Scam of the Day
Scam of the day – September 18, 2026 – iPhone 18 Pro Scams
There is a lot of excitement about the release of the new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. Apple opened pre-orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max on September 12, 2026. As always, however, whenever the public is enthusiastic about something, so are the scam artists who are ready to exploit the public’s interest. Scammers have registered hundreds of phony Apple websites and other websites offering sales of the phones at significantly lower prices than Apple’s official starting price of $1,199. Some of these phony websites are also offering sales of the new folding iPhone Duo which will not even be available for pre-orders until October 16th. Anyone buying a phone from one of these phony websites will truly be getting a wrong number and lose the money they pay for a non-existent phone. Many of the bogus websites offering the phone require payment through wired funds, payment apps or cryptocurrencies rather than by credit cards which is a strong indication of a scam.
TIPS
The best way to avoid this scam is to buy your phone either directly from apple.com or from an authorized reseller of Apple products.
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Scam of the day – September 17, 2026 – Deed Fraud Increasing
Deed fraud, which is also referred to as “property title theft” occurs when a criminal files a counterfeit deed to property owned by someone else and then either lives in the property or even sells the property to an unwary buyer. Deed fraud most commonly occurs after a homeowner dies. Enterprising criminals monitor the obituaries looking for homes owned by people recently deceased and then forge a deed to the property and record it in the local Registry of Deeds.
Indications that a home you may own has been subject to deed fraud often comes when you receive notices for unpaid real estate tax, water or mortgage bills. Ironically, another indication of deed fraud is when you own a home and don’t receive your real estate tax bill because the scammer has changed the address to which the real estate tax bill is sent to cover his or her tracks. Receiving a foreclosure notice when you don’t even have a mortgage is another indication that you have become a victim of deed fraud after the criminal has mortgaged your home by forging your signature.
On July 23rd, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced charges against three men accused of participating in schemes involving vacant, unencumbered properties in Massachusetts, Georgia, Indiana, and Tennessee. Prosecutors alleged the defendants impersonated out-of-state property owners and deceived real estate professionals into selling properties to unsuspecting buyers.
Resolving deed fraud can be a timely process, but it is one that you will eventually be able to do successfully. A counterfeit deed is totally invalid.
The media is filled with advertisements for companies that will monitor your local Registry of Deeds for fraudulent transfers of your property, but you can get the same service for free from most local Registries of Deeds.
TIPS
In order to protect yourself from deed fraud you should regularly monitor your credit reports at each of the three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and be on the lookout for bills related to your property. Monitoring your credit report is something we all should do regularly anyway. Experian, TransUnion and Equifax offer all U.S. consumers free weekly credit reports through AnnualCreditReport.com.
It also is helpful to regularly check with your local Registry of Deeds to confirm that no one has filed a forged deed to your property. Most people can access their local Registry of Deeds online for free and in recent years most Registries of Deeds offer free services to notify you if a deed is recorded in your name so you really don’t need to pay any company for this service.
Finally, when you purchase your home, you are offered the option of buying an owner’s title insurance policy which will cover the cost of remedying deed fraud. An owner’s title insurance policy is a good choice for any homeowner for a variety of reasons. Lately I have seen and heard advertisements for special insurance that only covers deed fraud although generally all these policies offer is monitoring the Registry of Deeds for filings that relate to your home, which is something that you can do on your own quite simply for free and is not worth the cost.
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Scam of the day – September 16, 2026 – Albuquerque Becomes the Latest Muncipality to Ban Crypto ATMs
A report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicates a 1,000 % increase in money lost to scammers through cryptocurrency 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, Tennessee and Minnesota have gone so far as to ban cryptocurrency ATMs and Hawaii’s law banning crypto ATMs will go into effect on October 1st. Now Albuquerque has become the latest municipality to ban cryptocurrency ATMs joining a number of other cities including Stillwater, Minnesota and Spokane Washington.
TIPS
Protecting yourself from these imposter scams starts with recognizing that you can never be sure who is actually contacting you when you are contacted by phone, email or text message so you should never click on a link, download an attachment or provide personal information in response to any of those communications unless you have absolutely confirmed that the communication was legitimate. Further there is no circumstance where you will be asked by anyone legitimate to withdraw funds from your bank, deposit them into a cryptocurrency ATM and transfer the funds to them. Only scammers make those requests.
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Scam of the day – September 15, 2026 – High School Sports Streaming Scams
We are early in the Fall high school sports season and more and more people are choosing to watch the games streaming online rather than attend the games in person. Streaming of high school sports increased dramatically during the pandemic and even now that the pandemic has ended, many people still enjoy watching the games streamed. Unfortunately, anything that many people enjoy will always be something that scammers take note of and scammers are going on social media posing as a streaming service and posting links through which people can sign up for streaming of their local high school’s games. People clicking on these links are prompted for personal information including their credit card to sign up for the service that they never receive. Instead all they end up doing is becoming victims of identity theft and credit card fraud.
High school sports organizations in North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Illinois and New Mexico have warned about this scam, but the scam is not just limited to those states. It is going on everywhere.
