Scams

[jcole]

Never click on an email link from PayPal; they don't send out emails with the link in them. Most reputable banks and credit unions don't either. They will tell you to go to your account and enter your password

[Pam]

I've gotten about five calls in the past couple of days from a robot claiming to be from Amazon.

[Honky Tonk]

I've gotten about five calls in the past couple of days from a robot claiming to be from Amazon.

How do you know it was a robot? How do you know it wasn't some guy pretending to be a robot?

[oladub]

A big scam I came across: In Florida senior living is more of a thing. There are huge retirement communities offering all sorts of specialized services to seniors. One of these retirement sites a relative was at had combined independent living, assisted living, private housing, and an in house nursing home all in one complex of over 800 residents. All the money spent on housing is deemed a medical expense for tax purposes Because medical help is available, A small independent living apartment was something like $1,800/month, per person, with some meals and available medical help. The larger the living unit, the more the expense. There was also a non refundable, after four years, $80,000 entrance fee. On the other side, if someone went into a nursing home, that original $1,800/month remained so there was a built in nursing home coverage included. If someone richer was paying $3,200/month for a separate house that cost also stayed in effect.

Getting to the scam part. The entire cost, the prorating of the original $80,000 and the monthly fees were considered by tax law to be medical expenses and the higher income one was, the more they could deduct from their federal income taxes. Think of it like this - If someone paid $2,000/month and were in the 15% income tax bracket, they could deduct $3,600/year. If they were in a 37% income tax bracket, they could deduct $8,880 from their annual income tax for the same 'medical' expenses. The higher income one was, the more they could deduct from their income taxes. It made me wonder how many other little hidden tax advantages wealthy people have that middle income people never bump into.

[jiminnm]

Getting to the scam part. The entire cost, the prorating of the original $80,000 and the monthly fees were considered by tax law to be medical expenses and the higher income one was, the more they could deduct from their federal income taxes. Think of it like this - If someone paid $2,000/month and were in the 15% income tax bracket, they could deduct $3,600/year. If they were in a 37% income tax bracket, they could deduct $8,880 from their annual income tax for the same 'medical' expenses. The higher income one was, the more they could deduct from their income taxes. It made me wonder how many other little hidden tax advantages wealthy people have that middle income people never bump into.

Except that one can only deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of one's adjusted gross income.

[Jimaz]

Local Romance Scams on the Rise

• Reverse Image Search [[click the camera icon)

[Jimaz]

Years ago I was online at a news site, and I randomly thought about buying new flannel shirts. Within a matter of minutes, a pop-up ad for flannel shirts was there.
Needless to say, I freaked out. The scariest coincidence I ever had!

I just heard on the radio that Google is planning to back out of tracking people to target specific ads. Apparently it's because the practice is so unpopular. At the end of the story they said "There will still be ads and even tracking but it will be more general."

Oh great. People are annoyed at the practice so they're just going to make it more stealthy.

[Jimaz]

CVS consistently offers a "buy one get one half off" deal on an expensive item but consistently stocks only one of the items on the shelf.

Yesterday they must have scanned the item twice because the receipt shows they gave me half off the second item that I did not — could not — purchase, which of course means that they charged me the other half [[$8.74) for nothing.

[Wheels]

CVS consistently offers a "buy one get one half off" deal on an expensive item but consistently stocks only one of the items on the shelf.

Yesterday they must have scanned the item twice because the receipt shows they gave me half off the second item that I did not — could not — purchase, which of course means that they charged me the other half [[$8.74) for nothing.

I find the same issue at cvs except I take the one item to the register and tell them it is the only one and they give me 25% off every time. It’s more of a game then a total scam. Try it next time.

[Zacha341]

Some hinky scam-nut case with a very strong accent called to inform me that my Paypal had been hacked. A few probing questions garnered a fast hang-up on their part. I called the local number back and a man [[w/o an accent) answered saying he'd been getting calls all day.

Soooo, it seems the scammers have technology to use others phone numbers or so it seems. I blocked the number.

I've received crank emails from my own email account a few years back!

[Jimaz]

Moving Company Scam Gets Five Arrested

Once they have your stuff, they can hold it hostage.

• Las Vegas police: Scam carried out by employees of moving companies leads to 5 arrests

[Jimaz]

Spam: A History of Phishing

The concept of Spam appeared and evolved with the growth of computer networks and the internet, before becoming the large-scale often criminal enterprise that it is today.

[Jimaz]

The Influencer Hustle

This time I'm talking about how the marketing industry is hungrily flipping YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, Snapchatters and so on into salespeople; how influencer marketing is full of deception, bots, and dodgy data; and how the influencer bubble is, in my opinion, set to inflate and deflate.

