Never in my lifetime have I seen so many threats to a family’s financial stability. Every day we see warnings about the latest scams. The warnings are just words until you have experienced a shocking loss because of a scam.
One of the most recent scams is emails almost daily that say you have won something from Costco, Walmart, Sam’s, etc. Then when you open the email it asks for all your personal information including a credit card number. The email usually says your account will only be charged for shipping and handling. Then the person waits and waits and waits for the item to arrive, it might be vacuum cleaner, a tablet, even a large item like a microwave. THE ITEM NEVER ARRIVES Then a month or so down the line you start seeing charges to your credit card you did not authorize. Then you immediately cancel the card and get a new one and change the passwords and use a multiple id system.
I saw an ad on Craigslist for a exceptionally clean golf cart for $2700 located in Green Valley, AZ. I answered the ad and had a conversation on the phone with the supposed seller. He said he was in Chicago but owned a winter place in Green Valley, AZ and needed the cart gone out of his garage because he needed the room when he arrived there. He said if I would send the money via PayPal he would in turn give me the code to his garage as soon as he received the money into his account. I looked up his Facebook account and read about him, and it seemed like he was ok. He was an Asian male that looked to be in his thirties. I sent the money via PayPal. I called him the next morning, he said that PayPal was holding the money and said they could hold it up to two weeks if they wanted. He said they said they would probably hold it three days. I ask for the code, he said no I want to wait until they release the money. I read on the internet about PayPal holds and it did not sound good. I called PayPal, they said they were not holding that guy’s money , he got it right when you sent it. I tried calling him again but he did not answer. Fortunately the money I used to fund the PayPal came from my American Express Account. I called American Express and explained the transaction. The fraud division took all the information and said if you do not hear back from us within 60 days, you will not have to pay the $2700 we took it off of your account. They were able to trace the guy through his phone and Facebook account so I guess they might have been able to recover the money? If you use Mastercard, VISA, or American Express and fraud occurs, generally you do not have to pay it back they track it down.
Another fraud technique it to go on line to County Property Records and select a property. After they select a property and get all the information they list it with a real estate agent and in some cases actually sell the property and collect the money. The true owner of the property does not discover their property has been sold until they check with the County where they live or they see other people trying to occupy your property. This technique has been used on summer hones where the people are only there a portion of the year. There is a service called LIFELOCK that costs about $20 a month that monitor your property records to make sure only you are selling it. It is well worth it.
People get multiple calls daily from companies they never heard of asking for information and offering everything from insurance, solar panels, internet, investment opportunities All of these inquiries are for the purpose of getting your personal information so they can at some point take money from your credit card or bank account.
BEWARE OF SCAMS!