Scams & Fraud
“At the end of the day, it’s all about you taking a moment to say ‘Hold on, this is not legitimate,’ and just hang up,” said Susan Hogan, Consumer Investigative Reporter for NBC4 in her keynote address.
The yearlong pandemic has triggered a big increase in romance scammers who prey on lonely people confined to their homes. Swindlers stalk matchmaking websites and shower their victims with attention and then have a seemingly plausible reason why they need money to make a trip to visit.
Just as COVID-19 vaccine administration is ramping up, so are the scams surrounding them. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) already has issued a warning for veterans and military families to avoid fake COVID-19 vaccine offers.
If 2020 taught us anything it’s that scammers follow the headlines. While we’re all relieved to turn the calendar to 2021, the uncertainty that marked the last 12 months isn’t going away any time soon. And scammers thrive on uncertainty.
The AARP Fraud Watch Network is dedicated to providing people with simple tips to keep them safe from scammers. In 2021 we’ve got three simple words to keep you protected: Stop, Think and Verify.
Veterans deserve our gratefulness, our respect and praise. Here's what they don't deserve: attempts to take advantage of their service.
Do you believe everything you see online? The obvious answer is no, but there are plenty of sensationalized headlines, misleading stories and even complete falsehoods circulating on the Internet, making it hard for even the most discerning reader to sort fact from fiction.
Financial exploitation is the most common form of elder abuse in the U.S., and the average victim loses $120,000. We also know this crime is severely under-reported.
Scammers are always looking to capture people’s personal information, and Social Security numbers are highly valuable.
In 2019 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received nearly 125,000 reports of scams involving prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries that cost victims $121 million.
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