Search Scams
Scam of the day – May 20, 2025 – T-Mobile Data Breach Settlement Update
A class action on behalf of victims of the data breach was settled, following which, T-Mobile sent notices to affected customers. Customers could claim reimbursement for out-of-pocket losses and lost time due to dealing with the effects of hte data breach. In addition, anyone else could have made a claim for a cash payment of $25 or $100 if they were a California resident.
Scam of the day – May 19, 2025 – FBI Issues Warning About Home Routers
Recently the FBI issued a warning about 13 outdated, end-of-life routers that are no longer supported by their manufacturers with software updates and patches to fix vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals, particularly Chinese cybercriminals are exploiting the lack of security of these routers to gain access to your computers and other devices and install malware.
Scam of the day – May 18, 2025 – Mystery Shopper Scams
In a Walmart themed mystery shopper scam, the targeted victim was sent a legitimate appearing, but counterfeit check for $2,940 and told to keep $540 as payment and then go to the nearest Walmart and use the remainder of the check to buy six $400 Kroger gift cards and provide the numbers to the scammer. The scam victim was then told to keep the gift cards for their next assignment although there never is another assignment and the scammers use the numbers on the Kroger gift cards to make purchases, making the actual cards worthless. The victim of the scam loses the $2,400 used to purchase the gift cards from the victim’s own bank account when the check bounces.
Scam of the day – May 17, 2025 – Phantom Debt Collection Scams
In recent years the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken action against a number of these Phantom debt collection agencies. These scammers used false claims and threats to compel people to pay debts which were largely either non-existent or which the defendants had no authority to collect. They also violated federal law by illegally failing to provide proper notices and disclaimers also required by federal law.
Scam of the day – May 16, 2025 – The Danger of Trojan Subscribers
Trojan subscribers are malware hidden within legitimate apps that while they won’t lead to the downfall of a city can cost the victims of a Trojan subscriber a lot of money. Trojan subscribers are malicious code that cybercriminals add to legitimate apps and then upload them to app stores under a different name. The apps can be for a variety of purposes, such as monitoring blood pressure or scanning documents. When someone downloads one of these infected apps, he or she doesn’t realize that the Trojan subscriber will automatically subscribe to a paid service without the person who downloaded the app being aware of it.
Scam of the day – May 15, 2025 – Medicare Card Verification Scam
Many older Americans are receiving emails or phone calls purporting to be from Medicare either offering various health services 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.
Scam of the day – Mary 14, 2025 – OneDrive Phishing Scam
OneDrive is a popular cloud storage system of Microsoft that allows you to sync and save documents, pictures and files. Scammers send emails purporting to be from OneDrive, such as the one copied below that I received recently. If you click on the View File, you will either be lured into providing personal information that can lead to your becoming a victim of identity theft or download malware such as ransomware or keystroke logging malware that leads to your becoming a victim of identity theft.
Scam of the day – May 13, 2025 – The Best Way to Protect Yourself from Income Tax Identity Theft
In 2022 the IRS announced an expansion of its Identity Protection PIN Op-In Program that provides individual taxpayers with a six-digit code that is required to be included on the individual’s income tax return. This will protect someone whose Social Security number had been compromised from becoming a victim of identity theft because the identity thief will not know the six-digit code. Recently the IRS urged people to get a PIN to protect themselves and it is good advice.Here is a link to the section of the IRS’ website that tells you all about the PIN program and where you can apply for a PIN. https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/get-an-identity-protection-pin The PIN is only valid for a single year but will automatically be renewed each year. The easiest way to get a PIN is through your online IRS account. Here is a link to information about getting an online IRS Account. https://www.irs.gov/payments/online-account-for-individuals
Scam of the day – May 12, 2025 – FBI Issues Warning About Health Insurance Scams
Recently the FBI issued a warning about scammers posing as health insurance companies offering phony discounted medcial insurance. Often they contact their targeted victims by phone, text messages and emails. Many of these scams target older Americans. It is easy to get lists of the names of older people, who as a group are significant users of medical services and are responsive to offers for discounted medical care. Often what the scammers are selling is not medical insurance, but medical discount programs.
