Top Scams
Protect yourself from the latest scams
Investment, mortgage, Internet, and other kinds of fraud are on the rise

1.This solar-energy system pays for itself,
cutting your bills by $1,000 a year
A new twist on the home-improvement scam targets
folks who want to cut their energy bills with rooftop
solar panels or windmills. Solar energy, of course,
can reduce your electric bill. But making the big up-
front investment is the equivalent of paying for 30 to
40 years of electricity in advance. And lots of
variables can confound payback, including living
where cloudy weather is commonplace or in the
shadow of towering trees, terrain, or nearby tall
buildings.
Solar-panel scams. Consumers unfamiliar with
those caveats give double-dealers an opportunity to
lowball costs and talk up savings. The promised
best-case scenario can lure you into paying a big
deposit to a contractor who skips town or otherwise
never delivers the system or savings. Some victims
have been burned for several thousand dollars.
Home-improvement companies are the third most
complained about businesses, according to the
latest survey of consumer-protection agencies by
the Consumer Federation of America and the North
American Consumer Protection Investigators.
Protect yourself: California is the leader in
residential solar, so go to its electric utility website to
see whether solar makes sense for you. If it does,
work only with licensed contractors specializing in
solar installation. Conduct an energy audit and get
bids from at least three companies. Check their
Better Business Bureau rating and references.
Never pay the full price up front or a deposit of more
than $1,000 or 10 percent of the project price,
whichever is smaller.

2.We’ll remove the virus we found for $100
Some scoundrels fly under the radar via telephone.
A tech-support person, purportedly from a trusted
company like Dell or Microsoft, calls to warn you that
its security systems have remotely detected a virus
on your computer and offers to remove it—for a fee
of $100 or more.
Bogus tech-support scams. Of course, there is no
virus, so you pay for unnecessary service. The crook
may also take the opportunity to install mock
antivirus software that later starts “finding”
nonexistent malware. That can cost you a bundle for
removal. Worse, the tech may also install software
that scans your computer to steal your passwords
and hijack your computer to generate ads and
spread spam.
Protect yourself: Hang up on anyone outside your
home who claims to find trouble on your PC.

3.Confirm the flight reservation you didn’t
make
You get an e-mail notifying you about airline
reservations you didn’t make, a package from UPS
you weren’t expecting, or a problem with your bank
account. Just click on this link or attachment.
Phishing and malware scams. If you follow the
instructions, you might end up downloading malware
designed to take control of your computer and turn it
into a spamming robot, harm it with a virus, or mine
your files for financial information. Following the link
will take you to a site that looks real but is fake.
When you log in, it captures your user name and
password so that the bad guys can get into your real
accounts.
For years, those threats were limited to your PC,
which should be protected with security software.
But the popularity of smart phones has opened the
door to “smishing.” (The word combines “SMS,” or
short-message service—aka text messaging—and
“phishing.”) Some smart-phone users don’t realize
that their phone is a computer and prone to the
same security risks as a PC.
Those deceptions work. More than 9 million
households had at least one member who gave up
information to phishers, and 30 million suffered a
malware attack in the previous year, according to
our latest survey of online households. The Better
Business Bureau pegged phishing as its top scam of
2011. Moreover, today’s fake sites are more
believable than ever.
Protect yourself: Never click on a link to your online
accounts through e-mail or call an account-related
phone number in a text message someone sends
you. Instead, open your PC or mobile Web browser
and type in the desired address on your own. And
don’t click on an e-mail attachment unless you’re
expecting it.

4.You’ve just won a $100 gift card!
In this new bamboozle, burglars claiming to be from
a local store call to tell you that you’ve just won the
prized plastic, and you must come in to pick it up.
Burglary. The game is to get you out of the house
so that robbers can carry out an old-fashioned
break-in while you’re gone.
Protect yourself: This simple trick works because it
catches you by surprise. Always be suspicious when
someone promises you something for nothing. The
Better Business Bureau, which first warned about
this scam, advises “winners” to ask questions: What
contest did I win? How was I chosen? Call the store
to independently confirm the details. After you
determine that it’s a scam, notify the police. And
take extra precautions to lock up your house, set
your alarms, and protect valuables when you do
leave, since burglars have clearly targeted your
home.

