Scam Squad

This week Patti and Kristina tell you about a tricky vintage car scam, followed by some recent new scams as well as anti-scam methods you can use.

Scam Squd - Dec 14 - Insuarance Fraud by Hub for Podcasting

This week, Patti and Kristina have special guest, Crimnologist Judy Yates who will explain some very clever computer scams.

The Holidays are here and Patti and Kristina are here to tell you all about the latest Christmas Shopping scams, as well as the old standard ones, that you're likely to encounter this holiday season.

This week hosts Patti Teel and Deputy District Attorney Kristina Perkins interview a recent victim of a credit card scam during her wedding brunch. Learn how to protect yourself from being scammed by phony travel agencies you find on internet searches.

Patti and Kristina discuss a reoccurrence of the Process Warrant Scam in Santa Barbara. Learn how to detect and deal with it.

This week, hosts Patti Teel and Deputy District Attorney Kristiana Perkins tells us about two old scams that are making the rounds again. The IRS Scam and the Magazine Subscription Scam. It can be very easy to be taken by either of these scams, so please do not miss this episode.

This week Patti and Kristina interview a person who had the old Summons Scam tried on them, with some interesting new twists. Fortunately, she didn't fall for it. Find out exactly what saved the person from becoming a victim of the scammer. Very interesting show.

This week, hosts Patti Teel and Deputy District Attorney Christina Perkins interview Shawn Dyer, Chief Fraud Specialist at Montecito Bank and Trust, about Check Fraud and how to spot and prevent it.

This week, Host Patti Teel and Deputy District Attorney Christina Perkins introduce us to the D.A.'s County Consumer Protection Unit. The local County Consumer Protection Unit mostly deals with consumer complaints from local businesses that falsely advertise or defraud customers. This type of consumer protection is different from most of the typical online, phone, text, and email scams that Scam Squad talks about. You won't want to miss hearing about this great consumer complaint resource.

In this episode, the County of Santa Barbara DA’s Consumer Protection Unit won a default judgment against the company, Sun Fire Defense, who were ordered to pay 2.5 million in penalties and 2.5 million dollars in restitution. In an injunction, the company was also ordered to stop making a number of claims which were proven false. Sun Fire Defense claimed that its exterior coating product, SPF 3000, would protect homes from fires and also claimed that the coating could extinguish flames. Experts tested both treated and untreated wood and found that the untreated wood and the treated wood performed about the same. The product also contains chemicals that California law presumes to be hazardous because they are toxic. The false claims were particularly egregious because it triggered people’s fear following the Thomas Fire in December 2017.