Scam of the day – May 11, 2025 – Car Rental Scams
The phony websites can look quite legitimate and be hard to distinguish from the websites of real car rental companies. Always check the URL of the website you use carefully before responding to an offer for a car rental. You also may want to go the extra step and actually do a search to determine who owns the website you are on. There are a number of ways of doing this. One of the easiest is to go to ICANN and enter the domain name and click on “lookup.” This will enable you to find out who actually owns the website. So for instance, if you think you are renting from Hertz and the website you are on is owned by someone in Nigeria, you can be pretty confident it is a scam. Here is the link to ICANN https://lookup.icann.org/
Scam of the day – May 10, 2025 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of Publishers Clearing House Scam
In the Scam of the day for November 28, 2023 I informed you that the real Publisher Clearing House had settled fraud charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging multiple fraud claims. Specifically, Publishers Clearing House misled people into thinking that if they made a purchase it would increase their chances of winning, added surprise shipping and handling fees that increased the cost of their customers’ orders by an outrageous average of 40% and charged customers fees to return products despite representing that the ordering process was “risk free.” According to the terms of the settlement, 18.5 million dollars was paid by Publishers Clearing House to the FTC for refunds to eligible customers. Checks will be sent to people who ordered a product from Publishers Clearing House after receiving and clicking on one of the emails that the FTC alleged were deceptive.
Scam of the day – May 9, 2025 – Major Data Breach Affects 4 Million People
Recently, Verisource Services a major proivder of HR outsourcing and employee benefits adminstration announced that the total people affected by a data breach at the company is approximately 4 million people. This data breach was first discovered in February of 2024 and it took the company until April 17, 2025 to complete its digital forensic investigation which indicated that the amount of people who were affected by the data breach was much more than had been originally thought. In May of 2024 Verisource notified 55,00 people that they had been affected and then 112,000 additional victims were notified in September of 2024, but now Verisource is quite belatedly notifying up to 4 million people that their information including their Social Security numbers was compromised putting them in serious danger of identity theft.
Scam of the day – May 8, 2025 – Check Fraud Increasing Dramatically
Unfortunately, more sophisticated criminals will scan your check into their computer and use special software to keep the signature from the original check, but delete the amount and the name of the payee on the check thereby allowing them to make perfect counterfeit checks which they can make payable to themselves for any amount they choose thereby defeating the gel pen as a defense to check washing.
Scam of the day – May 7, 2025 – Exotic Pet Scams
The week of May 4th through 10th has been designated as national pet week. More than 60% of Americans have a pet and any group that large will be a target for scammers. I have written many times in the past about scams involving sales of non-existent puppies. 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. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning about scammers posing on social media including TikTok, Instagram and Facebook as sellers of exotic pets such as rare birds. Following up on the social media posts will take you to a legitimate appearing website, but it is simple for a scammer using AI to create a phony website.
Scam of the day – May 6, 2025 – Watch Out For Mother’s Day Scams
One common Mother’s Day scam involves an email that you get offering Mother’s Day gifts such as flowers, jewelry, shoes or clothing at tremendously discounted prices. All you need to do is to click on a link to order online. The problem is that many of these offers are indeed scams. If you click on the link, one of two things can happen and both are bad. Sometimes the link will take you to an order form where you provide your credit card information, but never get anything in return. Instead, your credit card information is used to make you a victim of identity theft. Even worse is the other possibility which is by clicking on the link, you will unwittingly download a keystroke logging malware program that will steal all of the personal information stored on your computer and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft.
Scam of the day – May 5, 2025 – Car Photo Scam
Scammers take photos of cars and then post them on social media indicating that the car has been stolen and that a thousand dollar reward is being offered for information about the whereabouts of the car. When people respond to the social media post with information about the “stolen” car, they are then instructed to provide their bank account number and bank routing number in order to have the reward sent to their bank account. Unfortunately, once the scammer has your bank account number and the routing number for your bank which is used for wire transfers, they are able to use that information to make purchases where money is wired from your account and the goods purchased are sent to the scammer who then can sell the goods thereby laundering the proceeds of the scam. Some scammers will even use your banking information to set up recurring payments such as for utilities.
