Scams, Scams, and More Scams
It seems like scams are everywhere. I don’t think a day goes by without getting some type of scam e-mail or text message. The scammers are getting smarter about their scamming. I can’t put together an exhaustive list of the active scams going around because there are too many, but I thought I’d share some of the most popular ones along with some tips to help you avoid being a victim.
Toll Scam
My wife and I take a lot of long driving trips. Since I bought my car four years ago, we have driven in 42 different states. That’s all of them except the four North/South states, Alaska, the two island states, and the corporate state. Along the way, we built a collection of toll tags for different states. It wasn’t a surprise when I got a text message about one of them.
But the text felt off. My tags are set for automatic payment — why would they be asking for money? They’ve always emailed me, not texted. Did I even give them my phone number? And why was the message from TxTag when my tag is through HCTRA?
It turns out the text was a scam. If I had clicked the link, it would have taken me to a very official-looking site designed to steal my credit card information.
Toll tag scams are hot right now. You don’t even need to own a toll tag — scammers blast fake warnings to anyone with a phone. If I hadn’t noticed the wrong toll authority or thought it odd they were texting, maybe I would have fallen for it.
The rule: Never trust a link you get by text or email. Instead:
Use the link saved in your password manager. If you don’t have a password manager yet, quit being an idiot and get one.
If the link isn’t in your password manager, hopefully you have a bookmark. Use it.
No bookmark? Search manually — but skip over "sponsored links," which scammers love to exploit. Better yet, install an ad blocker.
Don’t click on links sent to you via email, and especially not via text.
Jury Duty Scam
Are you 100% certain that you’ve seen and acted on every jury duty notice that you’ve been sent? Probably not. They’re easy to overlook. That’s why so many people fall for the jury duty scam. Like the Toll Tag Scam, it starts with a text message or a phone call saying that you not only failed to show up for jury duty, but that there is a warrant out for your arrest. The police are heading over right now. You’re going to jail. But wait, don’t panic, there is a way to stay out of jail. If you pay your fine right now, they’ll recall the cops. Everything will be forgiven. But act fast, because the police are almost there. No time to talk to your spouse. Forget about calling your lawyer. Pay the fine right now, or your mugshot will be on the news. It may sound silly when you’re calmly reading this, but when a very convincing scammer has tricked you into believing it, it sounds very scary. The truth is that you aren’t about to be arrested. You’re about to be fleeced. If you aren’t sure, hang up the phone, look up the phone number of the local police, and call them. Whatever you do, don’t send money to a stranger who claims to be the police.
Scammers often create a false sense of urgency. They don’t want to give you time to think. They also want you isolated. If someone is demanding money right now or if they are telling you that you can’t talk to anyone else, you’re probably dealing with a scammer.
And remember, the police aren’t going to call you to let you know they are on their way. Think about it for just a second. How stupid would that be? That would give you plenty of time to hop into your white Bronco and head out on the highway.
The Package Delivery Scam
I bet you ordered something online to be delivered recently. I’ve got a couple of things being shipped right now. If you get a text from UPS telling you that your package couldn’t be delivered, it seems believable. Don’t click on the link. I can’t emphasize this enough — don’t trust links that are sent to you. Go to the shipper’s website directly. If you click that link, bad things are going to happen.
The Job Offer Scam
Looking for a job? Watch out for job scams. These scams are cruel because they prey on vulnerable people, but that’s also why they work. The scams work by giving you what seems like a job offer, something you desperately want. But wait, there is a processing fee. You have to pay upfront for your drug test. As long as you keep paying them money, they’ll keep thinking up new things to charge you for. But real jobs don’t charge you fees. Employers pay you, not the other way.
The Reversal Scam
Oh, hey, I accidentally sent you $1,000 using Zelle/Venmo/Cash App. I’m so sorry. I meant to send it to my friend who desperately needs it right now. Could you send me $900 back and just keep the rest? But do it right now because my friend needs it for something critical. It might even seem to come from your real-life friend or relative. When you send the money, they’ll take it and run. But don’t you still have the $1,000? It turns out that the transaction was fraudulent, so it will be reversed, and the money will be pulled out of your account. But wait, I can just reverse mine for the same reason, right? Nope. You really did send them the money. The pretext was fraudulent, but from the bank’s perspective, the transaction wasn’t. Sorry. You just fell victim to the Reversal Scam. Don’t send money to reverse a transaction. If they sent you the money by accident, they can go through the system to have the transaction reversed. Tell them you’re sorry, but they’ll have to be more careful next time. Your momma didn’t raise no fools.
The Hotel Room Scam
You’re in your hotel room. You’re tired from a long day of travel. The front desk calls. They need you to update the credit card that they have on file for you. Only it isn’t the front desk. It’s a scammer who called the hotel and asked to be patched through to your room. If the hotel wants your credit card information, go down to the front desk and talk to them in person. Don’t give your credit card information to someone over the phone if they’re the one who started the phone call.
