Scam Squad

May 25, 2019 - BEWARE OF PEOPLE YOU MEET ON THE INTERNET AND ESPECIALLY FACEBOOK who try to get you interested in applying for a free GOVERNMENT GRANTS. There are many scams out there right now where people you meet on social media sites will try to get you to apply for grant money. They say it's free, but then end up charging you hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for fees such as shipping and handling fees, processing fees, IRS fees, etc. Vicki says that if you have to pay out money for things like that up front in order to get grant money, then it is a scam. Listen to this amazing interview with the poor, broken hearted victim of this horrible scam.

Learn how to protect against your bank accounts from being drained out by crooks who obtain your personal information.

Beware of fake police and sheriff's department calls about owing for back traffic fines where the caller keeps you on your cell phone the entire time while having you get green dot cards or similar money vouchers. The crooks know how to spoof their telephone numbers to show up on your cell phone as law enforcement agencies. Listen to the podcast to learn how to detect and prevent scams.

Beware of door-to-door contractors knocking on your door trying to talk you into repair or cleanup jobs. Also, beware of out of town contractors that call you at home with too good to be true low cost repairs and cleanup work. There is a high risk of them being a crook.

Two different incidents last week where crooks stole social security numbers from private medical records and were able to steal two different people out of their entire life's savings bank accounts.

Be on guard against Robo Calls that are Impostor Scams that pretend to be the IRS, police, utilities, and other entities trying to pressure you into acting too quickly to resolve some threat they make up such as threat they will arrest you, or cut off your water, or take you to court unless you send them green dot cards or cash immediately.

There are so many IRS scams today, mostly because it is so easy to hack into tax preparation services computers and steal sensitive data on you. Expert Laurel Sykes tells Patti and the rest of us about the leading types of IRS scams now being thrown at us at the peak and frenzy time of the tax season.

Telephone scammer picks the wrong victim, a former CIA and FBI dept head, and gets extradited and a lengthy prison sentence

Beware of calls from fake utility collections reps. Crooks saying that you haven't paid your utility bill will try to get you to send them money asap under the threat of cutting off your utilities. Learn what to do.

Beware of unrealistic low priced rental ads you see on Craigslist and other scam plagued housing rental sites. Chances are a crook who are not the real landlords are trying to get you to send money to them instead of the real property owner.