Anyone else seeing a sharp increase in scammer attempts the last couple of weeks?
Everyone in our family has received increased scam texts, calls, and emails. I even ran into a bogus Google ad that fronted as a Costco website - except everything was the same price.

Beware of the "TOLL ROAD" scam. It hit about 4 days ago and the DMV has been flooded with calls about it.

The Camp Lejune scam. = Yeah I'm supposed to get an $85,000 settlement. Problem is I didn't serve there.

The Student loan scam. = Problem is I'm a high school dropout.

The Amazon scam. = Oh yeah my package will be delivered as soon as I pay the $4.28 shipping fee. Problem is I've never ordered anything from Amazon.

The list goes on & on. But get this one. The phone rings and an exuberant lady on the other end says, "Congratulations sir, you're the luckiest man in America today, You just won $3,000,000 dollars and a new Dodge Ram pickup". I said, "Oh lord, how much is this going to cost me?". I was told it wouldn't cost me anything. So I said "Well guess what, I don't need the money, but I could sure use the new truck. So if you'll get me the new truck with a clear title etc I'll make you the luckiest woman in America. I'll give you the $3,000,000 million dollars". I realize my story is getting too long here, so sum it by saying after about 15 minutes of interesting conversation, and yes I did enjoy it, I wound up without the truck or the money. WHAT A FOOL I AM.

geewago said:

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Beware of the "TOLL ROAD" scam. It hit about 4 days ago and the DMV has been flooded with calls about it.

The Camp Lejune scam. = Yeah I'm supposed to get an $85,000 settlement. Problem is I didn't serve there.

The Student loan scam. = Problem is I'm a high school dropout.

The Amazon scam. = Oh yeah my package will be delivered as soon as I pay the $4.28 shipping fee. Problem is I've never ordered anything from Amazon.

The list goes on & on. But get this one. The phone rings and an exuberant lady on the other end says, "Congratulations sir, you're the luckiest man in America today, You just won $3,000,000 dollars and a new Dodge Ram pickup". I said, "Oh lord, how much is this going to cost me?". I was told it wouldn't cost me anything. So I said "Well guess what, I don't need the money, but I could sure use the new truck. So if you'll get me the new truck with a clear title etc I'll make you the luckiest woman in America. I'll give you the $3,000,000 million dollars". I realize my story is getting too long here, so sum it by saying after about 15 minutes of interesting conversation, and yes I did enjoy it, I wound up without the truck or the money. WHAT A FOOL I AM.

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Wait, where did the $3 million go then? Can you give her my number?

contrario said:

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geewago said:

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Beware of the "TOLL ROAD" scam. It hit about 4 days ago and the DMV has been flooded with calls about it.

The Camp Lejune scam. = Yeah I'm supposed to get an $85,000 settlement. Problem is I didn't serve there.

The Student loan scam. = Problem is I'm a high school dropout.

The Amazon scam. = Oh yeah my package will be delivered as soon as I pay the $4.28 shipping fee. Problem is I've never ordered anything from Amazon.

The list goes on & on. But get this one. The phone rings and an exuberant lady on the other end says, "Congratulations sir, you're the luckiest man in America today, You just won $3,000,000 dollars and a new Dodge Ram pickup". I said, "Oh lord, how much is this going to cost me?". I was told it wouldn't cost me anything. So I said "Well guess what, I don't need the money, but I could sure use the new truck. So if you'll get me the new truck with a clear title etc I'll make you the luckiest woman in America. I'll give you the $3,000,000 million dollars". I realize my story is getting too long here, so sum it by saying after about 15 minutes of interesting conversation, and yes I did enjoy it, I wound up without the truck or the money. WHAT A FOOL I AM.

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Wait, where did the $3 million go then? Can you give her my number?

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Hey you may find this impossible to believe. But as the Lord liveth she actually told me if I didn't accept the money there would not be another drawing, and they would simply give the money to charity.

STILL waiting on my Nigerian jewels.

Marketplace on Facebook has lots of scams on used cars

I've always received occasional scam attempts, but last couple of weeks have gotten a LOT more attempts. Wondering if it's just a general increase, or just me and family.

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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Marketplace on Facebook has lots of scams on used cars

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Almost every page on Craigslist has something for sale that is bogus. The seller is in Boston but the boat is stored in Baton Rouge and a friend there will assist you in the sale etc etc but of course in the meantime he's going to send you a money order and you're supposed to use the cash from it to pay his friend for his troubles. And it just keeps getting more and more tangled.

A friend of mine in Troy, TX sold an old restored tractor to a man supposedly from Missouri. He was paid cash from Bank of America envelopes, it was all counterfeit. He fell for it.

Another friend in Brownwood found an F250 Ford pickup for sale in Glen Rose. Very clean, low mileage, decent price. They would not accept a check, wanted cash, can't blame a seller for that now-a-days. He paid the cash, took the title to the court house and found out the truck was stolen. Lost the truck, and the scammers had already left town.

Lots of good info to spot scams.
In the case of the Costco front from a Google ad, it was also suspicious when the link started to autocycle thru a couple of other urls before landing on the fake front. I'm guessing there is a "legit" site that is used to fool Google into not identifying the scam.