It's 2021, and just like every previous year,
it seems like scammers are just becoming even more prevalent. So I'm going to go over in this video a bunch
of different scams that are either brand new that I really have never heard of, or that
are becoming at least more prevalent, even if they're not exactly new, so you still need
to be on the watch for them this year. So starting off, we have the so-called car
wrap scam.
And in this one, you'll either see some kind
of job posting, or maybe even get an email or see an advertisement for something that
claims to be able to pay you to just drive your car around. And the idea is that you'll answer this ad
and they'll say, "Yeah, all you have to do is put an advertisement car wrap logo on your
car, drive around like you normally would, and we'll pay you several hundred dollars
a week for that." If you accept this, they'll usually send you
a check that is a bogus check for a few thousand dollars. It will initially cash in the bank before
they realize it's fraudulent. But in the meantime, they will tell you, "Oh,
use this money and go to our supplier who's a specialist in car wraps, and just give him
the money and pay him and he'll handle it." And they'll tell you to do this in some way
that's not really reversible, like a wire transfer or a money order, something like
that.
At some point, probably not too long after
you make this payment to the so-called specialist, who just is part of the scam, then the bank
will realize that the check is fraudulent after a couple of days. And then they'll deduct that money out of
your account, because it never should have been deposited. So then you're out both the money that was
deposited from the check and whatever money you have sent to the scammer.
So you lost it all. So again, this is just another variation of
the fake check scam. Always be wary of any company that says, we're
going to send you a check and you go and use that to buy something. That's kind of sketchy. All right, next up, we have the so-called
family emergency scams. You may have heard of these. These have been around for a while, but apparently
they're becoming a lot more prevalent. With this one, you'll get a phone call claiming
to be a relative of yours, and they're in some kind of emergency that requires you to
give them money. This is often like they're out of town on
vacation and they just got arrested. They need money for bail, for example, is
a common one.
This scam frequently targets older people
and then they'll pretend to be grandkids. And they'll say, "Oh grandpa, grandma, I'm
in jail. I need a bail," whatever. And then they'll also say something like,
"Please don't tell mom and dad. They'll be so mad. Please just send the money over now, and I'll
sort it out and then tell them." And the idea is to get them to send the money
before confirming this story with anyone to find out if this person is even out of town
at all.
So they try to get you to urgently send the
money, for whatever reason. It's always very urgent. They need the money now. Maybe the hearing is tomorrow and they need
the money for a lawyer, or they need to get out of jail now, because I don't know, there's
scary people in jail, that sort of thing. And these scammers are more clever than you
may think. I saw one post where someone questioned why
they sound different. They're like, "You don't sound like my grandson." And they said, "Oh, well, I broke my nose
while being arrested, and that's the reason I sound different." So needless to say, if you ever receive a
phone call from anyone, even someone you know, claiming to need money right away, and you
need to wire the money or something else like that, it's best to, first of all, not answer
any phone call from a number you don't recognize, but at least verify the story somehow and
know that this is a scam going around, so if you do get a phone call from someone needing
bail, it probably is a scam.
All right, moving on, the next scam is fake
phone calls from people claiming to be Apple or Amazon support. This is basically a variation of the fake
order confirmation scams you may have heard of in the past. Usually this, up until now, they would have
been an email. They send you a fake order confirmation, and
they say to cancel this order, go in here.
And it's a phishing thing. Well, this is different. They actually call you up on the phone and
do a robocall. And they may say something like, "This is
Amazon support, and this is alerting you to an unauthorized purchase of an iPhone for
a thousand dollars. Press one to talk to customer service to cancel
this." And of course, if you pick up and you're like,
"Oh, I didn't order that," you press one, you talk to a scammer, and then they'll usually
ask for your credentials. They'll try to get your bank account number
to say, "Oh, to cancel this, we need your original credit card info," anything like
that. But just note that it's a scam. And actually, the FTC does have a couple sample
audio clips. I'll play one right now to kind of get an
idea of what this might sound like.
An unauthorized purchase of an iPhone XR 64
gigabytes for $749 is being ordered from your Amazon account. To cancel your order or to connect with one
of our customer support representative, please press one or simply stay on the line. So that's just one example for Amazon, but
apparently Apple is another one that scammers are using. They'll call you up, again with some kind
of robocall, and say something like there's unauthorized access to your iCloud account. Again, press one, or talk to customer service,
or call this number to access customer service. And then you go and you connect to a scammer. So if you get one of these phone calls, never
call the number that they tell you, just if you're really unsure about it, then go on
Amazon or Apple's official website and contact them through the official number listed on
the website, not some number that a phone call gives you, because it could be fake. As a side note, if you ever get a robocall
from this type of scam or any other, never press any numbers on the phone.
Just hang up right away. Because if they hear you press the number,
then they know now that it's a live working number and then that may be added to a list
and you'll start getting even more and more spam calls. So it's best to just not answer if you don't
recognize it and just hang up immediately when you realize it's a scam. All right, now the next type of scam is the
overpaid utility bill scam.
And with this one, you'll get some kind of
phone call, usually a robocall, maybe a voicemail, that'll say, "Hey, you overpaid your latest
electricity bill," or whatever. "And you're eligible for a cash refund. All you have to do is press one or call this
number to talk to customer service." It might not be a cash refund. They might say, "Oh, well, confirm it and
we'll apply a discount to your next bill." Something like that. Of course, when you press one or connect to
this customer service, who's actually the scammer, then they'll usually require some
kind of confirmation for the payment in the form of your bank account number, where to
deposit.
We need to know where to deposit the money,
or something like that, your personal information that they'll use to steal your identity, any
type of thing they'll be able to collect from you. And even in the best case scenario where it's
not an outright thief trying to steal your money away, at the best case scenario, it's
like a really sketchy marketing company trying to get you to switch to their crap utility
company, and they're basically still lying.
