Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – December 4, 2024 – Holiday Puppy Scams
Scams involving sales of non-existent puppies had already increased dramatically in the last few years. Now the holiday season is bringing even more instances of puppy scams as people attempt to buy dogs as holiday gifts. People buy dogs or other pets online and, although they think they are taking proper precautions, they often end up getting nothing in return for the money that they wire to the scammer who may have a website or some other way of marketing their non-existent pets with photographs and false information.
Often the scammers hook their victims for more and more money, such as when even after the victims has paid for the non-existent dog, the victim is asked for additional payments for a special crate to transport the dog along with additional transportation company fees.
TIPS
It is simple for a scammer to construct a website that appears to be legitimate and scammers can readily steal the name of a legitimate animal breeder. Always check into the reputation of the breeder with the Better Business Bureau, your state’s attorney general and even Google the name of the breeder with the word “scam” to see if a legitimate breeder’s name that is being used has been stolen for scams previously.
Be wary of anyone who asks you to wire money because that is a telltale sign that a scam is going on because once the money is wired, it is impossible to get it back. If you are told that a courier company is being used to transport the animal, check out the company to make sure it is legitimate and actually shipping the dog.
There also are a number of ways such as using the website http://www.tineye.com to search the photos sent to you of the dog to see if they appear elsewhere other than the website attempting to sell you a puppy. If so, this is a good indication that you are being scammed. Also, always get a veterinarian report on any animal before you consider buying it. Finally, you are always going to be better off buying a pet that you can see in person prior to buying the pet.
Some phony breeders claim they are certified by the American Kennel Club (AKC) however, the AKC doesn’t certify breeders. Legitimate breeders will however, register their litters with the AKC and you can find out by calling the AKC’s customer service line 919-233-9767 if a particular litter has been registered.
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Scam of the day – December 3, 2024 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of Warrior Trading Scam
In 2022 I first told you that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled its lawsuit against Warrior Trading, a company that put on “free” webinars that promised to show you “a quick and simple way to get your dream of day-trading success going.” Warrior Trading promised that you could make $100,000 or more in less than 45 days. While the initial webinar was free, people taking the webinar were lured into paying thousands for its worthless trading programs.
In 2023 as part of the settlement, Warrior Trading paid $2.9 million to the FTC which, in turn, sent refunds to victims of the scam. Now the FTC is sending a second round of refunds to victims of the scam. For more information about the refund program go to the “FTC Scam Refunds” section on the first page of Scamicide.com.
TIPS
Never rush into any investment or other opportunity being sold through a seminar until you have carefully investigated the people selling their investment or system as well as the investment or system itself. Always be a bit skeptical as to testimonials which should also be carefully investigated before being relied upon. 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.
Remember my motto, “BS – Be skeptical.” Take with a grain of salt any testimonials and success stories touted by investment promotors. Scammers often create phony websites with glowing videos and reviews that are totally bogus.
Do a search engine search of the company’s name with the word “scam” or “complaint” and see what comes up.
It is also important to remember that you should never invest in something that you do not completely understand. This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff’s victims made. Day trading, in particular is a very risky investment strategy. 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 -December 2, 2024 – Police and Fire Department Charity Scams
The holiday season is now in full swing. This is a time when many people give to charities. In particular, you will most likely be contacted by numerous people soliciting charitable contributions on behalf of organizations purporting to support the brave men and women who make up our police and fire departments. Unfortunately, many of those solicitations will be from scammers merely looking to steal money under false pretenses. Whenever you are solicited by email or phone, you can never be sure who is really contacting you. In addition, even if you are on the Federal Do No Call List, the law permits charities to call you, however, unfortunately you can never be sure when you receive a call that purports to be from a charity whether the call is legitimate or not. Similarly when you receive a text message or email solicitation for a charity, you have no way of knowing if the solicitation is from a scammer or a legitimate charity.
