Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – August 8, 2026 – Student Loan Scams Increasing
I have written often about phony student loan debt relief companies and with good reason. More than thirty-eight million Americans have student loans with an outstanding balance of more than 1.4 trillion dollars so it is no surprise that scammers are focusing their attention on these students and former students through scams that falsely promise to provide debt relief. Now, after a five year pause during the pandemic on penalizing student loan borrowers for not making payments, in January of 2025, the Department of Education instructed loan servicers to start reporting late payers to credit bureaus which is resulting in millions of student loan borrowers having their important credit scores drop dramatically. Then in May of 2025, the Department of Education restarted collections on defaulted student loans after a pause commenced in 2020. This has resulted in scammers increasing their efforts regarding phony student loan scams. Government figures indicate that two thirds of student loan borrowers are late or behind in their payments and this presents a dire situation to which scammers can be expected to respond by offering phony debt relief to desperate borrowers.
Scammers like Arete Financial Group who charged illegal upfront fees for their services can be expected to flourish in this new environment. Arete would change their clients’ Federal Student Aid (FSA) login ID, password and contact information with their clients’ loan servicer which effectively eliminated contact between the borrowers and their loan servicers. This enabled Arete, according to the FTC, to place the borrower’s loans into temporary forbearance or deferment status without the borrower even being aware of this. Thus when the borrowers sent their payments to Arete that they were told would be credited toward their loans, the money actually was kept by Arete. Some of Arete’s clients saw their loans become delinquent and their income tax refunds garnished to pay for overdue loan payments. The victims of the scam also lost the money they paid to Arete that was intended to be applied toward their loans. Ultimately, Arete settled a lawsuit brought against it by the FTC and funds obtained from Arete through the settlement of the lawsuit was returned to victims of the scam.
TIPS
The old adage still is true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Many of these student loan debt relief scammers promise quick loan forgiveness, which is unrealistic. In addition, you should never pay any upfront fees for student loan debt relief assistance. Those fees are illegal and are a sure indication that you are being scammed. Also, remember my motto, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” Don’t trust scammers merely because they use names that sound like they are affiliated with the government. You also should never share your FSA ID with anyone.
For information you can trust about federal student loan repayment option, go to https://studentaid.gov/articles/student-loan-forgiveness/ . There you can learn about loan deferments, forbearance, repayment and loan forgiveness programs and there is never an application fee. If you owe private student loans, contact your loan servicer directly. You can also look into student loan refinancing rather than consolidating the loans. Refinancing student loans can result in a lower interest rate. Also, this site is helpful https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-opens-revised-income-driven-repayment-plan-and-loan-consolidation-applications-borrowers
Here is a link to an FTC video that explains student loan scams and what you can do to protect yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TjSI4Q6ztQ
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Scam of the day – August 7, 2026 – Florida Sheriff Warns About Jury Duty Scams
I have been warning you about the jury duty scam for thirteen years, but it continues to snare many unwary victims. Recently the Broward County, Florida Sheriff’s Office issued a warning about jury duty scams after an incident in which a local resident was contacted by a scammer posing as a court official telling the targeted victim that they had missed federal jury duty and an arrest warrant had been issued. The targeted victim was then told to deposit $15,000 into a cryptocurrency ATM as bail to avoid being arrested.
Often in these scams you are told that you can pay the fine through gift cards And now more frequently, as in this case, you are told to pay the “fine” through a cryptocurrency ATM. Other times they ask for your Social Security number to confirm your identity. Of course, the phone call is a scam. Even if you have missed jury duty, you will never be called by legitimate court officers and shaken down for a payment.
Often, as in this case, the scammers will use a technique called “spoofing” to make the call appear on your Caller ID as if it is coming from a legitimate law enforcement agency or court. In some instances of the scam you are asked to confirm your identity by providing your Social Security number which will then be used to make you a victim of identity theft. Recently the scam has evolved to where people are also being contacted by text messages or emails from scammers posing as a representative of the local court system.
TIPS
Initial contacts from courts regarding jury duty are always in writing through the mail although some systems will permit you to receive future notices through email. Under no circumstances will you receive telephone calls or text messages indicating that you have failed to report for jury duty. No court will demand payment over the phone for failing to appear for jury duty and no court ever requires a payment be made via gift cards or cryptocurrencies. If you do receive such a call and you think that there is even the possibility that you might have forgotten to report for jury duty, merely call the local clerk of courts in order to get accurate information. Of course anyone calling you and telling you that you can pay your fine to them over the phone using a gift card is a scammer.
