Scam: A dishonest scheme; attempt to gain money of possessions from someone fraudulently. Can be used as both a noun and a verb.
Scams were invented about the same time that gambling was invented, that is about 10 minutes after money was invented.
Swindlers, confidence men and women, and grifters of all types have been in operation since Day One, trying their best reach into your pocket for what economists call a “transfer of wealth,” with scammers often using every resource within their reach to cheat you out of your hard-earned cash.
We often read or hear about the “big” scams in the news (think Ohio HB 1 and Bernie Madoff). Probably the most famous scammer in history is Carlo Ponzi, who in the 1920s conned thousands of Americans – including about three-quarters of the Boston Police Department – in a complicated pyramid racket so convoluted and extensive that it now bears his name: Ponzi scheme.
Scammers and grifters have adapted and learned exploit the Information Age to their advantage in a big way. Estimates of Americans who lose money to various swindles — big and small — run into the billions of dollars each year, but firm numbers are not available (some sources say as much as $12 billion was scammed in 2023) as many victims fail to report being fleeced to the police out of embarrassment, shame or pride.
A Bellefontaine woman was recently conned out of about $10,000 by a scammer posing as a minor celebrity, whom the victim believed she was supporting, this before the grifter eventually resorted to threats and even extortion to get their hands on even more of the victim’s money. A-listers are not exempt from this type of con, either, as fans of Blake Shelton and Dolly Parton have also been successfully targeted in this way.
This is but one example of the hundreds of cons employed by today’s Info Age grifters. One of the most notable and ubiquitous scams tells the story of the Nigerian prince who, sadly for him, is having difficultly accessing his millions of dollars. But with your help, so the prince says in his e-mail, he’ll transfer his fortune into your bank account and give you a cut of his riches for your trouble when he moves his stacks of cash to another account.
The saga of the Nigerian prince has become cliche in the world of confidence scams for one reason – because it works. Most of us laugh it off when we get those e-mails, but think about it and play the stream out until the end.
Working out of a boiler room in Omaha, Muskegon or Jacksonville, our “Nigerian prince” and his minions buy 100,000 personal email addresses. They send out the prince’s story of woe to these 100,000 people. If only one percent of those people respond, that’s 1,000 potential “marks”, which is grifter-speak for “unwitting victim”. Should just five percent of those 1,000 fall for the con, that’s 50 people who get to watch their bank accounts get hoovered, turning a few clicks on a keyboard into a nice payday for the “prince” and his pals in Omaha, Muskegon or Jacksonville.
Next week, this same team gets possession of another 100,000 email addresses and starts the process all over again. Glengarry Glen Ross was non-fiction.
The scams out there are way too numerous to detail here (AARP has a great breakdown of the scores of cons that are making the rounds right now at https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/). AI has refined grifting on the internet to something of an art, but there are ways to protect yourself and your bank account:
• W. C. Fields said you can’t cheat a honest man, and while that’s not always necessarily the case, if the deal offered sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This goes double for those who think they are getting something for nothing, like the Nigerian prince gaff.
• You didn’t win a lottery if you didn’t buy a ticket. Any venture that demands you send money in order for you to claim your new riches is a scam.
• Internet employment gaffs are skyrocketing, all with the intent of getting hold of your personal and bank account info or to get you to cash fake checks and send money back to them for supplies or software, which turn out to be non-existent, leaving you to cover the bad check. Grifters will also represent themselves as agents of the government, threatening you with liens on your property and vehicles or even criminal prosecution should you not pay up right now, if not sooner.
Any legitimate employer or government agency that contacts you for honest reasons is going to supply you with proper mailing addresses, hours of operation, names, phone numbers, email addresses, and most importantly, websites. Do some research before you reach for your credit card.
• Beware of calls/e-mails lean heavily on a sense of urgency, this being a huge red flag. You get a call saying you have taxes (or tolls, or whatnot) that must be paid within the next 48 hours or you’ll be arrested? Bunkum. Before breaking out your checking account info in response to one these calls or emails, check out the Ohio Department of Taxation, https://tax.ohio.gov/; the Ohio Attorney General, https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/ or the Internal Revenue Service, https://www.irs.gov/.They will give you the real skinny on your tax and/or criminal status.
The same goes for that call that says a warrant that will be put out for your arrest (or the arrest of a close relative) in Comanche County, Texas, if you don’t pay up right now. Again, this is nonsense. That’s not how courts and law enforcement work in any state, especially in respect to debt collections. To be fair to Comanche County, it’s probable that several residents there received calls or emails saying that Logan County, Ohio, is going to put out a warrant for their arrest if they don’t cough up some cash forthwith. Grifters are equal opportunity thieves.
• Any product or service that asks for payment in gift cards, cryptocurrency, or wire transfers is yet another omen that the transaction is probably a scam. Should you owe money to the State of Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost or his staff is not going call you and ask to be paid in Walmart gift cards or bitcoin. Neither will any legitimate business.
• Keep an eye out for grandma/grandpa and their spending habits. Seniors are a target-rich environment for con artists. A complaint was recently filed with the Bellefontaine Police Department after a family discovered that their elderly father was routinely sending gift cards to a third party for reasons that were not quite clear. The family did the right thing by stepping in and then reporting the scam to the cops, but that chances that the victim is going to get any of that money back are nil.
Seniors are especially vulnerable to the “We have your grandson under arrest and he needs money to get him out of jail right now. Wire $1,500 to the account below before midnight today.” This type of swindle is an oldie but a goodie because it still works. Scammers can gather of lot of personal info from social media, like names and pictures of grandsons and daughters, nephews, and nieces, and use this info to turn grandma into a mark.
There are, of course, legitimate debt collectors who may be trying to get ahold of you, but any collectors who are legit are required, by law, to provide their company name and street address, mailing address, and phone number as well as specific information about any debt. Legit collectors will be able to give you detailed information about any debt you might owe or don’t recognize.
As noted above, should you receive a call/email asking for money right away, or threatening you with liens or even criminal charges, be very wary indeed. For you own protection, get all of the information you can right then and there. Write down the phone number they are calling from. Ask for notification of the details of the “debt” via mail, to include a thorough itemization of the debt, any account numbers, when the debt was incurred, an interest and penalties statement, the address and contact information to whom the debt is owed, and the time frame and process to dispute the debt, which is generally 30 days. Should the caller refuse, fail or fumble to provide all of these things, that’s a good sign that it’s a bum deal.
Protect yourself. Do your research if you’re doing business online and beware of unsolicited offers or demands from unrecognizable sources. If you’re not comfortable with using the internet, enlist the help of a friend or family member who is.
And don’t fall for the “easy money” trap. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but believing there is may just cost you big time.
