If there is one thing everyone should understand, it is that “scammers” are career criminals skilled at the art of manipulation, and no one is immune. These crooks target people of any age; in fact, 41% of those who reported a fraud loss to the Federal Trade Commission in 2023 were under the age of 30. So, what can a person do if they experience fraud?
One of the oldest scams around involves a criminal getting hold of one of your checks and forging the payee and the amount. Usually this is done by “washing” the check with chemicals to remove the real information you have written on it. Today, with access to new technologies, criminals are “cooking” checks by creating fake versions of real checks using computer programs. These “cooked” checks can be manipulated digitally and either printed or deposited electronically, saving the crook a lot of mess and hassle.
The past two years have seen an explosion of crypto currency scams which has led many people to ask the same question - how? After all, crypto currency is something most people don’t understand, and those who do follow it know that it is very volatile, completely unregulated, and has no protection for investors. So, given all of that, how are people losing billions a year to crypto scams? If we had to pick someone to blame (besides the criminals), it might be Cupid.