Here’s a hint: Sharing a photo is not a valid way to enter a sweepstakes where the prize has a value worth more than few bucks, and no multibillion-dollar international airline is going to run a contest that way. And yet, in just a few hours more than 40,000 Facebook users have shared an obviously bogus sweepstakes from a page pretending to be United Airlines. [More]
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FTC And Florida AG Sue Company That’s Allegedly Behind Medical Alert Robocalls
By 7.7.15
Reputable companies that sell personal emergency alert devices might air disturbing TV ads, but at least they mean well, don’t lie in their ads, and–here’s the important thing–don’t bombard America’s seniors with robocalls about the “free” alert system they’ve been given. The attorney general in Florida and the Federal Trade Commission have teamed up to stop this scam further up the food chain. [More]
Reminder: Don’t Fall For The Walmart Mystery Shopper Scam
By 6.11.15
Almost exactly four years ago, we first warned you about the Walmart Mystery Shopper Scam, in which con artists offer their potential victims employment as undercover quality assurance inspectors who get paid to shop. Yet scammers continue to try running this ruse, so we figured it was a good time for a reminder. [More]
Fake Cop Wants Prepaid PayPal Cards To Make Your Warrant Go Away
By 6.10.15
Here’s an innovative scam that’s been reported near St. Louis, and could soon come to a doorstep near you. Victims report receiving a phone call from someone who identifies himself as a local police officer, who tells the target that they’ve missed a court date, and must pay up within an hour or an officer will immediately arrive to arrest them. While the threat of being arrested is scary, this is not an actual thing that happens. [More]
Scammer Convinces Tourists To Pay $409 For Free Staten Island Ferry Tickets
By 6.1.15
It costs a lot of money driving into New York City through the Hudson River tunnels or over the George Washington Bridge, and subways and cabs certainly aren’t free. So you can’t fault tourists who assume they have to pay to ride the free Staten Island Ferry — but more than $200 per ticket? [More]
A Legitimate Car Seller Will Not Ask For Payment In Amazon Gift Cards
By 5.27.15
As gift cards go, Amazon gift cards are pretty flexible: they’re available in any amount and can be used for a wide variety of merchandise. You can even use them to buy imaginary cars. At least, that’s what happened to a Michigan man who thought that he was buying a car that was in Montana, but was in fact sending four thousand bucks into a scamtastic void. [More]
Report: Scammers Breach Starbucks Accounts, Refill And Drain Gift Card Balances
By 5.12.15
Do you use a Starbucks stored-value card so you can have the fastest possible access to coffee? If you have that card set to auto-reload using a credit or debit card, you may be providing a way for criminals to vacuum money out of your bank account and into their own. How does that happen? Savvy scamsters can break into your account, then reload and drain them for you. [More]
Scammer Dad Uses Daughter To Sell Nonexistent Girl Scout Cookies Door-To-Door
By 5.7.15
It’s a pretty common sight every year to see parents escorting their Girl Scout daughters around the neighborhood, ringing doorbells and trying to move as many Samoas and Tagalongs as possible. So the residents of one Pennsylvania town didn’t think twice when a man who grew up in the area came around with his youngster to sell Girl Scout cookies — that is, until those treats never materialized. [More]
Fake Waitress Steals Diner’s Credit Card, Goes On Spending Spree Next Door At Target
By 5.6.15
How many times have you put your credit card out to pay for a restaurant meal and had an employee other than your server pick it up? It’s not uncommon, especially in busier eateries, so some diners wouldn’t think twice when it happens. At least until the card hasn’t been returned because the helpful “waitress” who took it is actually at the Target across the parking lot making purchases with it? [More]
How Scammers Trick You Into Giving Up That Security Code On The Back Of Your Credit Card
By 4.29.15
There are a lot of purchases you can make with the information on the front of a credit card. But ID thieves who have the card number, name, and expiration date will still hit a speedbump if they have to enter that (usually 3-digit) security code on the back of a victim’s card. Notice that we said “speedbump” and not “dead end,” because some scammers have figured out how to get this crucial info from their victims. [More]
Telemarketer Penalized $3.4M For Scamming Elderly Into Paying For Unwanted Medical Alert Service
By 4.23.15
Two years ago, the Federal Trade Commission shut down a Brooklyn-based telemarketing scheme that bullied elderly consumers into paying for a medical alert service they never ordered or wanted. Now a federal court has hit the telemarketer’s repeat-offender operator with a $3.4 million penalty. [More]
FTC Shuts Down Credit Repair Business Masquerading As The Federal Trade Commission
By 3.27.15
Fraudsters have been known to scam unsuspecting consumers by claiming to be agents with the federal government. So, in a bit of poetic justice, the Federal Trade Commission had a hand in shutting down a business calling itself the “FTC Credit Solutions.” [More]
Watch Out For Fake Magazine Renewal Invoices
By 3.24.15
When you subscribe to a magazine and a subscription renewal form arrives in the mail, you pay the invoice and keep the magazines coming, right? No, not quite: at least, not if your address and subscription information have fallen into the hands of a company called Subscription Billing Service, which customers say collects money without bothering to mention that they have no relationship to the magazine publisher. [More]
No, Qantas Isn’t Giving Away Free First Class Tickets For Liking A Post On Facebook
By 3.16.15
It’s a Facebook post in which the company name is misspelled. It contends that an underwhelming number of passengers is reason to celebrate. It states that all you have to do to get free first class seats is to “Like” the post, and that “winner’s will be inbox’d on March 17.” Nothing about this seems legitimate, and yet more than 85,000 people thought it was worth a shot. [More]
Scammers Are Taking More Money With Fake Boss Wire Transfer Schemes
By 3.10.15
So much business is conducted over e-mail now that in some offices, it might be routine to receive an e-mail from your boss telling you where to wire a large amount of money. That’s why the Business E-mail Compromise scam, or CEO Scam, is so plausible and devastatingly effective. Since the last time we discussed this scam, scammers stole more than $17 million from one firm in a single transaction. [More]
Ex-Employees Claim Intuit Let Fraudulent TurboTax Returns Through For The Money
By 2.23.15
Are fraudulent tax returns the fault of the IRS, or caused by a weakness in the most popular software programs that consumers use to file their taxes? Former employees of Intuit, maker of TurboTax, allege that the company prevented security staff from flagging and shutting down obviously fraudulent accounts. Why? Market share. Fraudsters were ditching TurboTax and using other tax software when the company flagged their returns. [More]
Waitress Caught Editing Customers’ Tips To Add $10 Or $20 For Herself
By 2.13.15
One good reason to pay your restaurant bill in cash: Tipped employees get that money right away without having to worry about being docked fees for card-processing. Another good reason: A scammy server can’t artificially inflate your credit card tip with some crafty work of the pen. [More]
Revenge Porn Scammer Found Guilty, Faces Up To 20 Years In Jail
By 2.3.15
Just days after one operator of a revenge porn site agreed to settle a federal complaint against him, a man who ran a similar site in California was found guilty of identity theft and extortion. [More]