5.Now you really can see who views your
Facebook profile!!!
Social-media networks are fertile ground for fakery.
You might have received, for example, news-feed
messages from Facebook friends raving about an
app that claims to let you see who’s checking out
your profile. Such messages can be spam in
disguise, leading to “bait pages.” Other bait involves
purportedly bizarre or salacious videos. Consumers
who take the bait never get the promised software or
film.
Instead, the link drives the curious to a fake
Facebook website. You’re asked to “like” the app or
other bait, which forwards the spam to all of your
friends. Then you have to complete a survey, which
collects personal information and opinions.
Survey scams. The goal is to trick you into filling
out surveys for online advertisers, with the person
who set up the operation collecting commissions for
each one completed by an ever-expanding circle of
friends, says Chet Wisniewski, senior security
adviser at Sophos, an information security firm. One
“clickjacker,” Adscend Media of Wilmington, Del.,
raked in a significant amount of money, according to
a lawsuit filed by the Washington state attorney
general. The case was settled in May under a
consent order in which the company agreed to stop
certain marketing.
There’s a difference between scam surveys and
legitimate survey sites.
Protect yourself: Don’t reveal personal information
online to anyone who initiated contact with you
unless your trust is certain. Look for the survey
company’s name and go to its website
independently by reopening your browser, or call it.
Ignore product promos from Facebook friends. Use
caution in granting access to your profile. And think
before you “like.”

6.Cut your credit-card interest rate to 4.75%
Who doesn’t want to cut sky-high credit-card interest
costs in today’s low-rate environment? An
unsolicited caller falsely implying that he’s affiliated
with your credit-card issuer offers to reduce your
interest rate and save you $2,500. The service costs
$695 up front, and you must fill out a “financial
profile form” with details about your debts, including
balances, credit limits, interest rates, and customer-
service numbers, plus your name, address, and
Social Security number.
Credit-card interest rate-cut scams. The full extent
of the “service” typically involves a conference call
with the thief, victim, and creditors, during which the
shark asks for a rate reduction and the creditor
usually refuses. Consumers, of course, can do this
on their own—free. One such operation, Select
Personnel Management, a Canadian company, and
eight associated companies and defendants were
ordered by a U.S. District Court in Illinois in 2009 to
pay more than $7.8 million and stop telemarketing
after the FTC said they hoodwinked more than
12,000 consumers.
Protect yourself: Don’t give personal information
such as account numbers to anyone who initiates
contact with you. Go to donotcall.gov or call 888-
382-1222 to register your phone numbers on the
National Do Not Call Registry. Hang up on
unsolicited telemarketers.

7.Free golf, dinner, and priceless investment
advice for savvy retirees
Investment advisers, broker-dealers, and people
from other financial-services firms invite wealthy
seniors to enjoy fun, food, and access to investment
secrets that will add $100,000 to their net worth, get
them 40 percent investment returns, or turn
$100,000 into $1 million for their heirs. Attendees
might receive a sleeve of golf balls or even win golf
clubs.
Investment-seminar scams. The main goal of this
educational “opportunity” is to sell investment
products that generate commissions for promoters,
mostly annuities, real-estate investment trusts,
mutual funds, and reverse mortgages. That’s all
perfectly legal.
But the ads, sales materials, and pitchmen can be
misleading or promote strategies inappropriate for
seniors. Reported problems have included promises
of a 38 percent rate of return with no risk, the
liquidation of investments without the customer’s
knowledge or consent, the misappropriation of
customers’ funds to buy unregistered oil and gas
partnerships, and the sale of nonexistent
investments to pay a salesman’s personal expenses
and trading losses.
Protect yourself: Deal only with long-time, trusted
financial advisers, never with new “friends” from a
rubber-chicken sales seminar. Accept the invite and
fun, but provide zero financial information and don’t
sign blank authorization forms or anything else. And
just say no to follow-up one-on-one meetings that
will probably be suggested on the pretense of
preparing a financial plan.

