section of the phishing email where it asks you to click on “Download.”
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