Tag: All Scams

For college students and parents, paying tuition is often at the top of the to-do list each semester. Imagine getting a call from someone who supposedly works at your school, saying you haven’t paid the bill. They threaten to drop your classes unless you send money right away. The call might raise alarm bells, but slow down — you might end up paying a scammer instead of the real tuition and fees.

Looking for local caregiver gigs that pay well? Care.com said it could help, for a monthly subscription fee. But, in a settlement announced today, the FTC says Care.com misled workers about how many jobs were available on the platform and how much they could earn — and made it hard to cancel subscriptions — costing a lot of people a lot of time and money.

If you’ve seen ads for home title lock insurance, they might have you worried. After all, the ads say thieves can steal the title to your home. But then the ads tell you to buy title lock insurance to supposedly prevent home title theft. Stop. Take a breath. It’s just a ploy to scare you.

Imagine carrying a written copy of all your conversations with you everywhere you went. Or copies of your account numbers, usernames, and passwords. Or all the photos and videos you’ve ever taken. I bet you’d do just about everything in your power to protect all that valuable information. Well, your mobile phone holds all that stuff — and maybe more. Are you doing everything in your power to keep it from ending up in the wrong hands? Here are three things you can do today to protect the personal information on your phone.

We’re living in the data age. The things we do on our phones and computers, on our internet-enabled smart devices, and on websites leave a trail of our activities and our personal information. That personal information has value — not just to us, but to scammers and hackers who want to steal our identities. Here are five things you can do to keep scammers and hackers at bay.

If you have federal student loans, you probably got an email last month from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. (The email address it showed was noreply@studentaid.gov.) It has important information about your options for loan forgiveness. While that email is legit, scammers spread fake information about your student loans to try to get money or information from you.

You get a text message from a number you don’t know, asking when you’re free to catch up over a cup of coffee. Don’t perk up just yet. That invitation for a coffee date might sound like it’s from a friend you’ve lost touch with, but it’s probably just a scammer looking to start a conversation with you. Not sure how to respond? The short answer is: Don’t. Keep reading to find out why.

When temperatures rise, utility costs do, too. While reputable companies can help you save money with clean or solar energy improvements, scammers offer more than they can deliver. The scams vary, but here’s the gist: someone claiming to be with the government or your utility company promises big savings on your utility bills from solar energy or other home improvements designed to increase energy efficiency. If you agree to the scammer’s offer, it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Military families move regularly, sometimes every two to three years. So you may find yourself checking out new digs as you plan a move to another duty station. That’s when you could run into a rental scam, which can be hard to spot, but here are some clues.

More than 25,000 people are getting a refund check from the FTC as a result of its settlement with the house flipping scheme Zurixx, LLC. [TCP1] If you’re one of them, please cash the check as soon as possible.