8.A national family health-care plan for $3 a
day
The Supreme Court’s June ruling upholding most of
the Affordable Care Act is expected to revive this
scam, which appeared after the legislation was
passed in 2010. An “emergency broadcast” and
video of President Obama discussing health care
prompts viewers to call a toll-free number to reach
one of many telemarketers. They imply that they’re
selling affordable, government-authorized health
insurance that provides “significant” savings on
prescription drugs, doctor and hospital fees, and
labs coast-to-coast.
Medical discount plan scams. The product isn’t
insurance; it’s a discount card costing an enrollment
fee of $29 to $500, plus monthly fees of $90 to
$1,300. That’s deceptive enough, and the FTC has
taken action against more than 50 such operators in
recent years. But when ill customers finally need to
use the card, many health-care providers don’t
honor it. Refunds?
Protect yourself: Discount plans aren’t illegal, but
we consider them to be junk insurance. They’re
often sold deceptively as insurance, but unlike real
health coverage, discount plans don’t pay any of
your medical bills. Instead, they amount to a list of
providers who may be willing to offer plan members
a discount. Think coupons, not coverage, and this
poor bargain becomes obvious.

9.We can ‘clean-pipe’ your car to pass smog inspection

When a car is unlikely to pass a state smog
inspection, a technician or other mechanic simply
tests a stand-in car that does meet standards, and
voilà! The good numbers are used to certify the
belcher.
Auto-repair scams. They continue to thrive; auto-
repair rip-offs were No. 8 in the BBB’s complaint
rankings in 2011. Among the most common tricks:
Mechanics give a good estimate up front but pad the
bill with extra work. Some shops make a business of
this by advertising a low-priced oil-and-lube job to
suck in customers, then “finding” much more
expensive problems that need to be fixed.
Another scam involves counterfeit, used, or
substandard parts used in place of the new parts
you pay for. Sometimes the mechanic doesn’t
provide any replacement parts and doesn’t do the
work. Bogus billing can add up. After a mechanic in
Palm Desert, Calif., claimed to have rung up more
than $11,000 in parts and labor on one car,
inspectors from the California Department of
Consumer Affairs Bureau of Automotive Repair said
they found something else: fraud.
Protect yourself: The Coalition Against Insurance
Fraud says you should always get a written estimate
before work is done, ask to see the repairs and
discarded parts, use a shop recommended by
knowledgeable friends, check the shop’s BBB rating
and Yelp page, and be wary if the mechanic says
he’ll help “waive” the deductible on insurance-
financed repairs.

10. You could win an iPad, so start bidding!
Hot electronics are commonly used to entice victims
into a shakedown. A pop-up ad on your computer
invites you to bid on an iPad, laptop PC, or wide-
screen TV, but you must include your cell-phone
number to play. Submitting your bid sends a text
message to your cell phone that, whether you
respond or not, may authorize an unwanted $9.99 a
month subscription to some useless service. The
charge gets tacked onto your cell-phone bill, where
you’re unlikely to notice it.
Cramming. The auction is smoke and mirrors
designed to capture your cell-phone number to place
unauthorized charges on your bill, a practice called
cramming. Unlike numbers for landlines, cell-phone
numbers aren’t published in directories, so
scammers must be underhanded to get it.
Cell-phone companies, which can collect $1 to $2
commissions per charge, claim that wireless
cramming isn’t a problem. But we found 480,000
alleged cell-cramming victims in one case, and in
2011 a Senate committee investigation concluded
that landline and cell-phone crammers could be
fleecing $2 billion a year from consumers.
“We have multiple wireless-cramming investigations
under way,” says Vladeck at the FTC, “and we’re
quite quickly seeing the migration of cramming from
landline to wireless phones.”
Protect yourself: Guard your cell-phone number
like a credit card; don’t give it to strangers. Demand
refunds from your cell provider if you’ve been
crammed. Tell your wireless and landline carriers to
block all third-party billing to your account, and
check previous bills for cramming charges.

11. Buy a gourmet dog-food coupon worth
$61—for just $16
You receive an e-mail that alerts you to a website—
not the manufacturer’s—where you can purchase
high-value coupons. They’re not your typical 25
cents off but special coupons for $2 to $60 off or free
high-priced products like shaving razors, pricey pet
food, diapers, infant formula, coffee, and even
restaurant meals. Such giveaways are rarely
circulated, but manufacturers do use them to
introduce new products or as a goodwill gesture to
win back a wronged customer.
Coupon scams. Problem is, there’s no way anyone
can accumulate enough of those rare coupons to
make a business of it, “so they have to be
counterfeit or stolen,” says Bud Miller, executive
director of the Coupon Information Corporation, an
industry group that works to stop coupon fraud.
Other coupon flimflams involve moneymaking
ventures based on inflated earnings promises, in
which consumers invest several hundred to several
thousand dollars for coupon booklets that are
difficult to sell, or they toil at work-at-home coupon
clipping.
Protect yourself: Avoid such coupons.

