Top 10 Online Scams

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Top 10 Online Scams

The Internet is not a safe place to be unless you know how to protect yourself from scammers. Listen to Matthew Heffelfinger (Director of SIEM Operations) and Noah Pack (Threat Hunter/Security Operations Center Analyst) give the top 10 online scams and how to avoid them.

SecurityMetrics News is hosted by Matthew Heffelfinger (Director of SIEM Operations, GSTRT, CyRP (Pepperdine), GRCP, SSAP, ITIL4-F, GISF, PECB) and Noah Pack (Threat Hunter/Security Operations Center Analyst, Security+, ITF+, Sophos Certified Engineer).

Video Outline:

• 0:00 - Intro
• 1:00 - #1 - Relocating Transaction
• 2:40 - #2 - Fake Listings
• 3:44 - #3 - Rental Listing Scams
• 5:15 - #4 - Transaction Insurance
• 5:56 - #5 - Paying "In Advance"
• 7:25 - #6 - Vehicle Purchase Protection
• 8:25 - #7 - Selling Stolen Goods
• 10:26 - #8 - Gift Card Scams
• 11:17 - #9 - Over Payment Refund
• 12:33 - #10 - Fake Goods
• 13:29 - Outro
• ‍

Top 10 Online Scams Transcript

Alright. No. I thought it would be interesting if we took a moment and just put together a quick video on the top ten online scams. I know we have our normal threat briefing newscast that we do from time to time, and people, you know, that people enjoy that.

We do share all of the links from all of our stories, and we'll include this one too. But you can you can go on our website. You can, subscribe to the threat intelligence email, which has all the stories and the top news. Or, of course, check us out in our regular newscast that we put together, which is a lot longer.

But we wanna talk about the top ten online scams out there. We do we are from Security Metrics. We do try to help small to medium sized businesses and enterprise businesses really try to manage that threat landscape. It's changing so quick.

Take a a real intelligent approach to cybersecurity.

Get you get you and your business and your customers that peace of mind. And, of course, see some of the threats you might have been missing and and even hold yourself to a higher standard.

And never have a false sense of security.

Yeah. Here we go, man. Let's talk about it. The top ten online scams and how to avoid Now we put together this list not in any order.

Like, this is not the number one, and this is not the number ten. These are just ten scams that are going on right now that you've got to be watching out for. And some of these scams are gonna blow your mind here. One of the the top scams that's happening right now is when the seller or the buyer tries to take the transaction elsewhere.

So, So, no, let's pretend for a moment you are the I'll be the buyer. You be the seller. Alright?

Alright. And I'm selling my laptop. Right?

Okay. You're selling your laptop. So I'm gonna send you a message. Alright? Here we go.

I'm gonna open up my my text. Right? I'm gonna send you this message. Hey.

Thanks for messaging me about the laptop.

You know, I do have it available, but listen. I I don't really wanna use this platform, Facebook Marketplace.

Let's, let's use my chat app.

I have, I have WeChat.

Is that good?

I don't know. I was hoping to do this transaction through Facebook Marketplace.

Okay. Well, that that's fine and everything like that, but it's not, you know, it's, it's not as secure. So let's just use my app. Alright? Go ahead and install it. Message me back when you got it installed. Alright?

And that's basically what happens. They want to remove the bad guy wants to remove any signs of a digital paper trail that they could use to prove that they scammed you. So and for the scammer, it gives them some protection because what do they do, Noah?

They just They take your money and give you nothing.

But they delete the app. They delete their account then, and then you have no recourse either. So little to no evidence that the scam even existed. So be wary of that.

Never ever use Green Dot as your money payment either. Alright?

Another another story that comes up from time to time, Noah, another type of online scam, fake listings. Tell me you've heard of this stuff, man.

Oh, I have. The housing market, the car market are so hot right now. Yeah. And these scams are in full swing.

Yeah. So no. One of the ones that comes up from time to time is the buyer will say, I I wanna buy your car, but I need you to get a CARFAX report. But I don't want the CARFAX report from carfax dot com or whatever. I want you to use my reporting service. K?

Yeah.

And it's some weird, obscure reporting service you've never heard of.

Right. In fact, I'm gonna send you the Google link. All you have to do is just put your your credit card information in there. It's thirty five bucks to get my CARFAX report, which is gonna be way better than anything else. Is that cool?

And then you'll buy it. Right? Right.

