Author Archives: virginiasmp

Soon after Amy Gray, a 47-year-old public school teacher in Akron, Ohio, had her purse stolen last January from her workplace — an employment skills program for students housed at a mall — she received a bank alert that someone was using her credit and debit cards. She quickly canceled the cards and ordered replacements.Continue reading “Why Criminals Want Your Driver’s License”

What’s one of the best ways to spot a scam? Know how scammers tell you to pay. Scammers want you to pay them in ways that are hard to trace and hard to get your money back: like through a gift card, wire transfer, payment app, or cryptocurrency. Here, we’ll focus on that last one — cryptocurrency — andContinue reading “Did someone insist you pay them with cryptocurrency?”

Flooding problems may lead to scam artists attempting to pawn off flood-damaged vehicles as standard secondhand cars. These vehicles typically show up at auto auctions, used car dealerships, and classified ads. Unsuspecting consumers, particularly those living in regions of the country unaffected by hurricanes or flooding, are often fooled by fresh upholstery, new carpeting, and bargainContinue reading “10 Tip to avoid buying flood damaged cars”

Last month, two men were arrested in Fayetteville, Georgia, after authorities reportedly found 211 pieces of stolen mail in their possession, including 151 personal checks worth almost $50,000. They’d swiped the stash from a large blue mailbox in front of the Fayetteville post office, according to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office. (Read More)

Scammers are at it again, this time pretending to be “Sheriff’s deputies” and threatening to arrest doctors, physician assistants, and nurses for missing a court date. So how do you spot this scam? The scam begins with a phone call from someone who says they’re a Sheriff’s deputy. He’ll say you missed a court dateContinue reading “Impersonation scam targets doctors, nurses, and other medical providers to steal money”

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”