TIPS
Whenever you get an email, call or a text message, you can’t be sure as to who is really contacting you. Even if the call appears to come from your local police department, scammers can manipulate your Caller ID through a technique called “spoofing” to make it appear that the call is legitimate when it is not and email addresses used by scammers can also appear legitimate. If you think the email, call or text message may be legitimate, merely contact your local police department at a telephone number you know is legitimate to determine whether or not the email, call or text message was a scam.
Phony charities often have names that sound legitimate and it is difficult to know merely from a solicitation whether or not the charity is a fake. Other times, scammers will use the name of a legitimate charity when they solicit you by phone, email or text message and you can never be sure when you are contacted by email or text message whether or not the solicitation is legitimate. Prior to giving to any charity, I suggest you first look into whether indeed the charity is legitimate or not and the best way I know to do that is to go to http://www.charitynavigator.org where not only can you find out whether the charity is a scam, but also whether or not your donation will be tax deductible, how much of your donation goes toward the charitable purposes of a legitimate charity and how much goes toward salaries, administrative costs and fund raising. Charitynavigator.org will also give you access to the websites and phone numbers of legitimate charities you may wish to consider giving to so you can feel confident when you make a gift that it is going to the right place.
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Scam of the day – December 1, 2024 – Meta Takes Down 2 Million Pig Butchering Accounts
I have been warning you about romance scams for many years. More recently I have been warning you for the last few years about the myriad of scams involving cryptocurrencies. In the last few years a new scam combining the romance scam and cryptocurrency scams surfaced about which I have also warned you since 2018.
Romance scams generally follow a familiar pattern with the scammers establishing relationships with people, generally women, online through various legitimate dating websites and social media using fake names, locations and images. The FBI has issued a warning about a new trend in romance scams in which the scammer tells his victim that he or she has inside knowledge about cryptocurrency investing and directs the victim to a phony website that purports to be a legitimate cryptocurrency trading site. Not long after “investing” in the cryptocurrencies provided, the victim soon finds that there is no investment and that she or he has lost all of the invested money. This scam originated in China in 2019 and is called sha zhu pan or pig butchering in English. The name is derived from the practice of luring in victims, “fattening them up” by convincing them to continually “invest” more money and then stealing all of the money.
The scammers initially contact their victims on dating or social media apps and pretend to develop a close relationship. After a while the scammer informs the targeted victim that he or she is making a lot of money investing in cryptocurrencies and suggests the victim download and use a cryptocurrency app used by the scammer. Generally, the victims are lured into investing more and more money by what appears to be both dramatic increases in the value of their account and their ability to withdraw some of their profits. However, once the victim has been persuaded to invest larger and larger sums of money, the scammers steal the money and the victim is left with nothing.
The Blockchain Data Platform Chainalysis issued its 2024 Crypto Crime Report in which it found that big butchering romance scams increased last year by 8500% from incidents of the crime in 2020.
You might be surprised to learn that typically the victims of this scam are highly educated people. Unfortunately, they also are targeted because they may have also recently gone through a divorce or some other personal difficulty. While the victims are people of all ages, most victims are anywhere from their mid-30s to their early fifties with the average loss per victim averaging $121.926 with one victim, according to the IRS losing two million dollars to the scammers.
Meta recently announced that it had taken down 2 million Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger accounts this year used for pig butchering scams with most of these accounts based in Myanmar, Laos, the UAE, the Philippines and Cambodia.
TIPS
It is important to remember that you should never invest in something that you do not completely understand. This was a mistake that many of Bernie Madoff’s victims made. Cryptocurrency scams quite often involve complicated language and investment terms that is purposefully unclear in an effort to confuse potential investors from understanding the real facts. 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.
Also, the apps used in the pig butchering scam may appear to be legitimate, but they are not found on official app platforms such as Google Play or the Apple App Store. Do your homework before investing in cryptocurrencies and only do business with well established cryptocurrency exchanges. Never invest merely because of the recommendation of someone you may have met online.
