Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – February 13, 2025 – Victims of Income Tax Identity Theft Wait Two Years for Tax Refund
For all of us procrastinating about filing our federal income tax returns it is important to remember that income tax identity theft, by which identity thieves file phony income tax returns with counterfeit W-2s using the Social Security number and name of their victim is still a major problem for the IRS and taxpayers costing us all billions of dollars each year. However, when someone has stolen your Social Security number and filed an income tax return using your name, the problem becomes particularly personal. The IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service recently disclosed that victims of income tax identity theft wait an average of 675 days for the IRS to process their legitimate tax return and get their tax refund.
So what can you do to protect yourself from income tax identity theft? First and foremost you should file your return as soon as possible because if you file your income tax return before the identity thief does you should be able to get your refund in a timely manner. However, income tax identity thieves are pretty prompt in filing their phony returns so you should also get a PIN from the IRS to use when filing your tax return.
In 2022 the IRS announced an expansion of its Identity Protection PIN Op-In Program that provides individual taxpayers with a six-digit code that is required to be included on the individual’s income tax return. This will protect someone whose Social Security number had been compromised from becoming a victim of identity theft because the identity thief will not know the six-digit code. Here is a link to the section of the IRS’ website where you can apply for a PIN. https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/get-an-identity-protection-pin The PIN is only valid for a single year but will automatically be renewed each year. The easiest way to get a PIN is through your online IRS account. Here is a link to information about getting an online IRS Account. https://www.irs.gov/payments/online-account-for-individuals
TIPS
In addition to protecting the privacy of your Social Security number, the best thing you can do to protect yourself from becoming a victim of income tax identity theft is to file your income tax return as early as possible. A criminal can successfully make you a victim of income tax identity theft only if he or she files an income tax return using your Social Security number before you file your legitimate income tax return. Therefore the earlier you file your income tax return, the more likely you are to avoid becoming a victim of this crime.
The IRS started the Identity Theft Protection PIN program almost ten years ago, but it was only available to people who were already victims of identity theft and to people living in a few specific states chosen by the IRS to test the program. Now anyone can and should obtain an Identity Theft Protection PIN.
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Scam of the day – February 12, 2025 – New Amazon Text Message Scam
The Barnstable Massachusetts Police Department recently issued a warning about a new text message scam in which the scammers pose as Amazon. Recently there has been an increase in the number of people receiving phony text messages that purport to be sent from Amazon telling you that you are eligible for a “price difference refund” but that you need to click on a link to verify your account information in order to receive the payment. These phony text messages, called “smishing” generally either attempt to lure you into providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim or identity theft or try to persuade you to click on a link that will download malware.
A famous bank robber was once asked why he robbed banks to which he responded, “because that is where the money is” which is why it is not surprising that scammers have used Amazon as the basis for a wide variety of scams due to so many people buying products through Amazon.
Here is a copy of the presently circulating phony text message:
“(Amazon) Price Adjustment Refund Notification. We regret to infomr you that due to a price drop, your recent order is eligible for a price difference refund. Please click the link below to log into your Amazon account and verify your details, and we will process the refund promptly. (Note, I have removed the link) Once verified the refund will be processed to your account shortly. Thank you for choosing Amazon!”
One good indication that this is a scam is that it indicates that they regret to inform you that you are eligible for a refund, which makes no sense whatsoever.
You can provide a phone number for Amazon to text you alerts and notifications regarding your account so how can you tell if a text message is legitimate? The real Amazon will never ask for your password or personal information in a text message.
TIPS
If you have a question about your Amazon account, you can either contact them through their website at https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html or call them at 1 (888) 280-4331. Don’t trust any text message that purports to be from Amazon. Through the technique called “spoofing” scammers can make the text message appear to come from Amazon. If you think a text message you receive appearing to come from Amazon might be legitimate, merely call them at 1-(888) 280-4331.
It is a good practice to never click on a link in a text message or email unless you have absolutely confirmed that it is legitimate.
Here is a link to information Amazon provides about steps you can take to make your account more secure. https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=21599686011
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Scam of the day – February 11, 2025 – Mystery Shopper Scam
I have written many times over the last thirteen years about the mystery shopper scam because it continues to ensnare unwary victims. These scams continue to be effective and are increasing in number so it is important to remind you about them again. Mystery shoppers are people hired to shop at a particular store and report on the shopping experience for purposes of quality control. Unlike many scams, there actually are legitimate mystery shopper companies, but they never advertise or recruit through emails, text messages or letters.