Scam of the day – May 4, 2025 – Wrong Number Text Message Scam
Often these phony text messages aren’t even coming from a real person, but are automated responses sent by a bot programmed to give specific responses. The scams involved with these calls are many, but they all start with establishing a relationship with the targeted victim such that the victim begins to trust the scammer. At this point, the scammer may ask for personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft. In other instances, they will lure you into clicking on a malware infected link under some pretense. In yet another version of the scam, they will use the text message to advance a romance scam and either eventually ask for money or for you to send compromising photos that would be used for blackmail purposes. Finally, these phony text messages have also been used to lure people into cryptocurrency scams. The bottom line is that when you get a text message that appears to be intended for someone else, it often is a scam.
Scam of the day – May 3, 2025 – Work at Home Scams
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
Scam of the day – Mary 2, 2025 – New Google Phishing Scam
Phishing emails are now being sent from the address of no-reply@google.com that appear to be a supboena requiring you to provide information about your Google account. Clicking on a link in the phishing email would take you to the sites.google.com page where you would be directed to provide your Google account information which would turn over your account to the hacker. The problem comes from scammes using Google’s Sites web-building app that enables scammers to not only create legitimate appearing emails and websites, but also avoid the spam filters of your email provider. Google has indicated that it is working on correcting this problem, but as of now has not suceeded in doing so.
Scam of the day – May 1, 2025 – FTC Sending Additional Refunds to Victims of LifeWatch Scam
Ten years ago I told you about one such company, Lifewatch which in 2015 was sued by both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Attorney General of Florida who alleged that the company violated the law not only through illegal robocalls, but also by alleging that the medical alert system they offered was free and already been paid for by a friend or family member when that was untrue. They also were accused of misrepresenting that their product has been endorsed by AARP, which it was not. Finally, they were accused of telling prospective customers that they would not be charged anything (in regard to the product that they already had been told had been prepaid) until they activated the device. The truth, according to the FTC, is that Lifewatch charged people immediately.
Scam of the day – April 30, 2025 – FTC Issues Warning About Text Message Job Scams
Job scams are fertile ground for scammers. I have written about many forms that these scams take. Recently the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning about phony job offers being sent to people in text messages. While some job scams that may appear on legitimate sites such as monster.com or LinkedIn may be harder to determine as scams, this text message job offer is easier to recognize as a scam because like lottery scams where you are told you have won a lottery you never enterred, in this instance you are being offered a job that you never applied for. In both cases this is always a scam.
Scam of the day – April 29, 2025 – Danger of Skimmers on Gas Pump Continues
Wider implementation of the use of EMV chip cards at retail stores where their use has been mandated since 2015 has resulted in a dramatic reduction in data breaches and credit card fraud at retailers using this equipment. EMV chip cards are far safer than the old-style magnetic strip cards. Around the country there has been a dramatic increase in the use of skimmers installed by criminals at gas pumps and while the deadline for gas pumps to install chip readers has passed, many gas pumps still do not use EMV chip card readers and so skimmers at gas pumps continue to be a problem.
Scam of the day – April 28, 2025 – New Data Breach Report Shows Data Breaches Getting Worse
Verizon issued its annual data breach report which appears to exemplify my motto that “things aren’t as bad as you think, they are far worse.” Regardless of how diligent you are in protecting your personal information such as your Social Security number, you are only as safe as the myriad of companies, institutions and government agencies with the worse and most vulnerable security practices that have your personal information. The report confirmed 12,195 data breaches, an increase of 34% over the previous year.
Scam of the day – April 27, 2025 – FBI Issues Warning About Imposter Scam
The FBI recently issued a warning about scammers posing as FBI agents working for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center contacting scam victims offering to help them recover funds lost to scams when their real purpose is to further victimize the victims of previous scams. The phony FBI agents contact their victims in a variety of ways including emails, phone calls, social media or through legitimate support groups for financial scam victims that the scammers infiltrate posing as scam victims themselves.
Scam of the day – April 26, 2025 – Pope Francis Death Scams
Anything in the news that the public is interested in is fodder for scammers. I have warned you many times about scams related to school shootings, natural disasters, the war in Ukraine and many more events that have garnered public interest. Unfortunately, the death of Pope Francis is such an event and scammers have wasted no time launching a myriad of scams with the intention of gathering your personal information and using it to make you a victim of identity theft, luring you into other scams or downloading dangerous malware that can lead to you becoming a victim of identity theft.