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Scam of the day – November 30, 2024 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of “Free Credit Report” Scam
In February of 2017 I first told you that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had obtained a temporary restraining order against Credit Bureau Center LLC, Michael Brown, Danny Pierce and Andrew Lloyd as a part of its legal action against them on charges that they operated scams involving phony rental property advertisements and offered “free” credit reports for which they charged monthly amounts to their victims’ credit cards.
According to the FTC, the scammers placed Craigslist advertisements for rental properties they were not authorized to represent and in some circumstances even placed advertisements for properties that did not even exist. When people responded to the ads, the victims were told that before they could see the properties they had to get a free credit report from the defendants’ websites’ myscore.com, creditupdates.com and freecreditnation.com in order to qualify to be considered for renting the properties. The “free” credit reports, however, were far from free because the fine print in the agreement to obtain the “free” credit report required the victim to enroll in a credit monitoring service with a continuing monthly charge of $29.94. According to the FTC, the victims never were shown properties even after getting the required credit report and the scammers ignored all communications from their victims after the victims signed up for the credit monitoring service.
The FTC won its case against Credit Bureau Center LLC in 2018, but due to legal complications the case was not finally resolved until last June and now the FTC is sending checks to victims of the scam. For more information about the refund program go to the “FTC Scam Refunds” section on the first page of Scamicide.com
TIPS
Advertisements for rental units and vacation rentals that are not owned by the scammers placing the advertisements is a common scam. It is easy for scammers to get photos and other information about rental units and vacation rentals from legitimate websites and post them to lure victims into sending money to the scammers as a deposit.
A good way to protect yourself from this type of scam is to do a Google or other search engine search with the address of the property to see where it may turn up and who is listed as the owner. Another good source of information is to go online to the Tax Assessor for the city or town where the property is located and confirm that the name of the property owner matches the name of the person attempting to rent you the property.
In regard to “free” credit reports, you should never have to give a credit card number for a free service although often scammers require this. You should also carefully read any contract you make. There rarely is anything fine in fine print. The victims of this particular scam would have seen that they were signing up for a recurring charge if they carefully read their contract.
Since the time this case began, the three credit reporting bureaus now allow you to get free copies of your credit reports from each of the them weekly if you choose. Here is the link to get your free credit reports. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
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Scam of the day – November 29, 2024 – Black Friday Scams
Today is Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season although I have been seeing holiday shopping displays since Halloween. The fact that Black Friday is such a huge shopping day is not lost on scammers who will be as pervasive as ever. Over the next few weeks, I will be focusing the Scams of the day on the many holiday season scams about which we should all be aware.
If you are shopping in a brick and mortar store Friday or any other day throughout the year, you should use a credit card rather than a debit card because of the possibility of skimmers which are small devices being used by criminals working as sales clerks that will capture your credit card number which will then be used to make fraudulent purchases. As for using your credit card rather than your debit card, it is important to remember that while your liability for fraudulent use of your credit card is limited by federal law to no more than $50, your liability for fraudulent use of your debit card which is tied to your bank account is unlimited if you do not promptly discover and report the fraud which is why you should always use your credit card for shopping rather than your debit card.
I will be discussing safe practices for online shopping in a future Scam of the day, but in the last couple of years the problem of what the FBI calls E-skimming has become more serious. E-skimming occurs when criminals infect the websites of numerous retailers in a manner that they are able to capture your credit card or debit card information when you enter it into the website. It is important to note that while your chip card will protect you if you use your chip card to make purchases at a brick and mortar store that has updated its credit card processing equipment to handle chip credit cards, you cannot use your chip for online purchases. However, as I indicated in the previous paragraph, the most you are responsible for if your credit card is used fraudulently is $50 and quite frankly I have never seen a credit card company even charge its customers that amount.