The manner in which the scam generally works is that when you answer an advertisement, or respond to a letter, email or a text message to become a mystery shopper, you are sent a bank check. You deposit the check into your own account and spend some of the money on the goods that you purchase which you are allowed to keep and also are directed to keep some of the balance of the check as payment for your services. You are instructed to return the remaining funds by a wire transfer. Of course, the check that was sent to you is counterfeit and bounces, but the funds wired by the victim of the scam is gone forever from his or her bank account.
In a Walmart themed mystery shopper scam, the targeted victim was sent a legitimate appearing, but counterfeit check for $2,940 and told to keep $540 as payment and then go to the nearest Walmart and use the remainder of the check to buy six $400 Kroger gift cards and provide the numbers to the scammer. The scam victim was then told to keep the gift cards for their next assignment although there never is another assignment and the scammers use the numbers on the Kroger gift cards to make purchases, making the actual cards worthless. The victim of the scam loses the $2,400 used to purchase the gift cards from the victim’s own bank account when the check bounces.
TIPS
One reason why this scam fools so many people is that there really are mystery shopping jobs although the actual number is quite few and the companies that do mystery shopping do not go looking for you. A firm indication that you are involved with a scam is when you receive a check for more than what is owed you and you are asked to wire the difference back to the sender. This is the basis of many scams. Whenever you receive a check, wait for your bank to tell you that the check has fully cleared before you consider the funds as actually being in your account. Don’t rely on provisional credit which is given after a few days, but which will be rescinded once a check bounces and never accept a check for more than what is owed with the intention to send back the rest. That is always a scam. Also be wary whenever you are asked to wire funds or send gift cards because this is a common theme in many scams because it is difficult to trace and impossible to stop. Legitimate companies do not use gift cards as payments.
For more information about legitimate mystery shoppers, you can go to the website of the Mystery Shopping Professional Association https://www.mspa-americas.org/scam-alerts/
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Scam of the day – February 10, 2025 – Cash App Ordered to Pay $175 Million For Failure to Protect its Customers From Fraud
Cash App is one of the largest peer-to-peer payment platroms with more than 56 million accounts. Similar to Zelle and Venmo, Cash App enables its customers to send money electronically. Recently the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Block, Cash App’s parent company to pay $120 million in refunds to its customers who had been defrauded while using the app and another $55 million to the CFPB’s victims relief fund. The basis for the order was Cash App’s failure to use sufficient security protocols to protect their customers from being scammed.
According to the CFPB, Cash App failed to properly investigate and resolve disputes about unauthorized transactions in violation of its obligations under federal law. Specifically, the CFPB said that CAsh App used intentionally shoddy investigation practices to cloe reports of unauthorized transactions int he company’s favor. Cash App included a telephone number on the back of its Cash Card and in its Cash App Terms of Service that for many years did not connect customers to any kind of customer support, but instead led to a pre-recorded message directing customers to contact customer support through the app. Customers attempting to contact Cash App through the app or mail were met with inadequate, confusing or inaccurate responses. If customers did a web search for a customer service number, they often found phony customer service information sites created by scammers who tricked customers into giving up their passwords or other personal information thereby giving the scammers access to their victims’ bank accounts tied to their Cash App accounts. According to the CFPB, Cash App knew its customers were being scammed in this manner, but neglected to act appropriately to address this problem.
TIPS
If you were a customer of Cash App who had lost money to a scammer and your case was not properly investigated by Cash App and were not reimbursed for your loss, you do not need to take any action at this time to receive your refund. The CFPB will be enforcing its order to ensure you get your refund. As more information becomes available about the refunds, I will let you know.
In regard to many of the scams affecting customers of Cash App, particularly where they were tricked into providing their passwords, these scams could have been avoided by using dual factor authentication for their account.
How to Enable 2FA on Cash App:
- Open Cash App on your device.
- Tap the profile icon (top right corner).
- Select Privacy & Security.
- Look for Two-Factor Authentication and toggle it on.
- Choose an authentication app (e.g., Google Authenticator) and follow the setup instructions.
