Scamming for hotel rooms with roaches and used condoms

[00:00:04] This is Scams and Cons News with Jim Grinstead. More than 60 hotels were conned by a man who dirtied rooms with roaches and used condoms. And scammers were showing up at people's doors to collect money they say they're owed. But we begin with a story that I can't call a scam or a con, but it is a cautionary tale.

[00:00:29] We've talked before about questionable charities who take huge amounts of money for fundraising costs and give very little to the causes they claim to support. Well, recently I learned about a new one. Hi, thanks for holding for me. It's Robert for the Police Officers Support Committee PAC. We're reaching out to everyone in the area because more and more police officers get assaulted on the job every day. As a PAC and not a charity, our goal is to elect lawmakers who will support our police officers

[00:00:58] with more training and life-saving equipment. With that in mind, we'd like to count on you for a non-tax-deductible contribution and send you out a return envelope, okay? Hello? The difference between this and other similar calls seeking support for fire and police is that it's a PAC, a political action committee. The senators are very clear about this and that the donations are not tax-deductible.

[00:01:26] That keeps them on the legal side of the street. What we don't know is how the money is spent. Or do we? Political action committees must file federal reports about how their money is spent, and guess what the Police Officer Support Committee spends its money on? Fundraising. This Wisconsin-based PAC spends nearly 90% of the money it collects on fundraising according to the 2019-2020 federal reports,

[00:01:56] and then it was only $331,000. There weren't enough expenditures to report in the following two election cycles. I can't call it a scam, but if you want to support candidates who support police, you might want to invest in the candidates themselves. A dangerous new cyber scam is making the rounds, and authorities are throwing up red flags about video calls.

[00:02:23] Scammers are placing video calls from unknown numbers to unsuspecting victims. When answered, the caller displays explicit content on the screen while secretly capturing a screenshot of the victim's face. The scammers then use this compromising image to blackmail the victim, threatening to share it with family members or partners unless payment is made. Many victims caught off guard and fearing reputational damage have paid these criminals out of panic.

[00:02:52] Officials say not to give in to the demands and don't answer video calls from unknown numbers. A Minneapolis-area man was threatened with jail for failing to turn up for jury duty, but the caller offered him a way out. KARE has his story. KARE has his story. It all began with a message on an answering machine. The message came to Bill Pussell's dental office, where he's worked as a dentist for more than 45 years. You couldn't hear it real well. It wasn't a quality call.

[00:03:20] But he could hear it well enough to know it was serious, and he needed to call the number back. So he did, got no answer. But a couple hours later, the caller called Bill back on Bill's cell phone. And he said that there is a warrant out for your arrest, a bench warrant. And I said, for what? And he said, well, there's a failure to arrive for a federal grand jury. The caller told Bill they had served him the notice last November at his old office,

[00:03:49] and then the caller recited Bill's home address. He said, yeah, that's me. I've been there 42 years. Here's where it gets even creepier. The caller told Bill he was a Hennepin County Sheriff's officer, and he gave him a name. The name he gave Bill is an actual officer with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department. And then he gave Bill his first demand. Well, since we've been contacting back and forth,

[00:04:13] you have this afternoon to be down here at the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, room 30. And I said, well, I can't. The caller agreed to give Bill until this morning, when he would call back with information on what Bill needed to do. So Bill spent last night Googling failure to show for grand jury. News stories popped up immediately saying scam. While waiting for that call, Bill made a call. So I went to the Plymouth police.

[00:04:41] I figured, well, I'm going to call start there to see if they have a way of finding out, am I supposed to be on the jury or not? And as Bill began to tell an officer about the calls he'd been getting... The guy called me on my phone. I said, hey, you're right here. And he can't make it up. I'm sure the person that was trying to scam Bill never thought for a moment that, you know, when they called back that they would be calling into a line that was being monitored by the police.

[00:05:08] As soon as the officer said, I'm on the line, the line went dead. And within minutes, the phone number that had been calling Bill was disconnected. So Bill was saved from what hundreds of people all over this country had fallen for. A scam telling callers in detail they failed to report to jury duty and must pay $1,800 in fee. Jury duty scams have been around for years, and police will not accept payment for a missed appointment. That's for a court to decide.

[00:05:38] Clark Fork, Idaho officials are working with federal investigators to recover nearly half a million dollars after falling victim to a fraud scheme involving their municipal water project. The city mistakenly transferred $483,000 to a scammer who impersonated a manager from their legitimate construction contractor. The fraudulent payment was processed following what appeared to be routine communications about a city-funded drinking water infrastructure project.

[00:06:06] City officials became aware of the fraud almost immediately after the transaction and attempted to freeze the funds. The FBI and Secret Service are investigating the case. The incident follows a similar case in Gooding, Idaho, where officials recovered the majority of $1.1 million fraudulently transferred to scammers impersonating a wastewater infrastructure contractor this year. A Philadelphia woman was caught in a romance scam.

[00:06:35] It's a familiar story, but one that keeps claiming new victims. I was not looking for romance by any means. Kate Kleinert's story starts with a Facebook friend request from a man who claimed his name was Tony, a surgeon with two kids working in Iraq. Before you knew it, they were talking multiple times a day. I had been widowed for 12 years at that point. It was nice. It was nice talking to a man again.

