Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – November 13, 2024 – Hacking Your Computer Through Your Smoke Detector
I have been warning you about dangers in the rapidly expanding Internet of things for more than eleven years. The Internet of Things is made up of a broad range of devices connected to the Internet including home thermostats, security systems, medical devices, refrigerators, televisions, cars and toys. Our homes have become filled with these devices including Alexa and Siri. The FBI has longed warned consumers about the dangers of posed by hacking of various devices that makeup the Internet of Things.
Cybercriminals hack into your devices that are a part of the Internet of Things to enable them to enlist your devices as a part of a botnet by which they can distribute malware while maintaining their anonymity. They also can hack into your Internet of Thing devices to access your home computers or cell phones to steal information for purposes of identity theft or to implant malware on your home computers and cell phones. Any device you have in your home that is connected to the Internet poses a threat. One device that people hardly give any thought to is your smoke detector. Newer, sophisticated smoke detectors have the capability to send data to your phone or the manufacturer which they do through your router and this make them vulnerable to being hacked.
TIPS
Most of the devices that make up the Internet of Things come with preset passwords that can easily be discovered by hackers. Change your password as soon as you set up the product. Also, set up a guest network on your router exclusively for your Internet of Things devices. This is important so that you can keep the sensitive personal information you have on your computer or cell phone from being accessible through a hacking of any of your Internet of Things devices.
Configure network firewalls to block traffic from unauthorized IP addresses and disable port forwarding. Make sure that you install the latest security patches as soon as they become available. Use encryption software for the transmission of data and find out where data is stored and what steps are taken to secure the information.
Make sure your router is secure and use its whitelisting capabilities which will prevent your device from connecting to malicious networks. Routers are a critical part of your smart home security. Make sure it will automatically download and install the latest security updates from its manufacturer. If your router is an older router that does not have this capability, you can check the manufacturer’s website regularly for the latest updates, but frankly, you are probably better served by getting a newer, more secure router. Make sure you have a unique password for each of your Internet of Things devices and use dual factor authentication whenever you can for all of these devices.
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Scam of the day – November 12, 2024 – CARS Rule Protects Car Buyers from Fraud
Not all scams are perpetrated by criminal gangs in Nigeria. Sometimes the scammers are not only home-grown, but may even be companies that you consider to be legitimate, such as car dealerships. Recognizing that many people have gotten scammed by “legitimate” car dealers using deceptive tactics to sell cars, the FTC, in 2022 first proposed a rule to protect car buyers from common scams done by “legitimate” car dealers. After public comment and amendments to the rule, the Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) rule was finalized late in 2023 and took effect on July 30, 2024.
The CARS rule (such a clever acronym)is intended to prevent bait and switch tactics and hidden junk fees charged by car dealers when selling cars. It has been estimated that the new rule will save consumers more than 3.4 billion dollars each year. The CARS rule prohibits car dealers from using bait-and-switch claims to lure car buyers to their dealership, including representations about the cost of the car or the terms of financing, the availability of discounts and rebates as well as the actual availability of the car being advertised. The CARS rule also prohibits junk fees that are often hidden in lengthy and legalese filled contracts car buyers sign when purchasing a car. Some of these junk fees are charges for warranties that duplicate the manufacturer’s warranty that the consumer already gets at no extra cost or charges for unnecessary oil changes on electric cars.
TIPS
One of the first steps in determining whether to buy a car from a particular dealer is to ask for and receive an “out-the-door” price of the car at the very start of the car buying process. An “out-the-door price is their total purchase price of the car including taxes and fees. Having this price in writing will allow you to compare their price to that of other dealers more directly. It also is a way to see if any of those extra junk fees have been put into the sales price of the car.
Whenever you buy a car, review each section of the contract in detail before you sign any purchase or financing documents. Don’t be rushed. Ask the dealer to slow down, especially if they’re moving quickly and using an electronic process on an iPad, tablet, or other device to show you the agreement. Tell them you want to see the terms clearly before you agree, especially all the fees and charges in the deal. That way, you know the dealer didn’t include charges for any extra items you don’t want. Carefully compare what you are seeing at signing to what the dealer sent you beforehand.
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Scam of the day – November 11, 2024 – Marketplace Health Insurance Scams
Marketplace health insurance is the online service established under the Affordable Care Act where people can shop for and buy health insurance from private insurance companies. Each year it has an open enrollment period during which time people can purchase their initial policy or switch policies. This year the open enrollment period is from November 1st until January 15, 2025 and scammers are already busy contacting people by phone, email, text message, social media and advertisements posing as legitimate insurance companies. Some of the phony ads use deepfake technology to make it appear that a celebrity has endorsed their plan. The scammers often pose as either insurance companies or Marketplace officials demanding payments by cash or cryptocurrencies which is a red flag for a scam.
