Scams posts

Moms will go to any lengths to ensure their family's well-being. Unfortunately, scammers know that too. So under the guise of helping, they'll go to equally great lengths to part moms from their cash. This Mother's Day -- and every day -- be on the lookout for these common scams that often target mothers and other caregivers.

If the 8 million people without power and the estimated $50 billion worth of damage weren't enough, especially when topped by a blistering nor'easter, now a new danger has begun to rear its ugly head -- all manner of opportunistic fraudsters, hucksters, con artists and matchstick men.

In fact, the problem was so pervasive following Hurricane Katrina that the American Government created a federal task force called The Disaster Fraud Task Force that has so far prosecuted 1,439 people for disaster-related fraud perpetrated in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now, Hurricane Sandy is no exception.

As the ocean waves recede, a new wave of ambulance chasing vultures has descended to pick at the resolve of the already vulnerable victims. Watch your back as we take you through the most common scams perpetrated after a storm like Sandy and how to avoid them.

James O'Brien

Online and other tech-based travel scams might get a lot of attention these days, but the Better Business Bureau is warning overseas tourists to watch out for certain low-tech, longtime ruses that play upon our learned behavior and lowered-guard while traveling for pleasure.

Consumer Ally recently reported on modern travel scams that work by parting would-be vacationers with "upfront" online payments to reserve a spot on a trip or email solicitations offering accommodations much nicer than what the traveler will actually get when he or she arrives.

We often bring you news of the latest scams that we think you should be aware of, and we often tell you that scam artists go where the money is. For example, in hot real estate markets, title fraud becomes a bigger issue.

So in hard economic times, when money is tight for everyone, where do the scam artists turn? To the helpless masses who have gotten themselves into heaps of debt, of course. A recent series of news stories from the CBC has brought to light this seriously disturbing trend.

In late June, a joint investigation by Canadian and U.S. authorities shut down Mutual Consolidated Savings, a business running a debt-reduction scam. The company, based in Washington state, has managed to bilk thousands of Canadians and Americans out of $22.5 million dollars. Here's how the scam works. Consumers who have amassed mounds of debt on a credit card, and who are consistently making low monthly payments, get a phone call. The scam artist offers a solution. For just $899, the company promises to lower the interest rate on the victim's credit card to as low as 6.9%. That's a huge decrease from the 18%-plus most credit card companies charge. The victim is told that this will save them thousands of dollars, and they'll be able to pay off their debt three to five times faster than at their current interest rate. The scam artist even offers a (fake) money-back guarantee.

Do you know what a scam looks like when you see it? When it comes to moving companies, it usually starts with a quote that seems too good to be true.

But reasonable sounding quote alone won't protect you, your wallet, or your stuff.

In my last post we told you about Michael Kazdan, a Toronto man who hired Indo-Pak movers to transport his employer's business property from one location to another.

When he made his story known (yay, Facebook), friends and acquaintances started coming out of the woodwork to say they too had been defrauded in similar ways. Just a little more light digging and you only just begin to see how big of a problem fraud is in the moving industry.

Toronto Police arrested seven people yesterday in a raid on ring of moving companies accused of defrauding home owners and businesses to the tune of $1-million a year.

The company had operated under more than a dozen different names, including Indo-Pak Movers, Desi Movers, Supreme Movers, Dynamite Movers and A1 Express Movers. Police confirmed that they seized the company's moving trucks, at least $11,000 in cash (later reports quoted a figure as high as $20,000) and luxury vehicles that included an Audi 8 and Mercedes S500.

The victims' stories are all very similar: customers were quoted a price over the phone, an amount that is demanded up front, usually in cash, when the truck and movers arrive on site. Once the truck is loaded, the movers or their "boss" on the other end of a proffered cell phone demands the customer pay additional fees – sometimes two or three times the original quoted price – before the movers will carry on and unload the homeowner or business owner's belongings.

Ransom is a word used often by people describing the experience.

If you've been keeping an eye on the Canadian real estate market lately, you've noticed that it's heating up. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, almost 100,000 homes were listed on MLS in March, more than any other spring on record. Ever.

With all of this activity, home prices in the hottest markets are on the rise. You may be thinking this is a great time to put your house on the market (cha-ching!). And if you remember the dismal inventory that was available last year, you may also be thinking now is a good time to shop around for something new.

What you may not be thinking about is real estate fraud, which goes hand-in-hand with booming real estate markets.

My inbox has been flooded in recent weeks with work-from-home scam offers. These emails upset me, because they make me feel a little guilty. See, I work from home, and so do many of my colleagues. I love it. I'm not an office person, and I can't imagine doing anything else. As it turns out, I'm not alone. These scams are so common, in part, because people fall for them.

Sometimes the scam is easy to spot. You can bet that if the potential employer asks you for money, it's a scam. One common scam, for example, offers to pay people to assemble kits from home. Just send $50 for the materials, and you'll be paid $200 for each finished kit. What really happens? Most likely, you never get the materials. If you do, your finished kit may be rejected for not being up to standard, or you'll just never hear from the company again. Whatever happens, you won't get your $200. Legitimate employers pay you to do work. It's never the other way around.

We've all gotten enough chain e-mails to know the drill. Prosperity and good luck await if you forward this to 10 friends, but be prepared for doom and gloom if you break the chain. If you're like me, you take a minute to scan the e-mail, roll your eyes, and delete it. Even if you consider these e-mails a nuisance, you probably think they're harmless, right? Well, not really.

Security experts say that these e-mails are a common scam that can lead to identity theft. Many chain e-mails are created by scam artists trying to collect personal information. By passing chain e-mails on to your closest friends, you've given the scammers a host of new e-mail addresses. And that's when the real trouble can start.