TIPS
For the reasons discussed above, try to use your credit card as a chip card whenever possible and always watch your credit card when it is being processed at a brick and mortar store. Don’t let it out of your sight because that is when you run the risk of a rogue clerk running it through a portable skimmer, which will steal the number of your card. Refrain from using your debit card except as an ATM card. Finally, in regard to the E-skimming threat, you should regularly monitor your credit card statement online rather than waiting for a monthly paper bill to be delivered to you so that if your credit card was compromised and your data stolen, you will be able to discover and report the problem to your credit card issuer quickly and avoid more problems.
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Scam of the day – November 28, 2024 – New Medicare Card Scam
For many years Medicare used a person’s Social Security number as his or her Medicare number which put Medicare recipients in serious danger of identity theft, Medicare resisted changing the Medicare number to a safer random number for many years. Finally, in April 2018, new cards began being sent by regular mail to all 60 million Americans enrolled in Medicare and since 2020 the switch over to new more secure Medicare card numbers was complete.
But this has not stopped identity thieves. During the present Medicare Open Enrollment Period, which will be ending on December 7th, many older Americans are receiving emails or phone calls purporting to be from Medicare either offering new plastic cards to replace their paper cards or new Medicare cards with microchips. All the targeted victim has to do is merely verify their Medicare number. And while your Medicare number is no longer your Social Security number, giving it to an identity thief can cause you substantial problems when you try to access Medicare as well as cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars.
TIPS
It is easy to determine when you receive a phone call, email or text message from Medicare. They don’t contact you by email, text message or by phone so anytime you are contacted in this manner, you can be confident it is a scam. You should never provide your Medicare number, Social Security number, credit card number or any other personal information to anyone who calls you on the phone because you can never be sure they are legitimate. Even if your Caller ID indicates the call is from Medicare, the IRS or some other legitimate organization, through a technique called “spoofing” your Caller ID can be tricked into making it appear that the call is legitimate.
The real Medicare also will not contact you and ask you to verify your Medicare number and there are no new plastic cards or Medicare cards with microchips. If you get a call asking for personal information that appears legitimate, merely hang up and call the company or agency at a number that you independently know is legitimate to find out the truth.
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Scam of the day- November 27, 2024 – Department of Homeland Security Going After Gift Card Drainers
This year the Department of Homeland Security launched a task force to combat gift card draining, a scam in which criminals use stolen or altered gift card numbers to drain money from gift cards before the purchaser of the gift card can spend it. The task force named “Project Red Hook” is focused on Chinese organized crime involvement in this scam. In perpetrating the crime, criminals referred to as “runners” remove, tamper and then restock gift cards. According to Homeland Security assistant special agent Adam Parks, a runner can go from store to store tampering with cards. One accused runner, Ming Xue in a single day went to 14 Walmarts before being arrested. Law enforcement found 2,260 Visa, Apple and Mastercard gift cards in his car.
The most common way gift card draining occurs involves scammers going to racks of gift cards in stores and using handheld scanners that are easy to obtain, read the code on the strip of the card and the number on the front. They then put the card back in the display and periodically check with the retailer by calling its 800 number to find out whether the card has been activated and what the balance is on the card. Once they have this information they either create a counterfeit card using the information they have stolen or order material online without having the actual card in hand.
Another common way gift card draining occurs is when scammers place a sticker with the barcode of a a gift card that the scammers possess over the actual barcode of the gift card in the rack. Thus when the card is taken by the gift card purchaser to the checkout counter to have the card activated, the funds used to purchase the gift card are credited to the card of the scammer. It is not until the gift card purchaser tries to use his or her card that it is discovered that there are no funds credited to the card.
Some retailers, in an effort to reduce gift card fraud put a PIN on the gift card so that if the card is used online, the user must have access to the PIN which is generally covered and must have the covering material scratched off in order to be visible. Unfortunately, many purchasers of gift cards are not aware of this so they don’t even notice that the PIN on the card that they are purchasing has already had the covering material scratched off by the scammer who has recorded the PIN.
TIPS
When buying a gift card, only purchase cards from behind the customer service desk and if the card is preloaded, always ask for the card to be scanned to show that it is still fully valued. This avoids all of the problems of tampering with the card before it is sold.