TIPS
So how do you safely pick an initial policy or change your policy during the open enrollment period? The best way to do so is to not respond to any of the phone calls, emails, text messages, social media or ads that you may encounter because you can never be sure if they are legitimate. Instead just to directly to the official Marketplace health insurance website at https://www.healthcare.gov/ or call them at 1-800-318-2596 to get all the information you need to make an informed choice. You can also communicate with local Navigators or local insurance agents through the Marketplace’s online directory here https://www.healthcare.gov/find-local-help/
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Scam of the day – November 10, 2024 – Veterans Day Scams
Tomorrow we will be celebrating Veterans Day, a day we set aside to honor those who have served our country and to whom all Americans owe a debt of gratitude. However, for scam artists, Veterans Day is just another opportunity to take advantage of the best intentions of people and steal their money. In 2020, the Senate Committee on Aging held hearings in which they inquired about scams targeting veterans and members of the military. One witness testified at the hearing that veterans are twice as likely to be scammed than the general population.
Among the scams targeting all of us at this time of year are phony telephone calls that purport to be from various veterans organizations or charities seeking donations when, in fact, many of these calls will be from scammers seeking to steal money under false pretenses.
Another scam related to Veterans’ Day involves veterans receiving telephone calls purporting to be from the Veterans’ Administration asking for personal information necessary to verify or update the information of the VA. Of course, the call is not from the VA and the request for personal information is intended merely to gather such information in order to make the veteran a victim of identity theft.
Following the passage of the PACT Act in 2022 which expanded VA benefits and health care for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances, there have been numerous companies and lawyers offering assistance in filing for benefits for conditions related to such toxic exposures in return for a percentage of your benefit award. However, you don’t need to pay to file a claim. The VA can assist you or help you identify a VA-recognized organization or VA-accredited individual to help you with your claim. You can submit your application securely online via VA.gov. There is no cost for the forms and no fee to apply. VA will never charge you to apply for benefits. In addition, Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) and representatives are available to assist in filing claims. To help guard against fraud and scams, validate the credentials of anyone offering to help you with a VA claim by using the Office of General Counsel’s Accreditation Search tool or by contacting your local representative or VA Regional Office
TIPS
Even if you are on the federal Do Not Call List, which is a good thing to be on if you wish to avoid telemarketers, you are legally able to be called by charities. The problem is that whenever you receive a call purporting to be from a charity, you have absolutely no way of knowing if you are being contacted by a legitimate charity. Using a technique called “spoofing,” scammers can manipulate your Caller ID to make it appear that their calls are coming from legitimate sources such as charities. You also cannot know, without doing some research, whether the particular veterans’ charity that may be contacting you is legitimate or not.
As I often advise you, never give personal information such as credit card information to anyone over the phone if you have not made the call. If you are considering a gift to a particular charity, first check out the charity with http://www.charitynavigator.org to make sure that the charity is legitimate and also find out how much of the charitable donations they receive actually goes toward helping veterans and how much goes toward salaries and operating expenses of the charities. A good rule of thumb is to not give to charities that take more than 25% of what they collect for their own salaries and expenses. If after vetting a particular charity, you decide that you would like to make a donation, you can get the information from charitynavigator.org as to how to make your gift.
As for calls that you may receive purporting to be from the VA or any other governmental agency requesting information, you should never provide information over the phone to anyone because, as I indicated above, you can never be sure if the caller is who he or she says they are. In this case, you should contact the particular agency at a telephone number that you know is accurate to confirm whether or not the request for personal information was legitimate or not. Most of the time, the call will turn out to be a scam.
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Scam of the day – November 9, 2024 – Grandparent Scammers Arrested
I am sure by now all of you are familiar with the grandparent scam where a grandparent receives a telephone call from someone purporting to be their grandchild who has gotten into some trouble, most commonly a traffic accident, legal trouble or medical problems in a far away place. The caller pleads for the grandparent to send money immediately to help resolve the problem. However the caller also begs the grandparent not to tell mom and dad. One would think that no one would be gullible enough to fall for this scam, but don’t be so hard on the victims of this scam. Scam artists have a knowledge of psychology of which Freud would have been envious and are able to use that knowledge to persuade their victims to send money right away. While this scam has been going on for approximately fourteen years, it continues to victimize people.
But now it is getting worse – far worse.
Through the use of readily available AI voice cloning technology, a scammer can obtain a recording of the grandchild’s voice from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or anywhere else the grandchild might post a video with audio and use that audio to create a call to the grandparent that sounds exactly like that of the grandchild and all it takes is AI voice-generating software and as little as 30 seconds worth of the grandchild’s audio.