Scam of the day – April 25, 2025 – Be on the Lookout for Student Loan Scams
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 yar pause on penalizing student loan borrowers for not making payments, the government 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. Government figures indicate that two thirds of student loan borrowers are late or behind in their payments and this presents a dire situation where scammers can be expected to be offering phony debt relief to desparate borrowers.
Scam of the day – April 24, 2025 – Gold Scams
In times of political turmoil, such as we are experiencing at this time, gold becomes more attractive to investors. Unfortunately, along with legitimate gold merchants, there are many scammers who often contact their victims by telephone or email as well as through radio, television and online advertisements offering tremendous opportunites to invest in gold. Unfotunately, these scammers sell overpriced gold or even sell gold that they never deliver to their victims.
Scam of the day – April 23, 2025 – FTC Reports Huge Increase in Smishing
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Americans lost $470 million dollars to text message scams and the real number is probably considerably higher as many victims of text message scams do not report being scammed . Many smishing text messages appearing to come from Amazon, USPS, Federal Express, Cash App, Netflix and others. Text message scams involved with Fast Pass toll payments were particularly prevalent last year. Like phishing emails, the purpose of a smishing text message is to either lure you into providing personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft or to click on a link in the text message that will download dangerous malware.
Scam of the day – April 22, 2025 – Protecting Your iPhone
Theft of iPhones is a major problem. As long ago as 2014 the FCC indicated that a million iPhones were stolen annually in the United States and there is no reason to believe that the number hasn’t gone up even further since then. The reason for iPhone theft is twofold. First, the phone itself can be sold on the black market for a signficant profit and, perhaps even more troubling, your phone if not properly protected can provide information that can lead to identity theft including accessing your bank accounts.
Scam of the day – April 21, 2025 – 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.
Scam of the day – April 20, 2025 – MyChart Phishing Scam
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 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 a copy of a phishing email that appears to come from MyChart. MyChart is an online platform that allows you to communicate with your health care provider about a wide range of matters including scheduling appointments and reviewing your prescriptions.
Scam of the day – April 19, 2025 – Hertz Data Breach
Data breaches are all too common and the latest data breach involve car rental compnay Hertz which also operates the Dollar and Thrifty car rental companies. Customer information for the three car rental companies was compromised in a data breach involving Cleo Communications, a company that is a third party vendor that provides file transfer services for the Hertz parent company. The breach occurred between October 2024 and December 2024, but was just now disclosed to the public. The compromised information included names, contact information, birth dates, credit card information, driver’s license information as well as Social Security numbers for what Hertz says was a smaller group of people.
Scam of the day – April 18, 2025 – The Tariff Scams are Coming
In the last few months scammers have registered more than 300 websites including one entitled “U.S. Customs and Tariffs” that we can expect they will be using to scam businesses and individuals into making payments. We can expect companies and even individuals to start receiving phishing emails with phony invoices for goods that contain an indication of a charge for the tariffs and direction to the phony AI created websites to make the payments.
Scam of the day – April 17, 2025 – Facebook Cloning Continues to be a Problem
If one of your friends received a Facebook friend request that appeared to come from you, it does not mean that your account was hacked. It does mean however that, most likely, your account was cloned in the sense that someone has set up a Facebook account or some other social media account in your name or a slight variation of it in order to trick people into trusting messages that they post, to lure them into scams or to trick them into clicking on links containing malware.
Scam of the day – April 16, 2025 – Sophisticated Airbnb Scam
Computer savvy criminals created a subscription service called Land Lordz which they lease to less sophisticated criminals to assist them in victimizing Airbnb customers. Land Lordz helps criminals create and manage phony listings on phony websites that look like Airbnb. The phony listings are generally copied from legitimate Airbnb listings and will include fake reviews as well. The phony Airbnb site emphasizes that all payments will go through Airbnb and will therefore be safe and secure. If someone asks for further details, which is common, the scammers email a response with a link that appears to take you to the real Airbnb website, but instead takes you to a phony website that merely appears legitimate and with the use of AI, it is a simple matter for a criminal to create a legitimate appearing website. When the targeted victim of the scam logs into the phony Airbnb website, the scammers are notified and respond by demanding a deposit be wired to them. Once the money is wired, the funds are lost forever.