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Scam of the day – August 6, 2026 – Scammers Posing as Popular Car Parking App
Paying for a parking spot using an app on your phone has become very popular. Apps such as ParkMobile and PayByPhone are particularly popular in the United States. RingGo is a popular parking app in the UK although it is not available for use in the United States. Recently people in the UK have been receiving text messages from scammer posing as RingGo indicating that a billing review or routine review found a bill for outstanding parking. The text message goes on to direct the targeted scam victim to click on a link that takes them to a phony RingGo website where they are prompted to provide their user name, password and credit card details to pay the phony outstanding parking charge. Of course, anyone doing so will end up providing their credit card information to a scammer.
TIPS
While this scam has not yet been identified in the United States, it is only a matter of time before it turns up with parking apps used in the United States. Fortunately, it is an easy scam to avoid. As I often caution you, whenever you get a phone call, text message you can never be sure who is actually contacting you so you should never click on a link, download an attachment, make a payment or provide sensitive personal information in response to any communication until you have confirmed that it is legitimate. Counterfeit websites, which in the past would often have poor grammar or graphics can now be easily created by even unsophisticated scammers using AI. You just can’t trust any communications. In a situation such as presented by this particular scam, you can merely go to your RingGo app directly and not through a link in a text message or go directly to their website, again not through a link in a text message to determine if you have any outstanding charges.
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Scam of the Day – August 5, 2026 – Justice Department Taking Action Against Money Mules
Laundering money derived from a scam is an essential element of many scams. Scammers can be extremely clever at distancing themselves from their scams in order to avoid detection. The people they enlist either as willing or unknowing participants in the laundering of the proceeds of a scam are called money mules. Scams in which innocent people are lured into being unknowing money mules are numerous. One of the more common of these involves work at home scams where your job is to receive goods, often electronics that have been shipped to you, inspect them and then reship them to an address provided to you by your new employer.
The problem is that these goods have been purchased with stolen credit cards and you have just become an accomplice to the crime when you ship them to someone else who will then sell them to turn the merchandise into cash. Other times the scammers will say that your job is to receive funds sent to you by the scammer, deposit the funds in your own bank account and wire the funds to people who the scammers tell you are either clients or suppliers of the scammers’ phony company. Finally, money mules are also used is in a variation of the romance scam where you are asked by your romantic partner to wire funds to someone on behalf of the scammer under a variety of pretenses.
The Justice Department just completed its fourth annual Money Mule Initiative targeting money mules in which 4,670 letters were sent out warning people that their actions were facilitating fraud schemes. In addition, more than 30 people were criminally charged for their roles in money laundering.
TIP
As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Check out work at home scams with the big two – your local attorney general and the FTC. And, as always, you can Google the name of the particular company offering you the work at home program with the word “scam” next to it and see what turns up.
As for reshipping goods as a work at home job, it is important to remember that there are no such legal jobs for reshippers. They are always a scam and you should steer clear of them. You also should never use your own bank account to transfer funds for an employer. Finally, you should always be skeptical of someone with whom you have recently established an online romantic relationship who either asks you for money (the most common scam) or asks you to pass on money to a third party as directed by the scammer.
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Scam of the day – August 4, 2026 – Microsoft Warns About Hotel Wi-Fi
Microsoft has just issued a warning about an international cyberattack campaign being done by Russian hackers targeting hotels and conference center Wi-Fi networks. The hackers have compromised the legitimate hotel and conference center networks and are able to redirect network traffic to phony Microsoft sign-in pages, fraudulent verification checks and phony browser or operating system updates. The hackers can then steal sensitive personal information from the infected computers and laptops.
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 addition to the Russian attack on the actual hotel and conference center Wi-Fi, an even more common threat is that of cybercriminals setting up phony Wi-Fi that appears to be that of the hotel or conference center. 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.
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 – August 3, 2026 – FTC Warns Veterans About VA Scams
Veterans are frequently targeted by scammers posing as VA employees offering help for a fee in obtaining VA benefits, securing 100% disability rating and expediting claims, all of which are scams. There is no charge to apply for VA benefits, and the scammers cannot provide the services they claim. A recent study by the VA found that scammers contacted 39% of all veterans and more than 25% were scammed out of more than $500. Using a technique called “spoofing” scammers can manipulate the Caller ID of their targeted victims to appear as if their call is actually coming from the VA.
TIPS
Veterans should recognize that they are a frequent target of scammers and also should remember that there is no fee for applying for benefits. Whenever you get a call, email or text message, you can never be sure who is actually contacting you, but particularly if the caller represents that he or she is a VA representative and asks for a fee for providing services it is a scam.
