Last week, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General filed a consumer protection lawsuit against the PA-based company Pure Weight Loss and its owner, Vahan Karian. Pure Weight Loss, which has about 400 stores nationwide, announced last December that it was going out of business, and yet continued to accept pre-payment from unaware customers up to four days after posting the announcement on its website. Since closing, it has failed to reimburse customers fees for unfulfilled contracts or deliver the supplies they’ve already bought.
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Someone From Arkansas Is Selling Wiis For Only $99!!!
By 1.17.08
Quick, type in all of your credit card information before he runs out of inventory! Omgwtf $99 Wiis! The website, http://www.wiifor99.com—which is being advertised on Facebook, according to a reader—consists of the two screens shown above and that’s it. What a lazy con.
Second Jersey Scammer Who Claimed To Cure Lou Gehrig's Disease Imprisoned
By 12.28.07
On December 12th, the U.S. District Court of New Jersey sentenced Elizabeth Lerner, a.k.a. Elizabeth Cooperman, to 33 months in prison for “falsely claiming that she could cure amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly called ‘Lou Gehrig’s Disease.'” Her crime partner, former osteopath Charlene C. DeMarco, was sentenced to 57 months back in September.
New & Improved Scams To Watch Out For In 2008
By 12.28.07
SmartMoney has come up with five new spins on classic scams to watch out for in 2008: “The financial woes and natural disasters of 2007 have armed scammers with plenty of new tricks—or resourceful spins on old ones—aimed at separating you from your cash.”
Watch Out For Mysterious $8.95 Charge To Your Account
By 12.14.07
A reader writes in that he noticed an unusual charge for $8.95 on his bank card recently. He looked up the number connected to the charge—866-305-8808—at the website 800notes.com and found that it belongs to some company called Eureka or EurekaInfo.net, and that there are others who have discovered the same unauthorized charge in recent days.
Freddie Mac's Fraud Video Warns Borrowers
By 12.12.07
Freddie Mac produced this video to educate borrowers who face foreclosure about a fraud scheme where “a con artist will seek out a public notice of foreclosure and approach the potential victim with documents and the promise of sorting out the debt,” thereby tricking the homeowner into signing over the deed to the house.
Fake Med Promoted Via Fraudulent Government Health & Drug Watchdog Site
By 11.6.07
The Chinese government has discovered a fake diabetes medicine on a fake research institute website, which then links to a fake version of the official government health and drug watchdog agency’s site. If you’re paying attention to urls, it’s hard to not notice that something’s wrong—but we’re sure there’s more than enough people who don’t notice that little detail.
Crazy Moving Scam In San Jose Area
By 11.3.07
RipOffReports has two claims—one of which was also sent to us by a reader—about Champions Movers and/or A.S.A.P. Relocations of San Jose, California. Or Fremont, California. That’s part of the problem—they seem to be intentionally using a mixture of names and addresses to help hide from what’s shaping up to be a terrible reputation.
One complaint claims that in June they bumped their quote from $1,070 to $2,460 after they’d loaded up her furniture and boxes, and threatened damage to her belongings if she didn’t pay up and sign a new contract on the spot. She paid and signed, but immediately put a stop payment on the check, and she hasn’t seen her furniture since.
How To Spot Fake Craigslist And eBay Listings
By 10.12.07
Planning on doing some buying or selling online? Wired offers some tips on how to spot scammers when you’re on eBay or Craigslist.
6 Online Shopping Scams To Watch Out For
By 10.11.07
1. Missing Auction Goods – Auction fraud represents over a third of Internet scam complaints every year. Your safest bet is to pay with plastic so you gain the protections of the Fair Credit Billing Act. When plastic’s not an option, setting up an account through PayPal or BillPay that connects to your credit card is the next best bet.
Mystery Shopper Scam Now Comes Bundled With Check Fraud Scam!
By 10.4.07
Fraudulent check scams (which we wrote about yesterday) have taken a new, exciting twist: integrated into so-called “mystery shopper” scams. The classified ads you see for secret or mystery shoppers used to be small time cons, designed to bilk you out of $100 or so to provide information that’s readily available for free. But add a little check fraud and you could be taken for thousands of dollars.
