“Humans who give vultures a bad name”

Pat Racimora at No Quarter reminded me that I really should remind you that the “There is a sucker born every minute” crowd is in high gear these days.

Scams abound to play on our fears about everything — from the Flu (Please see RBO’s piece : “Beware of Swine Flu Scammers) –to “Gitchyer gold here” — to mortgage ‘refinance’– to “Mail in your gold and get cash”.

Scammers adore consumer fear and crises, and if this President does one thing well, it’s punctuating fear and elevating it to crisis level. Let’s face it, there seems to be a major “emergency” every week, even if it isn’t an emergency at all. While we can imagine all day why it is that the Sky is Falling for a different well-scheduled reason almost weekly, scammers don’t care. Just like the White House, scammers know that there are enough people out there who will panic every week right on schedule. These thieves crack their knuckles and get to work at what they do best: Helping you part with your money. Truly, the biggest epidemic facing America right now is Fear, stoked by our own leaders.

Here is Pat Racimora’s cross-post, including, of course, one of her insightful cartoons. In the meantime, I urge you not to click on ANY online links you see that deal with the lastest panic. If it looks as though that link might help you, there’s a much greater chance it will help someone else who is looking for a way into your wallet–or even worse, your identity.

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The economy is booming in at least one sector, namely fraudsters out to separate you from your money. These human stains have always existed, of course, but the meteoric rise in the sheer number of scams in recent weeks is startling.

And what better target than the already weakened? People who face losing their homes or have been laid off from their jobs are the juiciest quarry. At least vultures usually wait until their prey is dead.

Here are just a few of what these bottom-feeders are up to these days:

1. Promising to help people renegotiate their mortgage to an affordable level, complete with a money-back guarantee if they don’t succeed. Of course, there is that stiff upfront fee. After months of being strung along—time that troubled homeowners could have been pursuing legitimate assistance—they and your money are gone.

2. Offering opportunities to make money at home. (If you haven’t gotten spammed with these offers, you must have a Mac.) Some will “set you up” with selling supposedly nice items that you pay for up front. Cheap crap arrives that no one will want. Others offer you work at no charge, but actually only want personal information so they can gain access to your banking information or sell it to someone who will. The work never materilaizes.

3. You could become a “Money Mule” (pitched as highfalutin titles as “shipping managers” or “international sales representative.”) This job actually does make people money, but they could lose it all along with their freedom. The Mule is instructed to open an account and accept anonymous payments and then transfer them to other accounts in foreign countries, getting a cut in the process. Of course the operations are illegal money laundering schemes, and the most vulnerable to getting caught is, of course, the Mule.

4. Low cost loans are proffered by crooks who will take their up-front fee and flee, leavng you stuck with your higher-priced loan as well as less than you already had.

The use of the Internet and some new wrinkles make it more difficult to tell the good guys from the bad. Modern scammers can find out a lot about a person before they attack, especially if they have a Facebook (or similar) page. Personalized approaches are perceived of as more trustworthy by potential victims.

These hustlers have also figured out that people are less likely to make a fuss about (or even notice) a small charge on their credit card bill. Yet, scamming a thousand people out of $10 each adds up to a tidy sum.

Even amateurs can now create impressive web pages that appear to be offering a legitimate service or product, but only want your money (and probably your personal information as well). You, of course, will receive nothing.

Preventing such predators from reaching your gates is the same as it has always been: Don’t give out personal information to anyone you don’t know and trust; Check your credit card and bank statements carefully; If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is; You should not have to pay for most services before receiving them, and so on.

Yet these scumbags are getting better and smarter and there are more and more of them, so watch out! You can be sure they are hovering overhead watching us.

See here and here for a couple of good articles on today’s scamming trade.