12. I’ve been in an accident in Canada and
need your help, Grandpa
It’s the phone call every grandparent dreads: Bad
news about a grandchild coming in the middle of the
night. Maybe the car has broken down or been
involved in a crash, maybe the kin has been unjustly
arrested, or a family member in the military has been
mugged overseas while on leave. The caller may
attempt to impersonate the grandchild or a police
officer, lawyer, or doctor. Whatever the details, the
family elder needs to wire money ASAP.
Grandparent scams. The caller, however, is not a
relative but a cheat who’ll collect the untraceable
wire transfer you might send, typically to Canada,
Mexico, or another country. This dirty deal has been
working since 2008 at least, but the Internet Crime
Complaint Center reports that scammers have lately
become more sophisticated by mining social-
networking sites for personal details that make their
impersonation more credible. One couple was
pinched first for $3,000 when their “grandson” was
supposedly caught fishing in Canada without a
license, then for a whopping $30,000 more when the
drama escalated to Mounties finding drugs and
alcohol on the boat, the Michigan attorney general
said.
Protect yourself: Ask for details about your last visit
that your grandkid should recall and a stranger
couldn’t. Jot down the caller’s location and number.
Hang up, and instead of calling Western Union, call
the grandchild’s parents or the number you usually
use to reach him to verify his whereabouts—even if
the caller pleads, “Don’t call my parents!” Don’t send
a dime unless you confirm the story.

13. Sweet deal: $15,000 for a car with a
$28,000 book value
Hard times nudge many consumers into the used-
car market, and some wind up with this bargain
hunter’s nightmare: Crooks steal a car, then copy
the vehicle identification number (VIN) from another
car—same make, model, year, color—in a mall
parking lot. They use the legitimate VIN to
counterfeit VIN dashboard plates and Mylar stickers,
slap them on the stolen vehicle, and sell that car to
you at an attractively low price. The registration
documents are also forged.
VIN cloning scams. Sooner or later, because you
must register and insure your car, insurance carriers
and state motor vehicle departments eventually
figure out that two vehicles are using the same VIN,
which draws the police to repossess your sweet
deal. You’re now out the car and the money you
paid to the long-gone criminals. This and many other
schemes help put auto sales in second place among
the top 10 complaints listed by the National
Association of Attorneys General.
Protect yourself: Watch for red flags: a far-below-
market price, a private seller doing business in an
odd location, a cash deal. When you call a seller,
ask for the VIN and check it, free, at
vehiclehistory.gov or the website of the National
Insurance Crime Bureau. While sizing up the
vehicle, compare the VIN you were given with those
in several places on the car—dashboard, glove box,
side door, in the trunk, under the hood near the
radiator post. If there’s any mismatch, remain poker-
faced, don’t confront the seller, walk away from the
deal, and call the police.

14. Want a $17.50-an-hour job?
Last May, job hunters using computers at a public
library in Columbus, Ohio, to search the want ads
were approached by a “recruiter” looking to fill
positions at a new store nearby. The sneak used the
library to conduct job interviews, and candidates
filled out applications with their name, date of birth,
Social Security number, and more.
Identity-theft scams. When the applicants later
went to the store for training, they learned that the
recruiter wasn’t associated with it at all. Rather, face-
to-face job interviews are a new and brazen way to
extract information for ID theft.
Job scams rank seventh on the BBB’s top 10 scams
list, and such come-ons also involve work-at-home
schemes including stuffing envelopes, assembling
merchandise, medical billing and claims processing,
and reshipping what the victim may not know are
stolen goods.
ID theft was the biggest category on the FTC’s 2011
complaint list. Thieves use a wide variety of tactics
to get you to give up key information that lets them
steal from your existing bank and credit accounts or
use your Social Security number to open phony
financial accounts and commit other crimes in your
name. The most effective deceptions appear to
come from your bank or credit-card company, a
government agency, or other entity that you trust,
and they wheedle information out of you by saying
they need it to correct an error or prevent a problem.
Protect yourself: Never give your personal
information to anyone who telephones, e-mails,
texts, or otherwise initiates contact with you. Don’t
participate in fun-looking online pop-up quizzes that
ask for your mother’s maiden name, your first pet’s
name, or other information commonly used to verify
your identity. Monitor your financial accounts weekly
or even daily, place a security freeze on your credit
reports at all three credit bureaus, and file an ID-
theft report with the local police if you get swindled.
If someone approaches you with a job, contact the
prospective employer to verify that the recruiter and
the job opening are legitimate. There should be no
need for checking-account and other financial
information on your application.

