“We consistently warn consumers about fake websites and shopping online, and remind them that if a price looks too good to be true, it probably is” says Tom Bartholomy, president of the Better Business Bureau serving Southern Piedmont and Western NC. “Scammers have been doing such a great job building fake websites with enticing offers, that often times it’s difficult to tell that it’s fraudulent at first glance.”
Below is a look at the top five scams of 2018.
- Online Purchases – Feature a convincing website or online offer that leave customers spending lots of money without the product(s) they ordered.
- Employment Scams – Offers to work from home might sound great, but often times they’re not. Receiving checks in the mail and being asked to forward them on to anotheraddress, or playing a middle-man of sorts, is also very common.
- Fake Checks/Money Orders – A victim receives a check in the mail for much more than expected and is then told to cash the check, keep some of the money and send the rest back or to another person. In reality, the check is fake, and the victim is on the hook for the entirety of the funds.
- Phishing – Includes a series of fake emails requesting money or personal information.
- Tax Collection – Scammers pretend to be from the IRS. They call and say the victim will be arrested if they don’t pay their back taxes immediately.
ABOUT BBB: For more than 100 years, the Better Business Bureau has been helping people find businesses, brands and charities they can trust. In 2017, people turned to BBB more than 160 million times for BBB Business Profiles on more than 5.2 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at bbb.org. There are local, independent BBBs across the United States, Canada and Mexico, including BBB Southern Piedmont and Western North Carolina, which serves over 35 counties in North and South Carolina.
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