[Former_Detroiter]

The Yes Scam:

You receive a call from someone who wants you to say “yes” by asking questions like, “is this___?” Or, “can you hear me?”. If you respond with a “yes”, the scammer creates a recorded voiceprint of the response and then uses this recording to pose as you for carrying out their schemes.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Right! Then I hang up and block/ delete the number. But they seem to have plenty to call from.

[Jimaz]

California man loses half his savings in Bank of America transfer scam

As we've reported, hackers have been stealing unemployment benefits off thousands of EDD debit cards during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, scammers are using the "fear" of that fraud to lure their victims. It cost one man half his life savings.

He recovered it.

So he should have initiated a call to his bank to confirm the first call before doing anything, right? Wrong. Even that might be a scam:

The Scary New "Delayed Disconnect" Phone Scam

So you need to call anyone other than your bank first. If that person pretends to be your bank, you know it's a fraud.

Life never used to be this complicated. What went wrong?

[Jimaz]

This link's from Pennsylvania but WWJ reported it's happening here in Michigan too.

Authorities warn seniors of Medicare scam phone calls

Seniors across the country are receiving robocalls that claim to be from Medicare. Some calls are from people claiming to be “patient advocates,” giving warnings like: “If you do not act soon, then Medicare may label you as ineligible for coverage.”

But it’s a scam, according to the AARP. The fake calls have hit more than 60 million Americans. “These are sophisticated criminals,” says Kathy Stokes, the director of fraud prevention programs at AARP. “In this process, the caller is asking for your Medicare number.”...

Medicare never randomly calls looking for money or offering test kits. “Know that that’s a scam because that’s not how it works. Your doctor has to prescribe durable medical equipment or surgeries or test kits, and without that prescription, you can’t get this stuff,” Stokes says.

[Jimaz]

Fake Landlords Running Rampant in Detroit

And very few of them are ever brought to justice for it.

[Jimaz]

More than half of retail businesses are using inflation to price gouge

As the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation has surged in recent months affecting both retailers and consumers gearing up for the holidays.

In November, Digital.com surveyed 1,000 retail owners and executives to discover how inflation is impacting profitability, pricing, and discount offers this shopping season.

Our findings revealed that more than half of retail businesses are using inflation to drive up prices higher than what’s necessary to offset increased costs.

Key Findings

• 56% of retail businesses say inflation has given them the ability to raise prices beyond what’s required to offset higher costs
• Over half of retailers have increased prices by 20% or more on average
• 52% of businesses are offering fewer or no discounts this holiday season
• Shrinking discounts and increasing price of complementary products are most popular ways businesses are driving up prices

• Michigan Department of Attorney General — Complaints

[Jimaz]

Why Are Meat Prices So High?

• Meat Packers’ Profit Margins Jumped 300 Percent During Pandemic: White House Economics Team

Profiteering indeed. Naomi Klein predicted this at the start of the pandemic.

[jcole]

And all this stuff about other shortages is nothing more than someone try to sell more product at a higher price. I won't say ALL, but a lot

Why Are Meat Prices So High?

• Meat Packers’ Profit Margins Jumped 300 Percent During Pandemic: White House Economics Team

Profiteering indeed. Naomi Klein predicted this at the start of the pandemic.

[Jimaz]

Now I'm hearing that many people with good credit scores are paying way too much interest on auto loans. When asked why lenders are doing that the response was simply because they can.

Shop around.

[Jimaz]

The New Jury Duty Arrest Warrant Scam

It's a new twist on the scam asking you to pay off your "fines" with gift cards.

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Also I've noticed phishing emails have been getting more sophisticated recently. They're paying closer attention to the tell-tale grammatical errors. Now they thank you for your recent purchase {which you did not purchase} and offer you a way to contact them if this "purchase" was in error. There are other subtle giveaways but I don't want to train their bots here.

I've safely ignored several of these and found no evidence of these "purchases" in my bank statements.

If they attempt to create a sense of urgency, don't bite.

[jcole]

Another tell tale sign is if the "Amazon" invoice in the email is a photo and not editable. You can usually see where they changed info and turned it into a jpeg

The New Jury Duty Arrest Warrant Scam

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Also I've noticed phishing emails have been getting more sophisticated recently. They're paying closer attention to the tell-tale grammatical errors. Now they thank you for your recent purchase {which you did not purchase} and offer you a way to contact them if this "purchase" was in error. There are other subtle giveaways but I don't want to train their bots here.

I've safely ignored several of these and found no evidence of these "purchases" in my bank statements.

If they attempt to create a sense of urgency, don't bite.

[Jimaz]

Another tell tale sign is if the "Amazon" invoice in the email is a photo and not editable. You can usually see where they changed info and turned it into a jpeg

Okay, thanks.

Just to make sure I understand, do you mean that a jpeg of text would be a red flag? Yes. Any legitimate system would just produce text.