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Terry Ambrose

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scams

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Hurricane relief scams — the season begins

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It’s August, which means the East Coast is gearing up for hurricane season. Sadly, with those tropical storms come the hurricane relief scams. The problem has grown to where disaster fraud is now a recurrent billion dollar social problem. That’s a lot of fraud. Greed, ambition, and, yes, even qualifications, determine which hurricane relief scams […]

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Energy bill email scam has entertainment value

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The email scam I’m covering today led off with a killer summary. “Your energy bill might be cancelled in July.” The line caught my eye right away. It was obvious. This energy bill email scam was going to be something special…at least from the standpoint of entertainment value. The energy bill email scam The email […]

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Bugged by computer security popup ads?

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Have you ever needed help fixing a computer problem? Maybe you thought your machine had contracted a virus or malware. Or, it had become sluggish. What if you just need someone who knows what they’re doing to walk you through how to resolve  an issue. Computer security popup ads have been making these claims for years. […]

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When we are vulnerable — an email scam tip

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We’re most vulnerable when we’re not paying attention or when coincidence catches us off guard. This would have been an easy scam to fall for had I not been paying attention. First off, we’re doing business with Hawai‘i Life, so it wasn’t unusual to receive an email from them. Second, everything in the email was […]

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Easy tip to avoid tricky Craigslist and PayPal email scam

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One of my beta readers, Celeste G., forwarded news about an article in the New York Post concerning a Craigslist and PayPal email scam. She had two reasons for writing. First, she said the article didn’t make it completely clear how the scam worked. Second, she thought I might be interested in writing about it. […]

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The new cars are here email scam

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I have to admit, I didn’t pay much attention when the first email advertising new cars from a local Ford dealer came in. Never have bought a Ford. Don’t need one today. When the second email about new cars for sale arrived—this one from a local Mercedes-Benz dealer—I was irritated. How did I get on […]

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The PayPal eBay email scam is hard to spot — almost

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“You sent a payment of…” Have you received this email from PayPal for an eBay purchase you didn’t make? I did. And it stopped me for a few minutes because I don’t shop on Ebay. And I typically don’t send money via PayPal. Normally, I would mark the PayPal eBay email as spam and trash […]

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Is it time to return to checks to avoid ATM theft?

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Just when you thought life couldn’t get any worse for the poor ATM, the bad guys have come up with a nifty new tool—the “deep-insert skimmer.” Similar to the black boxes used by thieves for ATM theft, the deep-insert skimmer cannot be seen by the naked eye. Is it time to say, “Bye, bye, ATM?” […]

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If you are about to apply for disability — beware

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Let’s file this week’s scam tip under the “how low can you go?” category. This is another phishing scam. And it’s focused on those filing a disability claim. It’s always bothered me how scammers will go after people when they’re in dire straits, but such is the nature of their business. Here’s what the phishermen […]

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Google job email — do not be fooled by this scam

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Google wants to hire me! And they’ll pay me $90k a year! I’ll bet you’ve seen this email, too. So, how do you sign up? The answer is, by giving away all of your personal information to a scammer who doesn’t care where you live, what you do now, or what skills you have. No, […]

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