Always inspect the card carefully to make sure that the barcode has not been tampered with in any fashion and that the PIN is still covered.
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Scam of the day – November 26, 2024 – Gift Cards are a Scammers Best Friend
Scammers are big fans of gift cards because they are easy to purchase, easy to send to the scammer and impossible to trace to the scammer. According to the FTC, consumers lost 228 million dollars to gift card scams last year. It is not even necessary for the scammer to be in possession of the actual gift card to use it. Sending the gift card numbers or taking a picture on your phone and transmitting it to the scammer is sufficient for the scammer to use the gift card to buy things that can then be sold and converted into cash.
In many instances the scams involved scammers posing as large companies or government agencies such as the IRS demanding payments. It is important to remember that no legitimate company and no government agencies asks for or accepts gift cards as a payment method so anytime you are asked for a payment by gift card, you can be confident it is a scam.
In an interesting development, the FTC noted that Target gift cards were the most popular choice for scammers with scammers asking specifically for Target gift cards in twice as many instances as the next most popular gift card and even when the gift card requested by the scammers was not a Target gift card, the scammers asked their victims to purchase the particular gift cards at a Target store.
TIPS
Although it is impossible to stop payment on a gift card or trace the user after the scammer has used it, if you recognize immediately that you have provided a gift card to a scammer, you can report it to the issuer to cancel the card. Here is contact information for some popular gift cards.
Amazon
- Call 1 (888) 280-4331.
- Keep the Amazon card itself and your receipt for the Amazon card.
- Learn about Amazon gift card scams and how to report them. Click on “Contact us.”
Google Play
- Report the gift card scam to Google.
- Keep the Google Play card itself and your receipt for the Google Play card.
- Learn about Google Play gift card scams and how to report them.
iTunes
- Call Apple Support right away at 1 (800) 275-2273. Say “gift card” to connect with a live representative.
- Ask if the money is still on the iTunes card. If so, Apple can put a freeze on it. You might be able to get your money back from them.
- Keep the iTunes card itself and your receipt for the iTunes card.
- Learn about iTunes gift card scams and how to report them.
Target
- Call Target GiftCard Services at 1 (800) 544-2943
MoneyPak
- Report gift card scams to MoneyPak.
- Keep the MoneyPak card itself and your receipt for the MoneyPak card.
- Learn about MoneyPak gift card scams.
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Scam of the day – November 25, 2024 – Thanksgiving Electronic Greeting Card Scam
Thanksgiving is just three days away and I want to wish everyone a happy and scam-free Thanksgiving..
Electronic greeting cards have become very popular and with good reason. Even if you don’t remember a birthday or delay sending a holiday card until the last minute, you can send an electronic greeting card, often for free, and have it delivered immediately. Many electronic greeting cards are quite creative with videos and music Unfortunately, you can always count on scam artists and identity thieves to try to spoil anything and electronic greeting cards are no exception. The scam starts when you get a phony electronic greeting card that requires you to click on a link to read the card. If you click on one of these phony greeting cards, you may end up downloading a keystroke logging malware program that will steal all of the information from your computer and end up with you becoming a victim of identity theft or alternatively you may download dangerous malware such as ransomware.
TIPS
One of the first things to notice when you receive an e greeting card is who is indicated as the person sending the card. If it states that the card is being sent by “a friend” or “an admirer,” you can be pretty sure that it is a phony card. However, even if the card uses the name of someone you know, it still is risky to open the card without confirming with an email or a phone call that your friend actually did send you the card. Remember, even paranoids have enemies. Scammers may pick a common name to use as the sender or may even have researched who your friends and family are and use their names..
It is also important to keep your security software including anti-virus software and anti-malware software installed and up to date at all times which can help if you unwittingly download malware. However, it is important to remember that even the most up to date security software is always at least thirty days behind the latest strains of malware often referred to as those that exploit “zero day defects.”
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