Exposing Scams

Typically I write about internet scams.   Today I will depart from the internet to address a letter I got via "snail mail", or as I like to call it the daily delivery of "pre-recycled paper".  The letter offer me a free membership in some club that has the secret to all things seemingly.  They offer the secret to winning at gambling, having better sex, getting people to do what you want and etc. Read Full Story

STAYING SAFE — “ America ’s Crime Prevention Column” with Bruce Mandelblit Over the last year or so, Congress has passed a series of bills that will, hopefully, offer some type of relief to some families facing the threat of home foreclosure. Sadly, however, there are ruthless con artists using our country’s weak housing market and credit crisis to try to rip-off millions of cash-strapped Americans. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), fraudulent foreclosure “rescue... Read Full Story

A band of brazen thieves ripped off hundreds of New Yorkers by rigging ATMs to steal account and password information from bank customers. (see video below) They used the pilfered info to swipe half a million dollars from their victims' bank accounts - the latest twist in increasingly aggressive identity-theft scams, police said They sauntered into Staten Island branches on Henderson Ave. and Amboy Road and installed devices on the bank's ATM machines, police said. The first - a skimmer... Read Full Story

I got an email from someone i don't know.  The email claims the person is  to be trying to send me a check for $550,000 but I need to pay $150 processing fee.   This is a scam.   If you got an email similar to this just delete it.  First off why would someone you do not know send you over half a million $$$$.  They wouldn't.   Next would a legitimate company really let  a $150 handling fee get Read Full Story

I recently received a call from Mary, a wise, soft spoken woman who reported that a "nice looking, clean-cut young man" had recently knocked at her door claiming to be a phone company representative who urged her to let him come inside her home to "explain the many new services" his company was offering homeowners in her neighborhood. Mary believed this was a con and wasn't about to fall for it. She was right. He persisted in his attempts to get her to open the door and let him share what he... Read Full Story

A tactic employed by several sites to get you to enter you email address is to offer a qualification check.   This check provides the appearance of legitimacy since it pretends that only some people will qualify.   I have tested these with my name :    Firstname: scams    last Name : xposed    address :  1234 any    And so on.   I ALWAYS qualify, even using made up credentials.   What do I get Read Full Story

PULSE Kicks off Awareness Month with ATM and Debit Card Safety Recommendations June is ATM & Debit Card Safety Awareness Month; PULSE Offers Tips to Help Protect Consumers HOUSTON--( BUSINESS WIRE )--To launch its annual ATM & Debit Card Safety Awareness Month, PULSE today released tips designed to help keep consumers safe and secure while using debit cards at ATMs and point-of-sale terminals. Debit  continues to be a convenient and secure way to make purchases, and informed... Read Full Story

We've all, at some point, received that famous email from a Nigerian scammer asking us to electronically wire a few thousand dollars to him in order to process our previously undiscovered inheritance, or some such nonsense. While most of us just shake our heads and laugh with incredulity at these attempts, a huge number of people do, still, actually fall for such scams. Well, now people are fighting back. "Scambaiting" is all the rage. It's the new practice of actually responding to the... Read Full Story

After pleading guilty last year, two Nigerians and a French citizen were sentenced by a New York federal judge to jail Thursday for scamming $1.2 million through email. One of the men, Nnamdi Chizuba Anisiobi, 31, of Nigeria, was sentenced to 87 months in prison. The others, Anthony Friday Ehis, 34, of Senegal, and Kesandu Egwuonwu, 35, of Nigeria, each got 57 months. The three men were arrested in Amsterdam in early 2006 by law enforcement authorities after the U.S. Postal Inspection... Read Full Story

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN A LUXURIOUS... 2- BEDROOM HOME FOR ONLY SEVEN- HUNDRED BUCKS A MONTH? SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? IT IS. IT'S A RENTAL SCAM. JEFF MAHER UNCOVERED IT. HE'S LIVE NEAR SAN ANTONIO AND SAN PEDRO -- JEFF. IT'S A GREAT LOCATION, IT'S A GATED COMMUNITY -- AND THE DEAL COULDN'T BE BETTER. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SEND OFF 11- HUNDRED DOLLARS.. THEN YOU'LL GET YOUR KEYS IN THE MAIL AND YOU CAN MOVE RIGHT IN. YEAH -- RIGHT. THE AD ON CRAIGSLIST IS TEMPTING. IT SAYS PASTOR... Read Full Story