TIPS
The simplest way to avoid this scam is to ignore any posts on social media or through emails, text messages or phone calls that offer to provide streaming of high school sports because it is pretty much impossible to know if they are legitimate or not. The best way to find out where you can stream your high school’s games is to contact your local high school’s athletic department and ask if they stream their games and if they do, where do you sign up.
Also, as I constantly remind you, never use your debit card for any purchase because you do not get the same protection from fraudulent use of your debit card that you do with your credit card. With your debit card, potentially your entire bank account tied to your debit card is in jeopardy in the event of fraudulent use of it.
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Scam of the day – September 14, 2026 – Apartment Rental Scams Getting Worse
In a hot real estate market, apartment rental scams are increasing dramatically. According to the FBI, last year victims of apartment rental scams lost 275 million dollars, a substantial increase over the previous year. In addition to conventional real estate agents, many people look for homes on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and now these rental scams have migrated to Tik Tok where a recent study found 68% of the apartment ads appeared to be scams. Tik Tok is a favorite site for younger people and the Federal Trade Commission has reported that people between the ages of 18 and 29 are three times more likely to lose money to a rental scam.
Scammers often go to Craigslist, Tik Tok and other similar sites to post their phony apartment listings. The scam usually starts with a listing that looks quite legitimate and there is a good reason for that. The listing is often a real on-line listing that has been copied by the scammer who merely puts in his or her name and contact information. The price is usually very low which attracts a lot of potential renters. The potential renters are sometimes told that the owner is out of the country and that there are many people interested in the property so if the tenant wants to be considered for renting it, the tenant has to wire money to the landlord somewhere outside of the country immediately. As I have warned you many times, wiring money is a scammer’s first choice because it is all but impossible to retrieve once you learn that you have been scammed. Too often, unwary potential tenants wire the money and never hear anything further from the scam landlord. As for the money, it is gone forever.
TIPS
There are a number of red flags to look for in home rental scams. First, as always, if the price looks too good to be true, it usually is just that – not true. Also be wary of landlords who are out of the country. Never send your payment by a wire transfer or a cashier’s check. Use a credit card, PayPal or any other payment system from which you can retrieve your funds if the transaction is fraudulent. It is usually best to deal with websites that specialize in home rentals but you must remember that they cannot possibly successfully monitor every listing to ensure that it is legitimate.
A great and easy way to determine if the listing is a scam is to check out who really is the owner of the home or apartment by going on line to the tax assessor’s office of the city or town where the property is located and look up who the real owner is. If it doesn’t match the name of the person attempting to rent you the home, you should not go through with the rental.
You also can search the address online to see if the property is listed for sale by a different real estate agent or owner or if other listings show different contact information elsewhere. This is an indication that the listing is a scam. Finally, search online the name of the owner with the word “scam” next to his or her name and see if anything comes up to make you concerned.
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Scam of the day – September 13, 2026 – Celebrity Deepfake Scams Getting Worse
For years I have told you about scammers posing as various popular celebrities in ads and on social media luring people into making payments for worthless products. However, with the increased of Artificial Intelligence these phony ads and scams have become both more believable looking and more frequent as the deepfake and other AI technology becomes readily available to less technologically savvy scammers. Back in 2023 I told you about a scam where a deepfake image of Chef Gordon Ramsey was used to trick people into a scam involving Hexclad cookware. Videos also appeared on social media such as TikTok and Facebook that appeared to show Taylor Swift endorsing and giving away Le Crueset cookware. If you click on the link provided you are sent to counterfeit websites of popular cooking websites where you see further phony testimonials. You are then asked to provide credit or debit card information to cover the cost of the shipping of the free cookware. Unfortunately, just as there was no free Hexclad cookware being given away by Gordon Ramsay, there is no free Le Crueset cookware being given away by Taylor Swift and all you succeed in doing is giving your credit card or debit card information to a scammer.
More recently Deepfakes of Taylor Swift have appeared in TikTok ads promoting a fake “TikTok Pay” program. However the most frequent celebrity deepfake scams involve Elon Musk endorsing various cryptocurrency platforms and investments that are all scams.
TIPS
Of course, anything too good to be true is generally not true and the offer of expensive cookware for free should immediately arouse skepticism. In cases such as this, if you had any thought that the offer might be legitimate you should confirm the offer by going to the official website of both Taylor Swift and of LeCrueset. If the offer was in any way legitimate, it would appear on both of those websites.
As for any celebrity endorsement, you should not take it at face value. Confirm on the celebrity’s website to see if they really do endorse a particular product.
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Scam of the day – September 12, 2026 – MyChart Phishing Scams Increasing
The email shown below is a very convincing phishing email. It contained the first name of the Scamicide reader who forwarded it to me. I have blocked out the name to protect the reader’s privacy. I also have disarmed the links contained in the email which, if clicked on, would have taken you to an official appearing site where you would have been prompted to provide your username and password. Providing this information to a scammer would result in identity theft.
Here is a copy of the MyChart phishing email presently being circulated
Hello XXXX,
You have a new message in MyChart! Please sign in to read your message.