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Scam of the day – February 9, 2025 – Watch Out for Valentine’s Day Scams
Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching. This is a very important day to many people including scammers and identity thieves who always manage to find an opportunity in whatever is current or popular to scam you out of your money. There are many Valentine’s day scams, but the most prevalent are phony florists, online dating scams, phony Valentine’s day electronic greeting cards and delivery scams.
Scammers set up phony florist websites or send you an email purporting to be from a local florist with a great deal you merely have to click on in order to save a great deal of money on flowers.
Online dating scams are plentiful with most revolving around scammers quickly professing true love for you and then asking for money.
Electronic greeting cards are a great way to send a Valentine’s day card at the last minute when you forget to get one ahead of time, but phony electronic greeting cards can be filled with malware and if you click on the link to open the card, you will infect your computer or other electronic device with malware that will steal your personal information and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.
A common delivery scam operating on Valentine’s day involves a delivery of a gift basket of wine and flowers to you, however the person delivering the gift basket requests a small payment, generally five dollars or less, as a delivery fee because alcohol is being delivered. The person delivering the basket will only accept a credit card as payment. When you turn over your credit card, the scammer then takes down the information and runs up charges on your credit card.
TIPS
Never trust an online florist or other retailer until you have checked them out to make sure that they are legitimate. Otherwise, you might be turning over your credit card information to a scammer. It is also important to remember, as I constantly warn you, that you can never be confident when you receive an email, particularly one with a link in it or an attachment to download, if the person sending you the email is who they claim to be. Clicking on links sent by scammers can download keystroke logging malware on to your computer or other electronic device that will, in turn, enable the identity thief to steal personal information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft. Always confirm the legitimacy of an email or text message before clicking on links contained in the message.
As for online dating scams, of course you should be wary of anyone who immediately indicates he or she is in love with you and then asks for money. Some other telltale signs of an online romance scam include wanting to communicate with you right away on an email account outside of the dating site, claiming to be working abroad, asking for your address and poor grammar which is often a sign of a foreign romance scammer although with the advent of AI, scammers are able to cure their former bad grammar and spelling. Many romance scams originate in Eastern Europe.
Be skeptical of any online greeting card, particularly if it does not indicate from whom it is being sent. Be very wary of a card sent by “an admirer.” Even if you recognize the name of the sender, confirm that it was really sent from that person before you click on the link and open the card. It could be filled with malware.
In regard to the delivery scam, there is no special delivery charge for alcohol so if someone requires a payment for such a delivery and on top of that won’t accept cash, merely decline the gift.
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Scam of the day – February 8, 2025 – PayPal Phishing Email
Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated. 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.
Here is the email presently circulating. I have deleted a link to click on to “Review the Document.”:
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We’ve detected an unauthorized Coinbase transaction on your PayPal account: Amount: $459.19 To ensure the security of your account and to receive a full refund, Customer Support team immediately at (888)X (356)X (2584) .Our team is available 24/7 to assist you and prevent any further unauthorized activity on your account. We take the security of your account very seriously and we are committed to helping you resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. 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 7, 2025 – Porn in the Cloud Scam
People are reporting receiving calls that purport to be from Apple’s Special Investigations Unit telling them that illegal child pornography has been discovered on their cloud account. The phony investigator is sympathetic when you inform them that you never stored child pornography on the cloud or anywhere else. He tells you that most likely the child pornography was somehow planted by a hacker on your computer and it is being backed up in the cloud. In order to remedy the problem, the phony Apple investigator tells you he needs remote access to your computer in order to locate and remove the child pornography from your computer. The cost of this service can be as high as thousands of dollars which the phony investigator requests be paid through Amazon gift cards. This scam presents a double whammy. Victims of the scam not only pay the scammer for services they don’t need, but by providing remote access to their computers, they enable the scammer to install a wide variety of malware that can lead to identity theft and further scams.
TIPS
Even if your Caller ID indicates that the call is coming from Apple, your Caller ID can be manipulated easily through a technique called “spoofing” by which the scammer can make your Caller ID read whatever he or she wants it to read. One way you can be sure if you receive such a call that it is a scam is that neither Apple nor any other tech company is going to call to inform you that there is child pornography on your computer. Also, Apple does not have a Special Investigations Unit. Additionally, legitimate tech companies do not accept Amazon gift cards or any other form of gift card as payment for their services. As for enabling someone to have remote access to your computer, you should never do so unless you have absolutely confirmed that the remote access is legitimately warranted and the person to whom you are giving the remote access is also legitimate.
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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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