We might be experts on who the Worst Company in America is, but what about the worst charities in America? The Tampa Bay Times and the The Center for Investigative Reporting crunched on a bunch of data and figured out which American charities actually give the smallest proportion of their income out in cash aid. [More]
scams
Rakuten Is Taking Credit Card Fraud Complaints Very Seriously
By 6.10.13
For a few months now, customers of Rakuten (formerly Buy.com here in the USA) have complained that large and unauthorized purchases have showed up on their credit cards not long after making purchases on the site. Frustrated consumers have taken to the Web to complain and to demand answers. [More]
Jersey Shore Landlord Caught Renting Out Uninhabitable Properties And Homes He Doesn’t Own
By 6.6.13
The New Jersey coastline can be a goldmine for owners of rental properties, as vacationers flock to the Atlantic Ocean every summer looking to rent for anything from a few days to the entire season. But one landlord is accused of bilking dozens of renters by taking their money for homes not fit for human habitation, some of which he doesn’t even own anymore. [More]
New Jersey Sues Gas Stations For Selling Aviation Fuel As Unleaded Gasoline
By 5.29.13
When most people fuel up at a gas station, especially one belonging to a national chain, they do so under the assumption that they are filling their car up with whatever gasoline they have selected from the pump. But authorities in New Jersey say that several stations were deceiving customers — and putting their cars at risk — by selling them leaded aviation gas (or avgas) under the guise of unleaded gasoline. [More]
Wells Fargo Closes My Account After $32,000 Fraud, Allows Bogus Payment To Go Through On New Account
By 5.29.13
Imagine waking up one day to find your bank account has not only been compromised, but that more than $30,000 in fraudulent checks have been written on it. Then to make matters worse, once things seem to be resolved, another bogus charge is placed on an entirely new account. [More]
Banker Accused Of Stealing $2 Million From Elderly Customers — At Two Different Banks
By 5.29.13
Remember that Wells Fargo employee charged with defrauding a 90-year-old customer out of $10,000? That’s amateur hour compared to the Oakland woman accused of not only stealing around $2 million from bank customers — but doing it at two different banks. [More]
New York Warns Of Medical-Alert Device Robocalling Scam Targeting Seniors
By 5.23.13
Most of you know to be suspicious when someone calls out of the blue to tell you you’ve been approved to get something for free. But not everyone is as savvy as y’all, which is what scammers depend on to make their money. [More]
13 TGI Fridays Restaurants Among Those Busted In NJ For Selling Cheap Booze As Premium Pours
By 5.23.13 — Updated: 5.24.13
You might not be surprised to find that a sketchy dive bar is refilling its empty bottles of liquor with cheaper booze, but many consumers probably don’t expect a chain restaurant to get involved in such underhanded hanky-panky. And yet, 15 of the 29 places caught in yesterday’s sting by New Jersey liquor regulators are outlets of national chain eateries — and almost all of those were TGI Fridays. [More]
Oklahoma Tornado Survivors Need Your Help, Scammers Don’t
By 5.22.13
24 people are confirmed dead, and many are still missing after a massive tornado destroyed homes and lives outside of Oklahoma City. Don’t let yourself become an indirect victim of the natural disaster by giving money to a fake charity or social media account set up to take advantage of well-meaning and generous people who want to help. [More]
Don’t Pay $100 Or More For A Certified Copy Of Your Deed: That’s Not A Thing
By 5.21.13
Are you a property owner? If someone sends you a solicitation or a bill asking for money in exchange for a copy of your deed, throw it away. That isn’t a thing. [More]
Scammers Pretend To Buy Gas Station, Hold Amazing Sale, Run Away
By 5.21.13
A strange gas station scam in Minnesota didn’t hurt customers, exactly: it benefited customers. The scam victim was the owner of the gas station, who thought that they had sold the place to credible new owners. Instead, after a glorious one-day sale with everything in the convenience store half off and gas about forty cents per gallon below the local market price, the sale collapsed. The owner says that the down payment check bounced, the buyers disappeared, and $50,000 in cash was missing…along with the gas and merchandise that local customers pounced on during that too-good-to-be-true sale. [More]
Psychic Takes Woman’s Life Savings To Repair Her Aura, Prevent Bad Things From Happening
By 5.17.13
We are not experts and any and all things paranormal, but perhaps auras are a thing, and perhaps it is possible for one person to repair another’s aura and prevent bad things from happening to them. However, it seems unlikely to us that it’s possible to do so by giving the “psychic” all of your savings and family heirlooms to watch over for you. And yet, someone tried this, and someone fell for it. [More]
Some Jiffy Lubes Still Charging Customers For Unnecessary And Undone Repairs
By 5.14.13
For years, Jiffy Lube employees around the country have repeatedly been accused — and sometimes caught — charging for repairs that weren’t necessary or weren’t even performed. The company has promised change, but that memo didn’t seem to reach everyone. [More]
No, You Can’t Pay Someone $700 To Get You On Oprah’s TV Shows
By 5.13.13
Maybe you’ve got a few things you’d like to weigh in on via a national show on a major network, like CNN or Oprah Winfrey’s eponymous entity. But believe us when we say, if the Rachael Ray people or Today want to get you on TV as an expert, it’ll be free. In other words, you shouldn’t be paying a PR firm hundreds of dollars to appear on talk shows. [More]
Add “Hijacking Customers’ Internet To File False Tax Claims” To List Of Cable Installation Worries
By 5.8.13
While there are plenty of cable servicemen doing awesome things like saving kittens and well, the normal business of installing Internet so we can read about kittens getting saved, one contractor kept himself involved in his customers lives in a less than savory way. In order to file a bunch of fraudulent tax returns, totaling about $91,000, he simply hooked himself up to customers’ Internet service after he’d installed it. [More]
When An International eBay Seller Says ‘Just Keep Waiting,’ Don’t Listen
By 5.7.13 — Updated: 4.1.14
I. calls the eBay scam that he encountered recently a “new” scam, but it’s actually an ancient and time-honored one. How it works is simple: an international seller claims to have sent your item, then stalls until after the period during which you can file a complaint against the seller has expired. This leaves you with no ability to leave bad feedback and no recourse, and eBay knows it. [More]
NY Shuts Down Sham Fundraising Company That Took In Millions Of Donations For Breast Cancer “Research”
By 5.3.13
Between 2005 and 2011, the Coalition Against Breast Cancer raised around $10 million in donations intended for research to combat the disease, but authorities say that no such research ever occurred, and all that money went to pay for a grand total of 40 mammograms in seven years. [More]
Posing As Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour To Scam Hospital For $100K In Treatment Is Not A Good Idea
By 5.1.13
Pretending to be a legend of rock in order to rack up a six-figure hospital bill may sound reasonable — to a crazy person — but it’s likely just going to end up with you in a whole mess of trouble. [More]