Relationship Scams
The scams I’ve already described are quick hitters. They want to quickly grab some of your cash and disappear. The next set of scams work by getting you to trust the scammer, maybe even fall in love with their persona. The scams evolve more slowly, but they can be the most devastating because they’ll bleed you dry. People have been known to liquidate their retirement accounts and even borrow against their homes to give these scammers money.
Romance Scam
A particularly cruel scam is the Romance Scam. These are scams in which someone seems to fall in love with you online. Sometimes it’s a match on a dating site. Sometimes it’s someone who meets you on a social media site. It can even start with a random text message. Regardless of how it starts, the “relationship” develops fairly quickly. They send you pictures. They text you daily. It feels great because someone finally appreciates the real you. But they can’t meet you because they are deployed overseas, working on an offshore rig, traveling for business, or some other reasonable-seeming excuse.
Once you’ve developed an attachment to your romance scammer, they encounter a problem in their life. They hate to ask, and maybe they don’t do it directly, but they need some money. They usually have plenty of their own money, but it’s tied up. If you’ll just send them a little now, they’ll pay you back. And if they think you’ve got a lot more to give, they may actually pay you back to build even more trust. But the requests will keep coming as long as you keep paying. And if you’re a lonely person who thinks that they’ve finally found love, you may be willing to pay quite a lot. Many people have given up their life savings and gone into debt to help their scamming romance partner.
If they send you pictures, go to
https://images.google.com/
and do a search based on that image. They often just steal images online. But scammers are getting smarter. Now they often use AI-generated images. In fact, some of these scammers are sophisticated enough to use deep fake video and audio so that the attractive young model who just happened to fall in love with a regular guy like you may be a dude living in Nigeria, even though you’ve chatted live over video with her. Be cautious about anyone whom you haven’t met in person. The scammers make Prince Hans look like an amateur, so don’t be like Princess Anna.
Of course, you can ask to meet in person. Even if they are scammers, they’ll agree. But the date will be far off (which is why “oil rig worker” is a common persona). But when the day finally comes, their mother will get sick (and need expensive medical treatment), a corrupt cop will arrest them (and they’ll need bail money), or some other calamity will happen. It’s a very common pattern.
And if they do want to meet in person, be careful. Meet someplace very public. Have a friend watch over you. I still remember a chilling story from the 1990s about an Aggie who went to meet the young girl “Kelly,” whom he met online. She turned out to be Kenny. And Kenny wasn’t a lovely young lady. He was a psycho murderer. Be skeptical. Don’t send money to people that you don’t know IRL (in real life). And be cautious about meeting strangers, even strangers whom you think you are in love with. This scam often preys on widows, widowers, and other lonely people, so watch out for people like that in your life. They are vulnerable, and these scammers can be very good at what they do.
Celebrity Scam
A popular spin-off of the Romance Scam is the Celebrity Scam. My wife regularly gets friend requests from Ryan Reynolds. She declines them. I think she’s holding out for Chris Hemsworth. It may start as a friend request out of the blue. It may start with you commenting on a celebrity’s social media post, followed by the celebrity sending you a private message. However it gets started, you are so excited to be talking with one of your favorite celebrities that your brain shuts off its usual skepticism. The scammers are also clever. They’ll tell you that you can’t say anything because their agent doesn’t want the public to know. They can’t use their official account because of publicity rules. They’ll use creative excuses, but they’ll almost always have one thing in common - everything has to be kept secret.
But how does someone pretending to be a celebrity scam you out of money? Who is dumb enough to send money to a wealthy celebrity? You’d be surprised. You’ll learn that their money is tied up in investments. Their accounts are being closely watched, and they need you to pay the money this time to preserve the secrecy of your relationship. They’ll come up with some reason, and it will sound plausible. But it won’t seem too bad. After all, they’re rich, and the thousands you send now will be nothing compared to the millions they are going to spend on you real soon now. The simple rule here is to never send money to millionaires. It seems crazy to have to say that. If they need money, send them a lottery ticket. There is a much better chance that it is a winning ticket than the chances that you have a secret friendship with a superrich celebrity who needs your money.
Pig Butchering Scam
Sometimes scammers scam you without ever asking you for money. I’m talking about the Pig Butchering Scam. It’s like the Romance and Celebrity scams in that the scammer takes the time to build a relationship with you. It’s different in the sense that they never ask you for your money.
