Search Scams
Scam of the day – October 29, 2020 – Mystery Shopper Scams Increasing
I have written many times over the last eight years about the mystery shopper scam because it continues to ensnare unwary victims, however, these scams continue to be effective and are increasing in number so it is important to remind you about them again. Mystery...
Scam of the day – October 28, 2020 – Freeway Pawn Scam
The California Highway Patrol has issued a warning copied below about a scam occuring on the highways of California in which scammers park their cars on the side of a highway with the hood up pretending to be broken down. The scammers then wave down good samaritans...
Scam of the day – October 27, 2020 – Smishing Attacks Increasing
Although the name may not be as familiar as "phishing" which is the name for emails that lure you into clicking on malware infected links or providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft, "smishing" is the name given to text...
Scam of the day – October 26, 2020 – Phony Deputy Phone Call Scam
Impostor scams have long been among the most lucrative for scammers. While there are many variations of this scam, the most common variations have involved scammers calling their intended victims on the telephone posing as some governmental agency such as the IRS,...
Scam of the day – October 25, 2020 – Phony Tech Support Phone Number Scam
Clever scam artists, the only criminals we refer to as artists are increasingly setting up phony websites that appear to be for customer service or tech support of many of the companies with which we do business. They also purchase telephone numbers that are a single...
Scam of the day – October 24, 2020 – Phony Charity Fundraisers Shut Down
Phony charities are big business for scammers who prey upon generous people who think they are contributing to help those in need. I have written many times over the years about a wide variety of phony charities and the efforts of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)...
Scam of the day – October 23, 2020 – FTC Settles Major Robocall Claim
Over the years I have written numerous times about the problems presented by robocalls and with good reason. Automated robocalls which, for commercial purposes, are illegal, are the number one consumer complaint reported by the public to the Federal Trade Commission...
Scam of the day – October 22, 2020 – FTC Refunding Victims of Get Rich Quick Scam
I have been reporting to you about this particular scam since December of 2017 when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) first filed a complaint in Federal Court against Ronnie Montano, Hyong Su Kim, Martin Schranz and their companies, eMobile Code, Easy Cash Code, Full...
Scam of the day – October 21, 2020 – Coronavirus Related Student Debt Relief Scams
I have written often about phony student loan debt relief companies and with good reason. More than forty-two 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...
Scam of the day – October 20, 2020 – FTC Refunding 7 Million Dollars to Victims of Tech Support Scam
Tech support scams in which consumers are tricked by scammers into believing there is a problem with their computers that require the expensive services of the scammers is a major problem. Tech support scams are increasingly common and victimize consumers 60 years or...
Scam of the day – October 19, 2020 – PayPal Phishing Email
Here is another good example of a phishing email that is presently being circulated. It was sent to me by a Scamicide reader who received it. It makes for compelling reading, but it is a scam. Phishing emails, by which scammers and identity thieves attempt to lure...
Scam of the day – October 18, 2020 – Barnes & Noble Data Breach Endangers Customers
Bookseller Barnes & Noble announced that it had suffered a data breach which it only recently discovered. Fortunately, customers' credit card information appears not to have been compromised in the data breach, however, some personal information including...
Scam of the day – October 17, 2020 – FTC Shuts Down Illegal Debt Collector
Receiving a telephone call from a debt collector is not a pleasant experience. Being hounded by someone attempting to collect a debt you do not owe is fraud. I have written many times in the past about scammers who use deceptive and abusive collections practices in...
Scam of the day – October 16, 2020 – Critical Adobe Flash Security Update
Adobe has just issued new security updates for the popular, but intensely flawed Adobe Flash software. In 2018 Adobe confirmed that it would stop updating and distributing Adobe Flash at the end of 2020 although frankly, it would be wise for you to migrate away from...
Scam of the day – October 15, 2020 – Breast Cancer Awareness Month Scams
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and scammers are taking full advantage of the increased attention to this disease which is diagnosed in more than 200,000 women each year. Recently, I received a telephone call from a telemarketer seeking a contribution to a...
Scam of the day – October 14, 2020 – Most Dangerous Celebrities on the Internet for 2020
Each year, computer security company, McAfee releases a list of the most dangerous celebrities on the Internet. These are people whose popularity is exploited by identity thieves and hackers who lure unsuspecting people through links in emails, social media and text...
Scam of the day – October 13, 2020 – Amazon Prime Day Phishing Threat
Today is the beginning of Amazon Prime Day. I say the beginning because Amazon Prime Day actually extends from Octboer 13th through October 14th. Amazon Prime Day is a global promotion of Amazon featuring sales on a variety of items available solely to Amazon Prime...