[00:07:02] And every single night, he would call me and say, How was your day, honey? Nobody asked me that anymore. It was months before he ever asked for money. But then he kept asking, usually for something urgent. His kids, food, a better Wi-Fi signal to call her. It was tough, he claimed, moving money in Iraq. I was so stubborn about this that I was, I think, ignoring the red flags because I wanted it so badly.

[00:07:31] Finally, he needed funds to fly to Philly so he could see her. By then, Kate was out nearly $40,000. And Tony ultimately never showed up. Her story is not uncommon, is it? No, not at all. FBI cybercrime special agent Joe Wolfley says romance scams account for some of the largest online financial crime losses. Scammers scour details from social media to target their victims. So protecting yourself starts with being careful about what you post.

[00:08:00] The scammers get really, really good and they have scripts. They have all sorts of information that they can pull from. Unfortunately, everybody can be the target of this. After the scam, things went from bad to worse for Kleinert, who says she couldn't even afford to fix her broken AC. An old portable unit she was using in the meantime sparked a fire that burnt down her home and killed her six foster dogs. Forced to start over, she found new purpose. Kleinert now advocates for the AARP and even spoke at the White House.

[00:08:30] Helping other scam survivors know they're not alone. This is Scams and Cons News. It's a growing category of scams that has me concerned. Scammers that show up at your door to pick up payment for something they say you offered to buy. ABC News has the story. Chris Owen is a Vietnam veteran who traveled the world. He worked his entire life to save for retirement in Indiana with his wife Karen.

[00:08:58] Karen and I had traveled a number of places, lived a lot of places. And then in 1989, we moved to Valparaiso, Indiana. And northwest Indiana was a good spot to live. Chris and Karen hoped to spend decades of their retirement together. They moved hours away to live near their son and hoped to travel the globe soon after. But that next chapter would never happen. Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

[00:09:25] And so all of our plans for travel and everything kind of went out the window. And so it was in February of 2023 that she passed away. And so it's been pretty rugged. Probably one of the reasons I was so susceptible to what happened to me. Owen believes the loss of his wife led him to falling victim to a scam that would cost him $80,000.

[00:09:53] And led him to becoming an undercover operative to try to put a stop to an international fraud ring. A scheme that has stunned authorities. I have never seen a scam to this magnitude as intricate and as detailed as this that can target so many individuals across the entire United States. Have you ever investigated a crime like this before? No, this is pretty unique.

[00:10:19] A scheme that has led to some behind bars over gold bars. Hello, this is a free call. An inmate at the Nassau County Jail. Gold is worth more now than ever before. And people are stockpiling the precious metal in record numbers. With inflation stubbornly high, some people are looking to gold as an investment. And business is booming at gold stores. As the value of gold has gone up, scammers have taken notice.

[00:10:46] Last year, victims of gold scams reported losses of $126 million, according to the FBI. Everybody knows gold is worth something. So how are swindlers taking advantage of this gold rush? One day you're browsing the internet when you see something like this. A pop-up message saying your personal information has been compromised. You call and speak to someone posing as a tech company representative or federal agent.

[00:11:10] The victim is told, hey, your money's being used to engage in money laundering or drug sales or child pornography. Some victims, like Owen, will even receive what they believe are documents from the FBI, saying the IRS will freeze all your financial accounts if you tell anyone about the situation. The pop-ups themselves, the documents they're provided, the communications seem so authentic.

[00:11:36] Scammers will then convince you to convert some or all of your savings into gold bars and hand them over to the federal government. The victim thinks that they're on the phone with somebody from the FTC, let's say. That individual is telling the victim, the only way that we can protect your assets is if you withdraw your money from the bank and you go buy gold. There's a sense of urgency. Your account's compromised right now. You need to move your money right now.

[00:12:04] Once the victims have bought the gold bars, they're given detailed instructions. They told me to wrap it in a box, wrap it with Christmas wrap paper. Then when the gold is boxed up, their handlers say, We'll make it super convenient for you. We'll send a courier, a federal courier, to go pick up these gold bars from you. Didn't that raise any alarm bells to you?

[00:12:27] ABC News hearing directly from an alleged gold scam courier, speaking out from jail as he faces charges in two states. 27-year-old Yash Shah was previously charged with multiple felonies in 2023 related to the gold bar scam. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years probation. It sounds crazy to actually listen to a stranger to convert your cash into gold and hand it over to a complete stranger. But people are doing that. Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like something out of a movie.

[00:12:56] Shah claims he was hired by someone in India and was paid between $800 and $4,000 to pick up packages. A 21-year-old from China set off on a journey across the country after dropping out of college. Instead of using his tuition for classes, he hit the road, armed with a suitcase full of adventure and a stash of dead cockroaches and used condoms.

[00:13:25] After checking into a hotel, he'd scatter gross objects around the room, dead bugs, hair, and the condoms. Then he'd raise a stink with management, threatening to post photos online unless they comped his stay. And it worked. Over the course of ten months, police say he pulled this trick at least 63 times. In some cities, he booked three to five rooms in one go just to increase his odds.

[00:13:53] But like all scams, it eventually unraveled. A suspicious hotel manager contacted nearby hotels, only to find out they'd all been hit with the same scam by the same man. Police moved in, and when they arrested the man, they found 23 prepackaged kits to his luggage, complete with roaches and condoms, ready to go. This is Scams and Cons News.