It might even start as a Romance Scam or a Celebrity Scam, but with no request for money. More often, it starts with a random text message or online comment. Someone wants to talk to you. Innocent questions or comments follow. You start regularly talking to this person. They’re interesting. They’re successful. They’re slowly building your trust that they aren’t a scammer. And then they want to shift the conversation over to WhatsApp or some messaging platform that, oh by the way, supports group chats. And then your new friend invites you to a group chat with some of their other friends. And on the group chat, a common topic of conversation is how much money they are making from crypto trading. After a couple of weeks of hearing how much money your new friends are making, you want in on the action. After all, nobody is pressuring you, but these people are making some serious cash, and it looks easy. So you ask how, and they happily help get you started. And your first few trades are successful. This is easy. You are making money. It’s not a scam after all. So you go in big. You put in a large chunk of your savings, maybe all of it, and maybe even borrowed money. And then, poof, it all disappears.
Everything was fake. Your “friend” was a scammer. The group chat was a group of scammers. The crypto trading was rigged so that you’d win some small stakes bets to get you to make a large stake bet. You were fattened up and slaughtered. Don’t invest in things that seem too good to be true. Don’t invest in things that you don’t understand. Don’t trade crypto. Even if the people around you seem to be getting rich doing it.
Even More Scams
There are so many more scams. Fake Ticket Scams. Grandma, I’ve Been Kidnapped Scams. GoFundMe Scams. The Tech Support Scam. The IRS Scam (the one where people pretend to be the IRS, not just the IRS in general). Sextortion scams. There is a simple rule to avoid that one — never take pictures of your naughty bits. If you do, just assume that everyone will eventually see them. Maybe the person you sent it to is a scammer. Maybe your boyfriend shared them with his friends. Maybe your computer security isn’t as good as you think. Assume that they’ll get out. But that can’t happen if you don’t do it in the first place.
Some scams are hard to avoid. You pull up at a parking meter on the street. It no longer takes coins. There’s a sticker on the meter with a QR code you can use to pay online. Is it a real sticker? If you ignore it, you’ll get a parking ticket. Or maybe it’s a scammer’s sticker covering the real one. If you use it, you’ll be giving your credit card info to the scammer. Oh, and you’ll still get a parking ticket. How do you know which is which? Beats me.
Here are my general tips for avoiding being scammed.
Don’t click on links that come via text or email. The same is true for calls. If they call you, hang up and call them using your bank’s real phone number. And shame on all of you banks and financial companies that warn us not to click links, and then you send messages with links in them. What the heck is wrong with you?
Slow down. If someone is trying to rush you, it’s probably a scam.
When in doubt, ask a friend. Don’t let them isolate you. If they are trying to prevent you from talking to other people, it’s probably a scam.
Don’t send money to people you’ve never met.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I know this is ancient advice, but it’s still very true.
If someone is asking you to pay with gift cards, Zelle, or crypto, it’s probably a scam. If you have any doubts at all, pay with a credit card (not a debit card).
Use unique passwords for each account; complex ones that are stored in a good password manager.
Set up all of your credit cards to immediately send you a text whenever a purchase is made on your card. At least this way, you’ll catch scammers sooner and hopefully limit the damage.
My Recent Experience
A couple of weeks ago, I got a text message saying that I spent $449 on Amazon. No, I hadn’t. I checked with my wife. She hadn’t either. I logged into my credit card account, and there was the charge, a $449 purchase at Amazon. I checked my Amazon account to see what it was for, and there was nothing in my orders. Odd. So I called the credit card company to figure out what was going on.
Someone had ordered a PlayStation 5 on my card. What was strange is that this was with my Amazon Store Card. I shredded the card years ago. How could someone have gotten the card number? I have no idea, but I reported it as fraud, and they agreed to send me a new card with a new number. Great. But we weren’t done.
They made the change easy, too easy. As soon as they issued the new card, they updated my Amazon account for me so that I could use it even before getting the new card in the mail. Great. Or so I thought. When I got the new card, I logged into my account to see that everything was set up properly. Lo and behold, there was already another PlayStation 5 purchase, plus some Propel drink mix, and a home safe. At least the scammer is safety-conscious. How did the scammer get the new credit card number before I even had a chance to use it? When they sent the number to my Amazon account to automatically update it for me, they did the same for the scammer. Seriously. How stupid do you have to be to send the updated card number to the account that committed the fraud? Now I have them removing four fraudulent transactions, and I’m canceling the account. Sigh.
UPDATE: I wrote that last paragraph yesterday. I got a call this morning that the replacement card replacing the first replacement card has already been used fraudulently. That’s the third card in just a few weeks. It appears that they once again updated the scammer’s Amazon account so that the scammer could continue to use it. I canceled the card. I’m done with Synchrony.
Good luck out there. Be careful who and what you trust. Slow down. Ask for a second opinion. Don’t panic. Don’t click on links sent to you. And if you feel compelled to send someone money online, send it to me and not some scammer.