This week Roberto Munoz and Jason Rhodes were arrested and charged with wire fraud and identity theft related to the grandparent scam. According to police, Munoz and Rhodes operated as couriers to go to the homes and pick up money from victims of the grandparent scam after the scammers had conned the victims out of the money using a variety of pretenses including that their grandchild had been arrested and bail money was needed. Munoz and Rhodes are accused of collecting approximately $230,000 from victims in Rhode Island and Massachusetts although police also said Munoz had names and addresses of other victims in Wisconsin, Illinois, Virginia, Kansas, Maryland, Tennessee, Iowa, North Carolina and New Jersey.
TIPS
Scammers often use the nicknames of the grandchildren when speaking to their intended victims. Sometimes they get this information from social media while in other instances they get this information from reading obituaries which may contain the names of grandchildren so merely because the correct name is used in the call is no reason to believe the call. Don’t respond immediately to such a call without calling the real grandchild on his or her cell phone or call the parents and confirm the whereabouts of the grandchild. If a medical problem is the ruse used, you can call the real hospital. If legal problems are the hook you can call the real police. You can also test the caller with a question that could be answered only by the real grandchild, but make sure that it really is a question that only the real grandchild could answer and not just anyone who might read the real grandchild’ s social media postings. Prudent families can also come up with a code word to use in an emergency which a scammer will never know.
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Scam of the day – November 8, 20224 – FTC Shuts Down Business Opportunity Scam
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently obtained a temporary restraining order freezing the assets of a business opportunity scam operated under a number of different names including Lunar Capital Ventures, Ecom Genie and Profitable Automation. The scammers contacted their victims through social media ads, websites and marketing emails through which they falsely claimed that through their program people could earn huge profits by starting online e-commerce businesses. The truth is that the vast majority of their customers lost all of their investment of between $30,000 and $35,000. The Federal Trade Commission sued the scammers and while the case continues the FTC got a temporary restraining order shutting them down and freezing their assets.
TIPS
The sale of business opportunities is regulated by the FTC’s Business Opportunity Rule which requires the sellers of business opportunities to provide a one-page disclosure document outlining important facts about the offering including informing you about any legal actions in which the sellers have been involved. The disclosure also has to provide you with details as to any refund policy and provide a list of references. Additionally, as is always the case with these types of scams, if they make claims about how much money you can earn through their scheme, they must provide you with an Earnings Claim Statement that indicates in detail the specifics of those claims and the opportunity to see written proof of the claims. The defendants in this case did not provide these important disclosures.
Before considering any kind of business opportunity, you should have a lawyer review these required disclosures and if the person offering you the business opportunity does not provide these documents, you should consider that a red flag that this is a scam. You also should investigate the people behind the offering as well as the particular type of business opportunity.
You also can do a Google or other search engine search of any company from which you are considering making a purchase in which you type in the company’s name along with the words “scam” or “complaints” and see what you come up with.
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Scam of the day – November 7, 2024 – Beware of Evil Twins
Whether we are at the airport, a hotel, a shopping mall, a coffee shop or almost anywhere else, you will usually find free public Wi-Fi service offered so that we can use our cell phones, laptops or tablets to connect to the Internet. However with this convenience can come danger. Too many people assume that the Wi-Fi that they are using is secure and this is not always the case. In fact, often an identity thief will go to the same coffee shop or other venue and set up his or her own Wi-Fi which is what you may unwittingly be tapping into when you think you are connecting to the Wi-Fi of the particular coffee shop or other place you find yourself at. Technologically, it is easy to set up a phony Wi-Fi that can steal data from your cell phone, laptop or tablet and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft. Recently, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody issued a warning about these scammer created phony Wi-Fi networks which she calls “Evil twins.”
So what can you do to make using public Wi-Fi safe?
TIPS
It is always a good idea to make sure that your cell phone, tablet or laptop has a good firewall and is protected by anti-virus and anti-malware security software that is updated with the latest security updates. It is also a good idea not to use public Wi-Fi for banking or other financial transactions or, for that matter, anything that requires you to provide login credentials. Sensitive data should not be sent over public Wi-Fi. If you are going to use public Wi-Fi, the first thing you should do is check the hotspot name. Identity thieves often set up their phony Wi-Fi with names that appear quite similar to the legitimate Wi-Fi. For example, the public Wi-Fi offered at your coffee shop may be named GoodCoffee while the phony one may be something that with a cursory look appears legitimate, such as Go0dCoffee.