15. Gold prices will peak in the next 60 days.
Invest now!
Telemarketers promise senior citizens with assets
that gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bars,
bullion, and coins are a surefire, low-risk investment
and use high-pressure sales tactics to close the
deal. In fact, precious metals are a commodity
subject to erratic short-term pricing with no
guarantee of any net return.
Gold investment scam. What consumers aren’t told
is that their investment is really a credit purchase.
Their money is deposited in an account, and the
scammers don’t actually buy any precious metals.
Instead, the crooks rake off poorly disclosed fees
and commissions.
Protect yourself: Hang up on telemarketers who
call out of the blue. Deal only with reputable
precious-metals dealers. Find one at the website of
the American Numismatic Association. Take delivery
of your gold at your bank, where you can keep it in a
safe-deposit box.

16. I overpaid you, so deposit my check and
wire me the difference
You post an item for sale on Craigslist or another
classified-ad website and you’re pleasantly surprised
when an out-of-state buyer quickly responds by
mailing you payment. But yikes! The buyer has
mistakenly sent you a check for much more than he
owes. You contact him about the mix-up. No
problem: He trusts you to deposit his check and wire
the overage to him via Western Union, MoneyGram,
or other service. To show how nice you are and to
uphold the goodness of mankind, you go ahead.
Overpayment scams. But the check bounces, so
you don’t get the snake’s money; he gets yours.
Overpayment fraud was fifth-ranked among
complaints filed with the Internet Crime Complaint
Center last year. You’re also stuck with any
returned-deposit fees from your bank.
Protect yourself: Deal only with people you can
meet in person, Craigslist warns. (Its founder, Craig
Newmark, is on the board of Consumer Reports.)
Exchange goods for cash, don’t deal with distant
buyers or wire them money, and don’t accept
checks, not even cashier’s checks or money orders,
which can be faked.

17. National Sweepstakes Bureau calling
In a new spin on a timeworn fraud, you receive mail
or a call from a seemingly authentic government
agency that is “supervising” the safe transfer of—
congratulations!—your sweepstakes winnings.
Among the agencies supposedly calling are the
fictitious National Consumer Protection Agency, the
make-believe National Sweepstakes Bureau, and
even the misappropriated FTC.
Sweepstakes scams. Spoofing technology makes
the callback number look like it’s really in
Washington, D.C., and the official-looking
documents have lots of gravitas and seem authentic.
But it all works to fool you into paying a transfer or
processing fee, or taxes and insurance on
“winnings” of $20 to $10,000. Of course, there are
no prizes, but any lost fee payment is real.
Sweepstakes scams are surprisingly popular,
ranking third on the FTC’s annual complaint list.
Protect yourself: Never pay lottery-win fees, which
are a red flag of fraud. Legitimate sweepstakes don’t
require winners to pay insurance, taxes, shipping
and handling, or any other fees. Other tip-offs
include high-pressure efforts to get you to wire the
fee immediately to beat a deadline. And though
governments definitely tax prize winnings, they don’t
“supervise” delivery.

18. Pay me up front for this repair, or I’ll go
elsewhere
In the wake of tornadoes and other severe weather,
these hustlers take advantage of the surge in
demand for repairs. The push is for up-front money.
Storm-repair scams. Once they get your money,
these skunks may do shoddy work, delay the work
endlessly, or take the money and run. Tina Shelton
of Manvel, Texas, a Houston suburb, lost $12,000 to
a contractor who bilked her and elderly neighbors
after Hurricane Ike swept through their area in 2008.
Roofers in general generate more than 8,000
complaints a year with the BBB and rank 15th
among all industries for number of complaints.
Protect yourself: Ask your insurer about coverage
and to get a correct estimate. Never pay the full
price of a job before it’s done; pay in increments as
work is completed. A down payment of less than a
third of the estimated total cost is OK. It allows the
contractor to buy materials, which you should see
arrive at your home along with invoices indicating
what was bought and paid. Pay with a personal
check or credit card, which you can keep better track
of than cash. Don’t do business with contractors who
knock on your door; find listed, licensed, and insured
local construction companies. Get at least three
written estimates.

