In this week’s installment o
f This Week in Scams, we see on the more heinous cons has reared itself again – an email that targets those who has already been victimized.
An email, from test@islacad.org, claims to be from the “IC3.org-Internet Crime Complaint Center.” Although the email assures the recipient it will reimburse them for losses experienced in the a previous scam, it is actually an attempt to seek out victim information, with the eventual goal being to stealing directly from the victims accounts, the Tampa Tribune reports. In some variations, email claims money is waiting already, and a payment is necessary for to regain what has been lost.
A scammer in New Hampshire recently conned several members of a Manchester synagogue out of a reported $200, TheBostonChannel.com reported. Alan Fahra was taken into custody for collecting cash under the guise of needing money for a ticket to go to his mothers funeral in Israel. Police were alerted to the scam after one of the victims Googled Fahra’s fake name, “Alan Fein” to discover its link to scams across the country.
In a similar attempt, a scammer in Kansas has been calling churches pretending to be in need of money, reports the McPherson Sentinel. Supposedly the caller is an active duty soldier facing all sorts of adversities, including facing going AWOL, without the aid. The scammer gets very pushy, and those people who have turned him away are verbally berated by the caller. Although he claims to be outside of a Walmart, the scammer could be anywhere and once the victim has sent a wire transfer they can be cashed anywhere that handles such business.
Comptroller Tom DiNapoli of New York State warns that a recent scam in the area takes the form of a letter that tells the recipient they have won money in the lottery, WHEC-TV reports. The letters come from “Guaranty Trust Inc.” and “Golden Gateway Financial, Division of Unclaimed Funds,” with New York City, and Vegas and London addresses respectively. In order to access the winnings, an amount of money is required, and checks are requested for the balance.
Finally, Millennium Telecard Inc., Coleccion Latina Inc. and Telecard USA Center Inc are paying $2.3 million to resolve charges that the phone cards they were marketing were not actually providing customers with the amount of minutes the card claimed, the Los Angeles Times reports. About 200 of such cards were tested and 98% failed to deliver the advertised amount of minutes due to numerous erroneous charges, including hang up fees and weekly fees.