So you don't want to even interact with them. They're still using sketchy, lying marketing
tactics. So it's either a scam or someone you don't
want to deal with anyway. All right, moving on, I think we're onto number
five. We have the so-called package waiting scam. And what's new about this is they've been
actually sending out text messages, where previously it's a variation of kind of like
a fake order confirmation email you receive, like I mentioned before, but now you may start
getting text messages, and they may even know your first name or something from data brokers
and that sort of thing. And they'll say, "Oh, you have a package waiting
from USPS or from Amazon. Click this link to find out more and how to
receive it," that sort of thing. But then if you do click the link, it's going
to take you to what looks like a login page for probably Amazon or whatever website they're
saying they're from.
But of course, it's a phishing page and they're
going to immediately steal your credentials and then use it to order from your real account
and then take your money that way. But again, if you receive one of these, never
click the link. Even if you know it's a scam and you're curious
what the website's going to look like, don't do it, because they definitely have trackers
on those links to know who is clicking the links and who's not. And then you're going to start to get even
more text message spam because they know you're a working number. So just don't even do it. All right, next up, we have really a whole
category of scams, which are known as income scams generally. And these have become so much more prevalent
in the past year that even the FTC has started a new campaign to spread awareness, called
Operation Income Illusion, to let people know that these scams are becoming more common.
These scams come in all sorts of shapes and
sizes. Actually, that car wrap scan we talked about
in the beginning was basically a form of this. But usually you'll see some kind of job posting
or maybe an advertisement on social media. You may even get an email. And basically, it'll claim, oh, work from
home and you'll make all sorts of lots of money in a short amount of time. And it'll basically be something that's just
too good to be true. And regardless of the pretext they use to
get your attention, they may take your money in any sort of number of ways.
They may, again, do the fake check scam and
say, "Oh, for this job, you're required to go out and buy a printer or something from
our supplier." They may say it's an investment opportunity
or a business opportunity, "Oh, you'll start your own business and you'll be using our
proven business method," that sort of thing. And of course, you have to put your money
in, but you'll never, ever get anything out of it. But usually with these, the common thread
is they're going to require you to put in your own money up front somehow. And then, of course, they'll disappear right
after. I said several times, it's like a fake check
scam. So they'll kind of hide the fact that you're
using your own money, but really, you are.
Or maybe, again, it's like some kind of multi-level
marketing thing where you have to buy the product before you sell it. But with all of these, you can just ask yourself,
wait a minute, if they're going to say they're going to reimburse me for going out and buying
this thing, why don't they just go and buy it themselves? And that's obviously because it's a scam. All right, up next, the next category of scams
are coronavirus relief and stimulus scams. Basically, with the combination of the United
States tax season coming up and talk of stimulus bills, there's a lot of opportunities for
scammers to take advantage of people and trick them.
One common tactic is scammers will contact
you in any number of ways, whether it's email, text message, phone call, whatever, and they'll
say, hey, you're now eligible, congratulations, to get your stimulus check of $2,000, whatever. And all you need to do to claim it is XYZ. And then they can steal your money or personal
information in any number of ways after that. For example, they might say, "Hey, your coronavirus
check is ready.
We just need your bank information to deposit
it. Maybe your bank account number or your bank
login." And then of course they'll go in and drain
it, if they can. Or they may contact you and say, "Hey, to
even receive this coronavirus check, you're going to have to sign up to even be eligible. You're not signed up yet." And then they give you a link to some website,
of course, that is going to either steal your information and use it to steal your identity,
or they might, again, steal your bank login, stuff like that. If you're curious about whether or not you're
eligible to get some kind of stimulus or when, it's always best to just stick to official
news sources. I think there's plenty of news outlets out
there that are official for your local news or national news that will tell you and describe
who's eligible, if you have to sign up at all, I don't think you really have to, and
you don't have to rely on these sketchy emails that come and you don't know who they're from.
All right, now the final type of new scam
we're going to talk about are vaccine related scams. I'm not talking about the vaccine itself being
a scam, of course, but the FBI and state and local governments have said that scammers
have been using the vaccine as an excuse to lure people in to scam them in any number
of ways. And you may come in contact with these scammers
in any number of ways. You might see an advertisement on social media. You might get a text message, again, an email,
the ones we've talked about. And then if you click the link or respond
to the ad, they'll probably, for example, either try to get you to put in a whole bunch
of personal information, say, "Hey, to sign up to be put on the vaccine list, you have
to give us all your information, your social security number, your bank info for payment,"
anything like that. Or, they might say, "Oh, you need to put in
your credit card number to pay the processing fee." Another example I've heard is they may try
to say, "Hey, if you just pay us a fee, we'll get you to the front of the line.
You can get the vaccine first." Again, that's a scam. There's no way to pay to get to the front
of the line. Now, again, your state or local government
may actually have an official way to sign up to get the coronavirus vaccine, so always
go, though, to your official state or local government's website and look for information
on there about how to do that.
Don't be signing up by clicking on links for
social media or unsolicited emails you receive, but just be aware that it's a scam, so you
can kind of just double check if you get an email and double check that it did come from
an official source. And again, you can always just go on the official
website, and don't click any links, if you want to be sure. So hopefully now you're better prepared for
these scams that I mentioned that are more prevalent now, or you might be able to recognize
similar scams, say, hey, that sounds a lot like that other scam. It might just be a variation of it. And you can be well more prepared going forward. If you guys want to keep watching, I'd recommend
watching last year's video about new scams in 2020. Those scams have not stopped. They've not gone away. So you can even be more prepared by watching
that.
You can just click on that right there. So thanks so much for watching, guys, and
I'll see you in the next video..