Scam of the day – April 15, 2025 – Mavis Wanczyk Lottery Scams Continue to Snare Victims
Many of you may not remember the name of Mavis Wanczyk, but she was the lucky winner of a 758 million dollar Powerball drawing in 2017. Not long after she claimed her prize, a scam started appearing in which many people received emails with the message line referring to the Mavis Wanczyk Cash Grant. The email indicated that you were chosen to receive a large cash grant from Mavis Wanczyk. All the lucky strangers receiving the emails had to do was provide personal information in order to qualify for the grant. In addition, phony social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were also set up in Ms. Wanczyk’s name through which people were contacted with the same phony offer of free money informing them that in order to qualify for the grant they merely needed to provide personal information.
Scam of the day – April 14, 2025 – Hacking Your Computer Through Your Smoke Detector
Cybercriminals hack into your devices that are a part of the Internet of Things to enable them to enlist your devices as a part of a botnet by which they can distribute malware while maintaining their anonymity. They also can hack into your Internet of Thing devices to access your home computers or cell phones to steal information for purposes of identity theft or to implant malware on your home computers and cell phones. Any device you have in your home that is connected to the Internet poses a threat. One device that people hardly give any thought to is your smoke detector. Newer, sophisticated smoke detectors have the capability to send data to your phone or the manufacturer which they do through your router and this make them vulnerable to being hacked.
Scam of the day – April 13, 2025 – Is the American Community Survey a Scam?
So how can you tell if you are being contacted and solicited for information by a legitimate census worker or by a scammer merely using the American Community Survey as a ruse to gather personal information from you in order to make you a victim of identity theft? First of all, the real American Community Survey does not ask for your Social Security number or credit card information. If you are asked for that information, it is a scam.
Scam of the day – April 12, 2025 – Why You Should Keep Your Cell Phone Number Private
When a criminal knows your cell phone number, he or she can leverage that number through commonly available legal databases such as White Pages Premium and learn information such as your current address, past addresses, the names of your family members and more. The criminal can also use the number to gain access to your social media accounts and can most significantly use the information gained to answer security questions that would allow the criminal to do a SIM swap whereby your cell phone number would be transferred to a phone of the criminal and thereby defeat dual factor authentication where you get a text message or a code sent to your phone when you go to access your bank account online or any other account that requires significant security.
Scam of the day – April 11, 2025 – Facebook Messenger Scam
A variation on an old Facebook scam has recently resurfaced. In the new scam you receive a Facebook Message that merely says “look what I found” and is followed by a link that leads you to a website where you are prompted to provide personal information that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft. Alternatively, merely clicking on the link, in some instances, has downloaded destructive malware to your phone, computer or tablet.
Scam of the day – April 10, 2025 – Insidious PayPal Docusign Scam
What makes this phishing email particular insidious is that it actaully comes from a PayPal account. Scammers set up accounts posing as legitimate companies so that the email address will appear legitmate. This also enables them to avoid spam filters used by your email provider.
Scam of the day – April 9, 2025 – How Scammers Defeat Dual Factor Authentication
The scam starts with the scammer getting the password of their targeted victim either through purchasing passwords stolen through data breaches that are sold on the Dark Web or by using social engineering through spear phishing emails or text messages to lure the victim into providing the password. The next step is a phone call from the scammer posing as security for your bank or another company with which you have an online account telling you that there has been unusual activity on your account and that they are sending you a security code to your phone for you to provide to confirm your identity. Of course, this is a total scam. The scammer has just used the stolen password to start access to the account. At that point the dual factor authentication on the account sends a security code to the targeted victim’s phone which the concerned victim provides to the scammer thereby enabling the scammer to get the security code and hack the account without even having to do a SIM swap.
