Author Archives: virginiasmp

People often find that the cost of high-demand items skyrockets during emergencies, such as ice storms, severe cold snaps, power outages, hurricanes, floods or other types of disasters. Better Business Bureau often receives reports about the frequency of scams involving sought-after items, such as high prices on gas, water, or hotel rooms after a natural disaster. Some stateContinue reading “BBB Tip: False advertising, price gouging is unfair, illegal”

Suburban Detroit resident Lisa Turner, 47, is a veteran concertgoer who’s been to more than 1,000 shows over the past few decades — somehow managing to find tickets to performances by wildly popular artists like Billy Joel, Elton John and the Rolling Stones. So when her teenage daughter was eager to see the hottest tourContinue reading “How to Avoid Sports and Concert Ticket Scams”

Tanya Grant will serve 80 months in prison for a health care fraud scheme in which she purchased lists of Medicare patient names from companies overseas. She then billed Medicare for purportedly supplying these patients with durable medical equipment. In many cases, Medicare was billed even though no equipment was shipped. Grant forged physician ordersContinue reading “Medical Equipment CEO Sentenced”

People are reporting a new twist on a banking imposter scam targeting the military. In this latest con, imposters call servicemembers and pretend to be from or working with DFAS (for us civilians, that’s the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, a Department of Defense agency that handles getting pay to servicemembers). Here’s how the scam plays out.Continue reading “Servicemembers: DFAS is Not Calling You about Your Pay”

Maybe you bought a timeshare at a resort a while back and have found you don’t have the time or inclination to use it or are growing tired of paying the rising annual maintenance fee. Those are valid reasons for wanting to relinquish your timeshare, but they also make you a prime target for timeshare exit scammers,Continue reading “How Timeshare Exit Scams Work – and How to Avoid Them”

You can protect yourself from data breaches, hackers and scammers in loads of ways. But always use three basic tenets for the passwords that multiply with every site you visit. • Don’t share them. • Change them often. • Don’t leave them lying around. Beyond the basics, the real key to building and managing yourContinue reading “5 Ways to Build Better Passwords”

John Grisham, Rob Wilburn, and Richard Speights Jr. have been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive health care kickbacks, resulting in the submission of over $107 million in false and fraudulent genetic testing claims to Medicare. The defendants allegedly owned and operated a genetic testing laboratory, Trinity ClinicalContinue reading “Men Charged in Health Care Kickback Scheme”

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, you or your friends might be thinking about love. But not everyone is — some are just looking to get into your pockets. Read on so you can spot and report scammers before they trick someone you care about out of money. Romance scammers might contact you onContinue reading “Did Your Dating App Match Just Ask You for Money? “

Smelling huge profits in targeting older Americans, organized gangs —the underworld syndicates that once focused on drug trafficking, gambling and other high-profile crimes —are increasingly entering the consumer fraud business, according to interviews with several law enforcement officials. These syndicates, often based overseas, are using impersonation, intimidation and, in rarer cases, violence to steal fromContinue reading “Organized Crime Gangs Earn Big Bucks in Shift to Fraud”

Gabriella Santibanez and Lisa Hazard pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit over $7 million in health care fraud. Court documents show that they ran a mobile phlebotomy company, PhlebXpress Inc., that provided phlebotomy and other medical collection services at patients’ homes and long-term care facilities. They agreed to bill Medicare for services provided that wereContinue reading “Owners of Mobile Phlebotomy Company Plead Guilty”