Fortunately, the VA has set up a very helpful website VSAFE.gov which contains much helpful information for veterans applying for benefits. In addition, the VA has a special hotline 1-833-38V-SAFE which veterans can call if they have any questions about possible scams.
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Scam of the day – August 2, 2026 – Maine Police Warn About Increased Grandparent Scam
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 sixteen years, it continues to victimize people.
Recently, the Kennebunk, Maine Police Department issued a warning about an increase in the grandparent scam in which the targeted victims are receiving phone calls from scammers posing as the grandchild saying that they have been involved in a serious automobile accident and have been arrested and need money for bail.
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. Recently, scammers are able to use AI to harvest personal information about their intended victims to make their calls appear more legitimate.
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.
Due to AI voice cloning the scam has gotten worse with unsophisticated scammers able to use voice cloning technology to disguise their voices to sound like that of the grandchild. The scammers are able to obtain audio of the grandchild they are impersonating through social media posts to use to clone their voice.
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Scam of the day – August 1, 2026 – Minnesota Bans Crypto 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 around $333 million between January and November of 2025. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency 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 cryptocurrencies into crypto wallets. Due to the anonymity and immediacy of the cryptocurrency transfers done through a cryptocurrency ATM, it is a favorite method of payment for scammers.
Most of the scams using cryptocurrency 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 cryptocurrency 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 cryptocurrency ATM scam with an average loss of $10,000.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts became the latest state to sue a crypto ATM operator, in this case Bitcoin Depot for enabling criminals to use their machines to scam people. According to the lawsuit, more than half of the money that went through Bitcoin Depot ATMs between August 2023 and January 2025 was related to scams. Indiana and Tennessee previously banned cryptocurrency ATMs and today Minnesota’s total ban on cryptocurrency ATMs went into effect.
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, and most importantly, there is no circumstance where you will be asked by anyone legitimate to withdraw funds from your bank, deposit them into a cryptocurrency ATM and transfer the funds to them. Only scammers make those requests.
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Scam of the day – July 31, 2026 – FTC Warns About Reloading Scam
Years ago there was a famous movie entitled “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” However, today it is not your postal carrier contacting you twice, it often is the person that scammed you or someone who got your name from a scammer. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been warning people about this particular scam, sometimes called “reloading,” since 2016. I have been warning people about this since 2012. Scammers often compile lists of their victims with information including their names, addresses and contact information. They sell this information to other scammers who contact the victims and tell them that they are with a consumer group or government agency and that they are available to help the victim regain the money lost to the previous scam. The new scammer then asks for processing fees or other personal information, such as a Social Security number in order to proceed with the recovery effort. Of course, the recovery effort never occurs. In fact, the victim is merely victimized again, either by paying for services the victim never receives or by giving away personal information that leads to identity theft.
TIPS
Government agencies and consumer agencies do not generally contact you about recovering money you have lost to a scam and they never ask for upfront fees for their services or your Social Security number. If you want to get help from the FTC or some other agency in regard to being victimized by a scam, it is up to you to contact them. Only the scammers know you have been scammed so if you are contacted by someone seeking to help you, just say no and never give your personal information to anyone whom you have not contacted unless you are absolutely sure that they are legitimate and need the information.
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Scam of the day – July 30, 2026 – Shopify 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 trick you into 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 an email that I recently received that is not particularly convincing. It starts with the fact that the email address has nothing to do with Shopify. but rather appears to be that of an unfortunate individual whose email account had been hacked and made a part of a botnet of infected computers used by scammers to send out phishing emails such as this. I blocked out the section of the email with personal identifying information. As with many phishing emails, this one prompts you to act quickly to remedy a phony emergency or your account will be disabled.
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| 151 O’Connor Street, Ground floor, Ottawa, ON, K2P 2L8 |
TIPS
As I often advise you, regardless of how legitimate such an email may appear, you should never provide personal information or click on a link in an email or text message until you have confirmed that it is legitimate. In a case such as this, calling or emailing the real Shopify would have confirmed that this email was a scam. General indications that emails such as this are a scam include the sender’s email address not matching that of the company or a generic greeting that doesn’t include your name or account number. However, it is easy for a scammer to create an email address that might appear to be legitimate and AI has made it easy for scammers to include your name if not your account number in their emails. Also don’t count on your security software to protect you from downloading malware because often these types of phishing emails contain malware that takes advantage of zero day defects which are vulnerabilities that have not yet been recognized by security software companies. It usually takes about a month before security software companies are able to take steps to protect you from newly discovered malware.
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