Scam of the day – October 12, 2020 – Facebook Grant Scams
The most effective scams always have a kernel of truth to them and this particular scam is a good example of that fact. Facebook is offering a hundred million dollars in cash grants to qualifying small businesses affected adversely by the Coronavirus pandemic. Here...
Scam of the day – October 11, 2020 – FTC Targets Phony Debt Collectors
Receiving a telephone call from a debt collector is not a pleasant experience. Being hounded by someone attempting to collect a debt you do not owe is fraud. I have written many times in the past about scammers who use deceptive and abusive collections practices in...
Scam of the day – October 10, 2020 – FTC Chairman Impostor Emails
Impostor scams have long been among the most lucrative for scammers. While there are many variations of this scam, the most common variations have involved scammers calling their intended victims on the telephone posing as some governmental agency such as the IRS or...
Scam of the day – October 9, 2020 – Dangers in the Unsubscribe Tab
It you are like me, you probably are receiving a lot of emails that you don't wish to read and which merely clutter your inbox. An easy way to reduce the amount of emails you receive is to merely click on the Unsubscribe tab in newsletters and other communications...
Scam of the day – October 8, 2020 – Anthem Pays 39.5 Million Dollars to Settle State Attorneys General Claim
I first reported to you about the huge data breach at Anthem, a major health care company in February of 2015 when it was initially discovered. The data breach affected 78.8 million patients and employees. The data stolen included birth dates, Social Security...
Scam of the day – October 7, 2020 – Paying a Ransomware Ransom Can Result in Government Penalties
I have been warning you about the dangers of ransomware for five years, but today's development is something we have never encountered before. Ransomware is the name for malware that once installed on a computer, often unwittingly through clicking on links in spear...
Scam of the day – October 6, 2020 – New iPhone Scam
There is a lot of excitement about the release of the new iPhone 12 which is expected to be available beginning October 13th. As always, however, whenever the public is enthusiastic about something, so are the scam artists who are ready to exploit the public's...
Scam of the day – October 5, 2020 – Identity Thief of Deceased People Sentenced to 17 Years
James Jackson was sentenced to 17 years in prison for stealing the identities of recently dceased people and taking over their credit card accounts, savings accounts and brokerage accounts. Jackson gathered information from obituariesand used that information to take...
Scam of the day – October 4, 2020 – Important Online Trading Academy Update
In March I told you about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suing the investment training company Online Trading Academy (OTA) and its principals for fraud. In September the FTC settled its claims agains the OTA and its principals. As a part of the settlement, the...
Scam of the day – October 3, 2020 – Medicare Open Enrollment Scams
The annual open enrollment period for Medicare will begin on October 15th and continue until December 7th. This is the only time during the year that people enrolled in Medicare can change their Medicare health plans, Medigap plans and prescription drug plans. By...
Scam of the day – October 2, 2020 – CFTC Sues Alleged Precious Metal Scammers
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and 30 state agencies have accused Lucas Asher and Simon Batashvili of using companies such as Metals.com and Barrick Capital Inc. to defraud people in the sale of gold and other precious metals. The CFTC said the...
Scam of the day – October 1, 2020 – Western Union Refund Update
As I first reported to you in January of 2017, Western Union, which provides money wiring services around the world settled fraud charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Justice Department and a number of states' Attorneys General. Under the terms...
Scam of the day – September 30, 2020 – Counterfeit Check Scam
Counterfeit check scams take many different forms, but their most common form is where you are provided a check, under a wide variety of pretenses, for more than you would be paid and asked to wire the difference to the person giving you the check. The check is...
Scam of the day – September 29, 2020 FTC Sending Refunds to Victim of Pain Cure Scam
The Federal Trade Commission is sending checks to people who were scammed by Renaissance Health Publishing , LLC into buying its worthless pain supplement Isoprex that it advertised as a "miracle" cure for muscle and joint pain, headaches, arthritis, joint...
Scam of the day – September 28, 2020 – FTC Adds New Charges Against Alleged Pyramid Schemers
In the Scam of the day for January 19, 2020 I told you about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suing multi-level marketer "Success By Health" and its executives alleging that the company operated an illegal pyramid scheme. The United States Federal Court for Arizona...
Scam of the day – September 27, 2020 – Dropbox Scam
Dropbox is a popular service that enables you to store photos, documents and other information in the cloud. I recently received an email from someone whose name I did not recognize that purported to include a document stored in Dropbox. I was instructed to click on...