Right. And then I'll buy it. So but I want you to buy it. I want you to pay for the CARFAX report. So that is the scam. And it's happening all the time, folks, where they're getting a fake CARFAX report service, and just gotta be aware of that stuff.

The other thing, though, that's happening with the fake listings is the scammers posing as a property agent or a landlord. They got a fake photo of a property, and the the for some people trying to find an apartment is really nasty stuff right now. It's really hard to find a property. So they're gonna say anything they can to get you to cough up the money.

Yep. There's gonna be some golden listing, you know, right in your price range or below your price range. Yep. Every amenity you could want, and, unfortunately, the listing just isn't real. Yeah. It's just another scam to get your money.

And they're using very high pressure selling techniques to say, hey. I got other renters that are waiting. You if you wanna reserve this, you gotta send me fifty bucks right now, and that'll reserve this property from everybody else. And, oh, by the way, I need all your information to be able to complete the application.

So now they're double dipping. Double dipping. No. They're getting your money to reserve the property, which they're not gonna give you the property anyway.

And now they've got all your your information. Be wary of that, folks.

Yeah. I've seen that scam as a reserve the property and as a fake background check. Yeah. So beware of both of those.

It's nasty stuff. The NYPD put out an excellent graphic that explains this process where the the scammer is asking for advance payment to view the listing. They're asking for you to wire money. They're asking you to complete an application.

You've gotta do your own research, find out the agent, find out the listing. Are they in the Better Business Bureau, or are they not? And never complete an application without actually seeing and visiting the apartment or the premise that you're trying to to rent from. So crazy stuff.

Another online scam is this insurance scam. And the way this works, Noah, is, again, I I buy something from you, and I say, listen. We I I I'm the I need you to cover the insurance fee. Alright?

Insurance fee is gonna be fifty bucks. Alright? I know it's a valuable item. I know you want it, but we wanna have you and I wanna be safe and secure on this purchase.

Right? You wanna feel good about this purchase. So do I. Let's let's have an insurance fee to cover us.

Okay? And they take that money, and they move on to the next mark. It's that quick. Right.

Yeah. This shipping insurance scam is is really, really popular.

Another online scam right now is paying in advance. If the seller asks you to pay for an item in advance that you've not seen in person, walk away.

Big stuff there. Right? So you're talking about always being on the lookout, being suspicious. If the seller shows you an item on a video phone call, this happens a lot. But for your for you to not be able to verify it that it's in your local area, you really have to be careful on how you search for things online.

Oh, yeah. In Facebook Marketplace now, it automatically searches shipping and local. Yeah. So if you're looking to buy something on Facebook Marketplace, make sure you've adjusted those filters every time you search. The one that's local.

No. The one that's the worst is OfferUp. If you go on OfferUp and you you they they show you everything that you can buy either locally or online.

I hate that.

And it's so hard to filter on that app. But you gotta see the stuff, folks. If you're gonna buy stuff, use the local listings. Make sure you have the filters turned on, and then try to try to meet the seller in a well lit public area.

A lot of police departments now have cameras set up in front of their thing where you can meet right in front of the right in front of the police station, which is really cool thing to have.

Police station is a great place to meet.

Yeah. And I would always say I would say agree on the method of payment beforehand. I never carry cash. When anytime I I buy anything online through these marketplaces, I'm always using either Venmo, or I'm using PayPal, or I'm using services that I trust, that I know have been vetted, and I'm not carrying that cash with me.

Another online another online scam is car deposits and vehicle purchase protection scams. And if you ever have bought a vehicle flight through eBay, they have a program called the vehicle protect vehicle purchase protection program, which covers transactions up to a hundred thousand. But that only applies to eBay. So if you ever get a seller no.

Hey. Listen, man. I want you to buy my car. I I wanna make this transaction happen, but I need to deposit.

K. I need to know that you really are are interested in this car with a small deposit. In fact, I'll make the deposit refundable.

Can I see the car in person or something?

Yeah. But, again, I just need I need that deposit, though, first because I got a lot of other buyers. Alright?

So be wary of that. And, also, be wary of any scammer that tries to give themselves credibility through some sort of, oh, I got a vehicle protection pro vehicle purchase protection through Craigslist. Right? No such thing even exists. Right? So be wary of that.

Noah, another thing that happens a lot is stolen goods, faulty goods. I this is one, Noah, that I see so often. People love buying technology online.

Oh, they do. Definitely.