Thanks for using MyChart
Sign In to MyChart
MyChart is available on the go!
To change what notifications you receive and how you receive them,
log in to MyChart and choose Notifications from the Preferences menuTIPS
This is a particularly insidious phishing email because the email address from which it was sent could appear to be legitimate and is not one that is obviously the email address of someone whose email account was hacked and made a part of a botnet of computers used to send out such phishing emails. Also, the targeted victim’s name was included in the email.
As with all phishing emails, two things can happen if you click on the links provided. Either you will be sent to a legitimate looking, but phony website where you will be prompted to input personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you may download keystroke logging malware that will steal all of your personal information from your computer or cell phone and use it to make you a victim of identity theft. One way to recognize a MyChart phishing email or text message is that the real MyChart never asks you to click on links.
If you receive an email like this and think it may possibly be legitimate, merely call your health care provider where you can confirm that it is a scam, but make sure that you dial the telephone number correctly because scammers have been known to buy phone numbers that are just a digit off of legitimate numbers to trap you if you make a mistake in dialing the real number.
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Scam of the day – September 11, 2026 – Can Your Voice Mail Message Put You in Danger?
AI voice cloning is simple and easily accomplished at little cost. Scammers clone voices of people they are targeting with a variety of scams including the grandparent or family emergency scam where the family member gets a phone call from someone posing as a family member dealing with an emergency needing immediate funds. This scam was bad enough in the past, but now with voice cloning technology, the voice you hear sounds exactly the same as the voice of the real person. Voice cloning is also used in fake kidnapping scams and even cloning someone’s voice that is used as authentication to access a bank account (a very bad idea despite what some banks tell you).
So how do scammers get sufficient audio to clone someone’s voice? Audio can be obtained from social media posts or even the voice mail message greeting you make and have on your phone. The readily available voice cloning technology has gotten so sophisticated that only a few seconds of audio recordings are required to clone that person’s voice.
TIPS
To start off, my advice is to not use voice verification for your bank account and just as we all should be protective of personal information we post on social media that can be leveraged against us for scams and identity theft purposes, we should consider whether we also wish to take the risk of posting audio. As for the voice message on your phone, you would be wise to refrain from recording your own message and use a generic greeting provided by your phone carrier. It may seem paranoid, but even paranoids have enemies.
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Scam of the day – September 10, 2026 – FTC Warns About Automobile Dealership Cloning
The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a warning about an increase in car dealer cloning. Car dealer cloning occurs when a scammer sets up a website or social media profile as a legitimate car dealer. The website and social media posts use images and photographs of legitimate car dealers to make them look legitimate and, with the increased availability of AI to assist the scammers in setting up their phony car dealer websites and social media presence, they appear quite legitimate. On these phony sites the scammers offer tremendous discounts on cars. Generally, the scammers require the purchase price for the non-existent cars to be wired to them. Wiring funds is a favorite choice of payment of scammers because it can be difficult to reverse and is easy for the scammers to disguise their identity.
TIPS
Research any car dealer you are considering to confirm their actual phone number, email address and other contact information to make sure you are communicating with the real dealer and not a scammer posing as the legitimate dealer. Confirm with your state Department of Transportation that the dealer with whom you are dealing is a properly registered. Never buy a car without actually seeing and inspecting it. Before wiring money confirm with the seller’s bank the identity of the company you are sending the funds to. You can tell the bank that you want to verify the company’s identity before wiring funds.
Scam of the day – September 9, 2026 – Disney Email Scam
The popularity of Disney makes it a preferred subject for phishing emails sent to people appearing to come from Disney in which you are told you need to update your credit card information or asking for other personal information. Reproduced below is a copy of an email recently received by a Scamicide reader. The email may look legitimate, but it is important to note that nowhere does your name or account number appear and it is sent from an email address that has nothing to do with Disney. The Disney logo appeared at the top of the email although not reproduced below, but it is easy to counterfeit the Disney logo and make the email appear to be legitimate when it is not.
Two things can happen if you click on the links in the email. Either you will be directed to a phony but legitimate looking website where you will be prompted to input your credit card information and thereby turn it over to an identity thief or, even worse, merely by clicking on the link, you will download keystroke logging malware that can steal all of the information from your computer and use it to make you a victim of identity theft. I have removed the links in the email below. I have disarmed the “Correct Billing Details” link in the email copied below. I also removed the email address of the Scamicide reader who was sent this email.
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TIPS
As I always say, “trust me, you can’t trust anyone.” You can never be truly sure when you receive an email seeking personal information such as your credit card number whether or not the email is a scam. The risk of clicking on a link or providing the requested information is just too high. Instead, if you think that the email might be legitimate, you should contact the company at a telephone number or email address that you know is legitimate and find out whether or not the email was a scam.
The biggest red flag that this is a scam is that the email address from which it was sent has nothing to do with Disney.
If you are not a subscriber to Scamicide.com and would like to receive free daily emails with the Scam of the day, all you need to do is to go to the bottom of the initial page of http://www.scamicide.com and type in your email address in the tab that states “Sign up for this blog.”