Scam of the day – April 8, 2025 – Watch Out For CAPTCHA Scams
We are all familiar with CAPTCHA tests which appear on many websites that we use and are intended to confirm that you are not a robot, but a real person. CAPTCHA is an acronym for “completely automated public Turing Test to tell computers and humans apart.” The name Turing refers to early British computer scientist Alan Turing. CAPTCHA tests generally take the form of having to recognize scrambled letters or numbers or to recognize patterns in a number of pictures such as which pictures have traffic lights. People are familiar with CAPTCHA tests and although many people find them mildly annoying, people trust them and there is the problem. Scammer are setting up legitimate appearing websites with fake CAPTCHA tests that require you to click on a box to solve a simple test, but when you follow the insructions, you end up downloading dangerous malware.
Scam of the day – April 7, 2025 – REAL ID Scams
The original date by which you had to get a REAL ID was set at October 1, 2021, however due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the deadline was postponed until May 3, 2023. However, in December of 2022, the deadline was extended again. The new deadline is May 7, 2025 which is now only a month away. In the face of this impending deadline, scammers are contacting people posing as governmental officials seeking your personal information under the guise of helping you apply for your REAL ID when their real purpose is to harvest your personal information and use it to make you a victim of identity theft.
Scam of the day – April 6, 2025 – Arizona Advances Bill to Regulate Bitcoin ATMs
Arizona state representative David Marshall has filed House Bill 2387 which would provide needed regulations for these cryptocurrency ATMs to help prevent people from being scammed. If passed into law, the bill would require warnings on the ATMs before the user could do a transaction. The warnings would also provide information about cryptocurrency scams. Additionally, the bill would requier the aTMs to provide printed receipts that would include information useful to law enforcement in the event of a scam. The law would also limit the amount of fund a new account could deposit or send in a 72 hour period. Scammers often require their victims to send repeated deposits. Finally, the law would require greater transparency in the operation of the ATMs. The bill passed unanimously out of committee and now goest to the Senate for consideration and eventually if passed by the House and Senate will become law when signed by the governor.
Scam of the day – April 5, 2025 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of Weight Loss Scam
For more than seven years I have written about various scammers selling green coffee bean extracts as a weight loss product through the use of false and misleading advertising. Some of the scammers have claimed green coffee bean extracts would enable users to lose 17 pounds and 16% of their body fat in 12 weeks without diet or exercise. In 2016 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled its claim against NPB Advertising, Inc and a number of other companies it used to deceptively market its weight loss supplement Pure Green Coffee through phony news websites with fake testimonials. Pursuant to the settlement NPB was ordered to pay $30 million to the FTC to be returned to victims of the scam. Now nine years later that money is being returned to victims of the scam.
Scam of the day – April 4, 2025 – Troubling Development in Sextortion
Making the problem worse is the upsurge in sextortion assistance companies which charge thousands of dollars for their help in stopping and removing the photos and videos from appearing online. Accordign to the FBI these companies provide no better assistance than you can get for free and, in some instances, actually are the same criminals perpetrating the sextotion scams themselves. Some offer to send cease and desits orders which sound good, but are totally unenforceable. Ads for sextortion assistance companies apear throughout social media and even in posts on victim support forums.
Scam of the day – April 3, 2025 – Medicare Card Scams
Recently, many older Americans are receiving 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
Scam of the day – April 2, 2025 – Watch Out For Scammers Posing as Turbo Tax
TurboTax is a popular online tax preparation service and so identity thieves will take advantage of that popularity and call people posing as TurboTax employees informing the targeted victim that his or her electronically filed income tax return has been rejected by the IRS. The identity thief then attempts to lure you into providing personal information including your Social Security number that will be used to make you a victim of identity theft.
Scam of the day – April 1, 2025 – FTC Sending Refunds to Victims of Beauty Products Scam
In 2016 the FTC settled a lawsuit it brought against NutraClick LLC a company that lured consumers with “free” samples of health and beauty products and then charged them a recurring monthly fee without their consent. In 2020, the FTC sued NutraClick again for misleading consumers when they tried to cancel their “free” trial memberships to avoid monthly charges. In 2023 I informed you that the FTC was returning $973,000 to 17,064 people who were victimized by NutraClick. The funds for the refund were obtained from payments made by NutraClick pursuant to its settlement agreements with the FTC. The FTC is now sending additional payments to people who were charged for unwanted memberships, but did not get a refund in 2023.