December is a month when we should be reveling in the holidays and looking forward to a brilliant new year.
Let’s aim for that as our goal. But, at the same time, we can’t ignore the dispiriting things in our daily lives.
I’ll put aside the current political scene for the moment and focus on another problem we’re faced with right now.
We’re all living in Scam City, USA.
If you haven’t been hit by a scam, or an attempted scam, you haven’t been living here in the past year or two.
Scams have increasingly taken over the internet and our telephone lines. I kept getting dire warnings about them from all sorts of reliable sources. I’ll briefly review a few of them.
One batch of warnings landed in my mailbox (the real one). A large nationwide bank sent me a 10-page booklet titled “Practical tips to help protect your money.” It included two pages on scams and a refrigerator magnet with a phone number to contact the bank for help. This bank must have had a whole lot of panicked customers for it to send pricey mailing like this one.
The New York Times recently highlighted our “holiday scam season.” It noted “a new scam…, which lures victims to fake retail sites that are imitating well-known brands. Scammers send emails that link to these sites, or they may appear on social media with realistic ads. When you follow the links, however, you’ll land at a counterfeit but convincing site.” The article quotes an expert who warns: “These sites look almost identical to legitimate retailers but exist solely to steal credit card information and personal data.”
The Times adds: “Don’t click on embedded links. Instead go directly to retailers’ websites…. And always use credit cards, which have stronger protections than many other payment methods.”
More warnings come from AARP, which consistently notes the persistence of fraud, often targeting older Americans. It has made combating this “scourge” a top priority. In a recent issue of the AARP Bulletin, it focused on a new scam that’s on the rise: “celebrity impostor scams.” In these, criminals lure victims by setting up fake accounts and impersonating famous actors, authors, business icons, and other celebrities on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and other social media sites. The criminals respond to a person’s social media posts, slowly establishing a predatory relationship that includes high-pressure asks for money, often in cryptocurrency.
Experts say that A.I. tools increasingly help scammers create these persuasive celebrity photos and videos. One recent victim was initially skeptical but ultimately sent nearly $100,000 to the scammer before she caught on.
Warnings appear everywhere, but even the most sophisticated person can become a victim. Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation, revealed that she had been scammed. Someone impersonating an old classmate sent her an email and, “claiming that her credit card had been declined, asked me to send birthday gift cards to [a phony name],” a friend supposedly battling cancer. Pollitt confesses that she ended up sending the phony name $250 in gift cards, even as she had doubts about it. As soon as she clicked ‘send,’ she realized she’d made a mistake. She tried emailing her classmate directly and learned that the classmate’s friends were “all being targeted by the same person—who promptly wrote to me requesting another $200!”
The FBI has pretty simple advice. The best way to avoid scams like these is not to send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or any other assets to anyone you met only online or on the phone.
My wish for you this holiday season: Stay sharp, follow the FBI’s advice, and be spared the agony of becoming a victim of heartless, ruthless scammers.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
susanjustwrites
Susan Just Writes 