Am collecting a list of common scams you want to avoid.
Random Stranger Asks for Charity Donation
Random stranger accosts you while walking up to a store or metro station and says they are collecting donations for a charity. They ask you to donate – and conveniently scan your ATM or credit card right there, and thank you for your donation. Except its all fake – and the $20 you told them to credit is secretly changed to $200 or $2000. Never donate to random solicitations.
Similarly, you may receive inbound phone calls from a “charitable organization” seeking donations. It sounds great – to serve the homeless, to help widows or family members of fallen firefighters or police officers, to raise money for treatment of cancer, etc.
Unfortunately, many of these are scams too. A former manager of mine uncovered an organization that raised millions for breast cancer issues – except, about 98% of the funds raised went to fund raising and the executives – one of whom lived in a $4 million water front property funded by his sky high salary from his personal non-profit. After my boss got the media involved in covering this story, the state finally shut down this charity. I had had calls from them seeking donations too. They used volunteers or minimum wage paid women who sincerely believe they were helping to address breast cancer issues – instead, they too were victims of the non-profit scammer.
Random Stranger Has a Personal Emergency and Can You Help?
You are grocery shopping and head out to your car. Some one tells you they need a few dollars – the story is typically something like “My mother in Seattle just got hospitalized and I need some money to travel to her. Could you give me $20?”. These are total scams. I have personally encountered these scammers many times. The newer form now has the scammer using a credit card swiper, like the above, and stealing your money: Police Warn Drivers About a New Grocery Store Parking Lot Scam That Can Drain Your Bank Account in Seconds
“My Car Broke Down”
A related form occurs at road side rest areas – “My car broke down” or “I’m almost out of gas and have no money” – could you spare $20? All have personally run into these scams many times. In one example, a guy walked up holding a broken fan belt and said his car broke down right there, conveniently at the rest stop and he needed money to buy a new fan belt. (The closest auto parts store was 20 miles away so that made little sense.)
In another example, there was a guy with his truck hood propped up, next to my car. As I returned from the rest room, my looking at his truck was the cause for him to start a conversation. He said he had been camping by himself in Yellowstone when his truck was broken into and they stole his camping gear and wallet. He’d driven this far but still had 150 miles to go. Only problem with that explanation? Assuming his truck gas tank was completely full when this occurred in Yellowstone, he’s somehow managed to drive a fuel inefficient well over 550 miles on one tank of gas. This was a scammer.
Your Credit Card Has Been Compromised Scam
You receive a phone call saying his is your bank calling and they have identified fraudulent activity on your card. They read you the first 8 digits of the card and then ask you to read the remaining digits and the expiration date … this makes it sound legit! They have half your card number! Except – the first 8 digits of the credit card number are publicly available bank identification number. If your credit card is with, say, Chase Bank, everyone who has a Chase Bank credit card has the same 8 digit number. They know nothing about your card that is private – but they use that to trick you in to giving them the rest of the information.
If you receive a call like the above, hang up and contact your bank directly.
Endless Invoices in Email for Things You Did Not Order
These are 100% scams – they send you an invoice for a subscription renewal or product purchase – that you never made. If any problems, you are to call their phone number – which is a scam call center in India, Pakistan, Malaysia or elsewhere – which will say they need your billing information, credit card account or bank information to issue a refund. Except once they have it, they then steal from your account.
Voter Registration Scam
I walked up to a US Post Office to mail a package. Standing outside, a couple of weeks before a local election, a guy with a clipboard was telling people that if they had not voted in the last local election, their voter registration had been canceled and you needed to re-register. Conveniently, he had forms right there you could use – which collected A LOT more personal data than was necessary. This was a scam ring that road light rail around the area and scammed people out of personal data that was used for identify theft. The news reported the scammers had shown up all over the area, always within 1 block of a light rail station – so they could come and go without anyone seeing an identifying vehicle to track them. After the news publicity, this scam died out.
Inbound Telephone Scams
I assume that all incoming phone calls – if not already in my approved contacts list – are scam calls and I no longer answer calls from unrecognized numbers. Unfortunately, even caller ID is now forged – thus, you can still be tricked into picking up a scam call. The safest thing to do is NEVER give out any information over the phone to any stranger calling you; avoid answering the calls, if you can.
Text Message Scams
About once per week I received a text like “Hi, haven’t heard from you in a while, are you okay?” Or, “Hey, I’ll be in the area, want to get together?”, or, “I just found your number in my contacts list – do you remember why we talked previously?” – always from phone numbers I do not recognize. These are scammers looking for potentially 2 things: (1) if you respond, you confirm your phone number is real, and (2) they may then engage in conversation to try and become your friend, and trick you into giving out something that they use against you.
Never reply to text messages from random people. Period. Report the # as “phishing” or “spam” and block the number.