19. The government wants you to have a
scooter
Someone at the door or at a church presentation
tells a Medicare beneficiary that the federal health
program will pay for so-called durable medical
equipment; all you have to do is ask. Motorized
scooters and power wheelchairs are the big prizes.
The trickster collects info about the person’s medical
conditions, doctors, and—most important—Medicare
account number.
The beneficiary may never receive the equipment or
may receive a $500 unpowered wheelchair while
Medicare gets billed $11,000 for a feature-laden
powered one. Gaming a government program is
easy: A 2009 report by the Department of Health
and Human Services Office of Inspector General
said that 60 percent of standard and complex power
wheelchair claims lacked proper documentation.
Medicare scams. Dishonest doctors, nurses,
pharmacists, and ordinary cons use your warm body
and Medicare account number to steal money from
the government. But you might also get stuck with
co-pays for things the thief billed to Medicare without
telling you. Your identity may also be stolen and sold
off, your medical records altered to create a billable
phony affliction, and your health may be jeopardized
by a resulting false diagnosis.
“Patient brokers” may offer you free groceries, rides,
or even cash (which are illegal kickbacks, the FBI
says) for your ID number so that they can bill
Medicare for medical treatments never performed.
Protect yourself: Never give your Medicare number
to a stranger who claims to be a government
employee. Check your Medicare Summary Notice
for equipment or services that you never received,
were double-billed, or billed at a higher price than
you were told. Check your credit report periodically
for past-due or collection accounts for medical
equipment or services never received. Don’t sign
blank authorization forms. You can get medical
equipment, subject to the rules and co-pays of
Medicare, but it must be medically necessary and
authorized by your doctor.

20. But we already sent your tax refund
No one likes letters from the Internal Revenue
Service, but this one is both baffling and terribly
worrisome. After you file your income tax return, the
IRS notifies you that you’ve filed more than one
return and that someone else has already filed using
your identity.
Fraudulent tax return scams. This crime is
relatively new but has jumped this year to 940,000
returns filed by identity thieves using other people’s
names. How do they make money paying your
taxes? They use your identity to claim a tax refund,
and if you don’t have money coming to you, they lie
about deductions to concoct a refund—$5 billion in
ripped-off refunds this year.
Protect yourself: File an IRS Identity Theft affidavit,
available on the agency’s website at irs.gov/pub/irs-
pdf/f14039.pdf. If the problem persists, you can also
get help from the IRS Identity Protection Specialized
Unit at 800-908-4490. Be prepared to wait. Howard
Shoelson, of Davie, Fla., learned in March that a
thief filed a return using his name and Social
Security number, and he was still waiting for IRS
help when we spoke to him in August. Also report
the situation to the Social Security Administration to
protect your benefits, which could be at risk.

21. We’ll recover the cash scammers stole
Adding insult to injury, “recovery room” operators
buy “sucker lists” of people who’ve already been
conned to fleece again—this time on the promise
that for a fee they’ll recover your losses.
Recovery-room scams. Fees cost hundreds of
dollars, and you don’t recover the original losses.
Protect yourself: Hang up on anyone who tries to
sell, give, or help you with anything. Short-circuit the
key step in every scam and never give money or
personal information to acquaintances or strangers.

22. Telephone scam – attempting to get
individuals financial information. Subjects
disguise themselves as City Financial
Representatives granting loan approvals.
(Scammer ask for personal information)

23. E-mail from FDIC (Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation). Account placed on
hold until you click on the web site provided
which will take you to who knows where.
Request personal information to clear up
the problem.

24. E-mail from FedEX (online billing) E-mail
gives an Invoice Number and an http
address to access your account. You will be
asked to fill in personal information in order
to pay the delivery charges.

“Smart phones can be subject to the same
security threats as PCs.”
Scam Detector is an app that smart phones
can download as a good source of
information.

This information is from a press release from Johnny Rose of the Hood County Sheriff’s Department.