SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Scammers will try to connect with you in order to get your money or steal your personal information. And in today's digital world, they have more avenues to trick unsuspecting victims out of their information leaving them high and dry.
It's not a new story but the scams are almost brand new every single day.
Most of us have seen scammers try to pull a fast one over us. It’s funny because while working on this story, I got two scam calls and a phishing email.
I answered one of the calls and the guy said, he's a federal agent and was mad when I didn't want to give him my social security number.
However, we at News 8 really wanted to take a look at this new email thread scam that was looking to phish information from right under our noses, after several of us got the same email.
We reached out to Jasmine Hill with the Better Business Bureau serving the Pacific Southwest. During our interview, I got yet ANOTHER scam phone call and told Jasmine about it.
"I think I just got another spam call to my phone," said News 8 reporter, Keristen Holmes. "Wow! As we speak. They think I got money or something."
Though we got a good laugh out of it at the time, if I didn't know any better when it comes to these scams, it wouldn't be a laughing matter.
A few News 8 employees got a funny-looking email that appeared to come from technical support at Google. There's a link to click to review the technical support ticket, that has nothing to do with any of us.
A lot of people just responded by asking to be removed from the group list. The responses went on for days all across the country and across the world.
"Yup, it's a scam," said Hill. "It's more of a phishing thing. I try to think of it as actual fishing. They try to get you hooked in there for more information."
Hill said the goal is to get a whole group involved, like the emails that were intercepted by News 8 employees, where the scammers have even more potential victims after sending out just one email.
"If you click on it sometimes there's malware that's in those links and it will attack your computer and search for personal information." Hill said.
We aren't clicking on anything in the email. But we're taking it up a notch and reporting the scam online so that others can beware.
The Better Business Bureau has an online scam tracker where you can report and see what types of scams are going on where you live.
"There are romance scams. Phishing, there's one there," Jasmine noted as she showed us what scams where happening in our area.
So we can make sure to be our ‘brother's keeper’ and try to help others not get scammed out of their hard earned money.
Remember, scammers will try anything from phone calls to texts or emails and face to face ploys.
"Rule number one, always, always, always keep your personal information private," said Hill. "Your social security number, your debit card, your credit cards."
Here are some other tips to make sure you keep your personal information safe.
If you get an email from a friend who you don't normally email, like Keristen did, check for grammatical errors. Those are red flags for scammers. Also, a lot of times older people just don't send emails, which is something to look out for. If you know the person, call them up and see if they sent you an email and go from there.
Most scam emails automatically go to your spam folder so you can check your email from time to time and report those scams.
You can find the Better Business Bureaus Scam Tracker online by clicking here.
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