Scam of the day – September 26, 2020 – Delivery Text Message Scam
The Federal Trade Commission is reporting a substantial increase in a scam by which people are receiving text messages that appear to come from UPS, Federal Express or the U.S. Postal Service indicating that there is a package that has been waiting to be delivered and...
Scam of the day – September 25, 2020 – Wildfire Charity Scams
Natural disasters, such as the recent wildfires in California and the Pacific Northwest have caused tremendous destruction Natural disasters such as this bring out the best in people who want to donate to charities to help the victims. Unfortunately natural disasters...
Scam of the day – September 24, 2020 – Deadly Ransomware Attack
I have been warning you about the dangers of ransomware for five years, but today's ransomware story involves the first reported incident where a ransomware attack has actually resulted in a fatality. A hospital in Germany was forced to turn away patients coming to...
Scam of the day – September 23, 2020 – Google Voice Scam
Today's Scam of the day was sent to me by a Scamicide reader who listed a small item for sale on Craigslist along with his cell phone number for people to contact him. Someone responded to his ad through a text message indicated that they were interested in...
Scam of the day – September 22, 2020 – Another Nigerian Email Scam
Today's Scam of the day is another version of the Nigerian email scam that continues to plague the online community. Although it may seem that the Nigerian email scam began in the era of the Internet, the origin of the scam actually goes back to 1588 when it was known...
Scam of the day – Spetember 21, 2020 – Scammers Posting Phony Real Estate Listings During the Pandemic
During the Coronavirus pandemic, more and more people are going online looking for apartment rentals rather than meet with landlords in person. Fortunately, there are many online listings of legitmate real estate agents and landlords. These websites can be easy and...
Scam of the day – September 20, 2020 – More Presidential Campaign Scams
A month ago in the Scam of the day for August 31st I told you about presidential campaign scams involving solicitations by telephone for campaign contributions by scammers posing as campaign workers for the major candidates. However, scammers taking advantage of...
Scam of the day – September 19, 2020 – Porn in Cloud Account Scam
People are reporting receiving calls that purport to be from Apple's Special Investigations Unit telling them that illegal child pornography has been discovered on you cloud account. The phony investigator is sympathetic when you inform them that you never stored...
Scam of the day – September 18, 2020 – Online Trading Academy Settles Claim of FTC
In March I told you about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suing the investment training company Online Trading Academy (OTA) and its principals for fraud. Now the FTC has settled its claims agains the OTA and its principals. As a part of the settlement, the...
Scam of the day – September 17, 2020 – Hackers Exploiting Vulnerabilities to Attack Porn Surfers
Pornography websites are among the most widely searched websites on the Internet and this fact is not lost on a hacking group called Malsmoke who have recently managed to install malware on many of those websites. The malware is imbedded in malicious ads then when...
Scam of the day – September 16, 2020 – Nine Arrested in Smash and Grab Identity Theft Ring
Nine people were recently arrested and charged with 700 smash and grab thefts that lead to a thousand incidents of identity theft at a cost of more than 1.5 million dollars stolen. Smash and grab is the term used to describe when criminals break into cars and steal...
Scam of the day – September 15, 2020 – Free Online Concert Scam
The Coronavirus pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the entertainment world with movie theaters shuttered until recently and concerts cancelled. Enterprising musical artists have done a number of free online concerts which have been hardily welcomed by their...
Scam of the day – September 14, 2020 – Car Wrap Scam
In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, reports are resurfacing of increased instances of the car wrap scam which has been around for a few years. We have all seen car wraps, which are advertisements for a company wrapped around a car. For someone looking for some...
Scam of the day – September 13, 2020 – Student Loan Debt Relief Scammers Settle FTC Lawsuit
I have written often about phony student loan debt relief companies and with good reason. More than forty-two 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...
Scam of the day – September 12, 2020 – Department of Justice Issues Warning About Impostor Scams
Impostor scams have long been among the most lucrative for scammers. While there are many variations of this scam, the most common variations have involved scammers calling their intended victims on the telephone posing as some governmental agency such as the IRS or...
Scam of the day – September 11, 2020 – Keto Diet Pill Scams
Weight loss scams are among the most common scams and with good reason. Many people want to lose weight and most of the scam products promise to do that for you easily without diet or exercise. The unfortunate truth is that there is no magic formula for quick and easy...
Scam of the day – September 10, 2020 – School Children Targets of Identity Thieves
This is the beginning of a school year unlike any other, but one thing that remains the same is the risk of school age children becoming victims of identity theft. Identity thieves will steal the identity of a child and then run up large debts using the credit of the...