Always make sure when using public Wi-Fi that you are on the legitimate Wi-Fi site before proceeding to use it. Many cell phones and other devices automatically connect to nearby networks, which can connect you to the identity thief’s phony Wi-Fi before you realize it. Therefore disable automatic connection to networks. Finally, the best thing you can do to protect your privacy and security when using public Wi-fi is to use a Virtual Private Network app which will encrypt all of your data before sending it through the Wi-Fi connection. Here is a link to an article I wrote about VPNs that will tell you all you need to know (and possibly more) about VPNs. https://au.norton.com/internetsecurity-wifi-how-does-a-vpn-work.html and here is a link to an article that lists ten good VPNs that you can get for free. https://www.techradar.com/vpn/best-free-vpn
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Scam of the day – November 6, 2024 -Scammers Use AI to Pose as Police
In the Star Wars movies, the “force” provided power that could used for good or as exemplified by Darth Vader, the “dark side” and so it is with artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can be use to combat scams through recognizing patterns present in scams as well as through machine learning algorithms even use historical data to recognize signs of new scams. However, AI has also proven already to be a tremendous weapon for scammers using the dark side of the force to, among other things, create more effective phishing emails. Using AI to create deepfake audios and videos to enhance their scams is now a serious problem.
Recently, the Salt Lake City Utah Police Department reported that scammers were sending out emails to people with a deepfake video that appeared to show Police Chief Mike Brown telling the person receiving the email that they “owed the federal government nearly $100,000” and extorted the targeted victim to make a payment to the scammer. Video and audio of the police chief was readily available for the scammers to create the deepfake. A similar deepfake voice cloning audio was done last summer by scammers posing as Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer Eric Spradlin
TIPS
As always, you can never be sure whenever you get an email as to who is actually contacting you so anytime you are asked for personal information, click on a link or make a payment, you should independently confirm that the email is legitimate before responding.
In this case, the email address of the sender was readily able to be recognized as not that of the Salt Lake City Police Department and no police department is going to send anyone such an email with a video. Further, local police departments would not be collecting money on behalf of the federal government nor would a demand be made for “around” $100,000. Also, while deepfakes can be very difficult to recognize as phony, this particular deepfake video contained unnatural speech patterns.
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Scam of the day – November 5, 2024 – Ingenious New Debit Card Scam
For years identity thieves and scammers would use skimmers installed at ATMs and on card processing equipment such as at gas pumps (where this is still a problem) and at retail checkouts to steal the debit or credit card information from the magnetic strip on the card and then use it to access the victim’s account. The development of the chip credit card where a computer chip is contained on the card which provides a new number each time the card is used dramatically reduced the amount of credit and debit card theft with the exception of online purchases where the chip cannot be used (well, nobody’s perfect). Now however, clever criminals have come up with a new way to access your bank account through your debit card.
The scam starts when you get a phone call that appears to come from your bank informing you that there has been fraudulent activity on your debit card. Using a technique called “spoofing” the scammers are able to manipulate your Caller ID so that it indicates that your bank is calling you. The scammer then goes on to tell you that you need to cut up your card, but keep the chip from the card to be picked up by a bank employee. The phony bank employee then shows up to pick up the chip and using social engineering lures the victim into providing his or her PIN.
Once the scammer has your PIN and the chip, he or she can create a debit card and go to any ATM and empty your bank account.
TIPS
Whenever you get a phone call, you can never be sure who is actually calling you. If you get a call that purports to be from your bank informing you of some problem, you should hang up and call your bank at a telephone number that you know is accurate to determine if the call was a scam. You also can go online to your bank account to determine that no fraudulent access had occurred.
In addition, no bank will ever ask you to give them back the chip on your credit card or ask for your PIN.
B.S. Be skeptical!
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Scam of the day – November 4, 2024 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of Credit Karma Pre-Approved Credit Card Scam
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending payments to victims of a credit card offer scam that was operated by the personal finance company Credit Karma between 2018 and 2021. Credit Karma sent notices to hundreds of thousands of people telling them that they were “pre-approved” for credit cards offered by banks that used Credit Karma to promote their financial products. Unfortunately, many “pre-approved” people after completing the necessary credit card applications were denied the credit cards. Unfortunately, for those applying for the credit cards which they were led to believe was a sure thing but were denied, their credit scores were reduced because applying for the credit card constituted a hard inquiry on their credit report, which upon their being denied the card damaged their credit score.
The FTC took legal action against Credit Karma for this scam in September of 2022 and soon settled the claim with Credit Karma. Under the terms of the settlement, Credit Karma paid three million dollars to the FTC to be distributed to people harmed by the scam.
TIPS
The FTC sent notices to people who were eligible for a refund instructing them to file a claim prior to March 4, 2024. Now the FTC is sending checks to the 50,994 people who filed for a refund.
For more information, go to the “FTC Scam Refunds” section of Scamicide.com which can be found in the middle of the first page of Scamicide.com.
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