And this is a really common thing to see on Facebook marketplace, e bikes, laptops, and a good way to test if it's stolen is if they don't have a charger. I'm really into one wheels, and I look for one for a long time. But there was a couple that came on the marketplace that said, no charger included, and that's kind of a red flag. Like, why would they have it without a charger unless they grabbed it from somebody?

Yeah. Well said. And you don't know what the other thing that's going on too with stolen iPhones and Android, they could be hardware locked. Right.

So and it's not just those things, but Google Nest and Amazon Alexa, if you don't unpair them from your account, then it's still gonna show up. And I remember a friend of mine sold their Nest, and it was still paired to their account online. So the person that bought it was like, I can't use this thing. It's blocking me.

It's not allowing me. Even if I do a hardware, a complete reset of the hardware, and the it was still connected back to their account. So and it's like this Noah with smart televisions, laptops, video game systems.

Never never really, folks, if you can, avoid buying things like technology, anything like that, e bikes. Still, Segways is another one that those mopeds are absolutely hardware locked back to the app. So be wary of that. Another one, Noah, that got me was folks that buy things brand new sealed in a box, but don't actually open it up until you get home after the transaction's been completed.

And and what the bad guys are doing is they're taking, like like, dirt, for example. They'll put dirt in a box for a video card. Okay? And the dirt will feel like it's the same weight as the video card, but then they'll use a heat sealer, seal it all back up.

You open it up, and you realize, I just got a bag of dirt. Okay? You know how bad that is, man? That's the kind of stuff, folks, you just gotta you gotta be smarter about.

Okay?

We also have another two more exams here, two more online scams. The gift card scam, send a code. Tell me I know you've seen this one, Noah. Sellers that send the SMS code. Have you ever seen that?

I've seen that a lot. Yeah.

So, basically, what the seller does is they want payment in a gift card, and they are gonna send you an m SMS code, and there's no record of the transaction. You gotta beware of these anonymous purchases. And and by the way, this is not to be confused with those Google voice codes or where they the the buyer I'm sorry. The seller asks you to fill out a form with all your personal information.

You get a discount code or a gift card to a well known retailer. The bottom line is, these gift gift card scams are absolutely a travesty. SMS codes, they're not real, folks. They're not legit.

They're not gonna happen.

This is, the the other final two that we're gonna talk about here is this one, which is the overpayment refund.

I've I've not had any friends ever hit with this one. Overpayment refund scam. But what the seller is doing is they are offering to pay for an item before they even see it.

Yep. I've had a friend that was hit by this. Really? He's selling electronic keyboard Okay. For playing piano. And he got a message from somebody interested in buying it, and they said, okay, I'm interested. Can I send you a check?

And they sent him a check for like three times the amount of the keyboard and then they said oh no I need that money can you please send back I overpay this much of it I overpay yeah how do I make that bad so the what usually you see this too is in emails where you get a receipt for something and you'll be, I never bought this, you know, that kind of phishing scam.

But in this example, what we're talking about here is there's a fake screenshot which shows the transaction. He never ever sent the transaction, but he's has a higher dollar amount on there than what you're asking for. And it shows that he overpaid, and now he's asking you for the refund to get access to your bank account.

Sometimes the check will even go through, and then it'll bounce after a couple days.

Yeah.

The final scam we gotta talk about right now is the plain old fake goods. So, again, we're talking about here, fake goods are so hard to spot, not only in person, but online as well. And spotting these fakes, it's so difficult. And now with three d printers and the ability to just make random items, you can and and labels for clothes and fake fragrances and stuff like that, you can get taken real quick.

So it the items that you need to be watching out for in terms of fake goods is clothing brands, fake clothing tags, fragrances, jewelry, watches, makeup, fake headphones, those beat headphones, very easily to make fakes for over in China. AirPods, video game cards, burned DVDs, Blu rays. Oh, I thought I was buying this Blu ray, and you get it home and it's it's a burned Blu ray. It's not even legit.

So you gotta be real careful. If you can, again, try to do the transaction in person and not online.

So, folks, that covers the top online scams. I hope you had a good time. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something here. As always, you could subscribe to our weekly, cybersecurity newscast.

You can and get hit the bell icon and get updates when we upload a new episode. We also provide links to all the stories that we cover in our news, and you could subscribe to our weekly threat intelligence email. We are Security Metrics. Again, we're trying to help find the help you navigate that changing threat landscape, give you a little intelligent approach to cybersecurity, give you that peace of mind, see some of the threats you've been missing.

And as always, never have a false sense of security.