[00:00:00] This is Scams and Cons News with Jim Brinstad.
[00:00:10] In today's news, that piece of paper under your windshield wiper may be a scam, not a parking ticket.
[00:00:17] Casino workers were targeted in a scam that netted $700,000 and Canadian women are far more willing to report scams than men.
[00:00:27] But we begin with a story from ProPublica, which says it may have found the person responsible
[00:00:32] for tricking Instagram into kicking influencers off the service.
[00:00:37] Its report says that it found OBN, who also goes by in OBN Brandon, and Brandon has prompted Metta, Instagram's owner, to ban an array
[00:00:47] of influencers and entertainment figures. In an article OBN wrote for fax.com last year,
[00:00:54] OBN dubbed himself as the logout king because, quote, I have deleted multiple celebrities
[00:01:00] and influencers on Metta and Instagram, end quote. He on to say, I made about $300,000 just off banning and unbanning pages. The story continues alleging
[00:01:11] that OBN exploits weaknesses in Meta's customer service since anyone can report an account for
[00:01:16] violating the company's standards. The company gives leverage to people who are able to trick it
[00:01:22] into banning someone who uses Instagram for income. In some cases, he creates duplicate accounts in his target's names, then reports
[00:01:30] the original account as imposters so they'll be barred from violating Meta's ban on account
[00:01:35] impersonation. OBN has posed as a Meta employee to persuade at least one target to pay him
[00:01:41] to restore her account. In some cases, the hacker takes the money, opens the site, then days later closes it
[00:01:49] down, demanding more money.
[00:01:52] Metta says it's investing more cash into account security and increasing the ability
[00:01:56] of users to talk to a real human being instead of a bot.
[00:02:00] A casino cage scam is costing millions of dollars through social engineering.
[00:02:05] A supervisor at the Four Winds Casino in Michigan walked out with $700,000.
[00:02:11] W-O-O-D explains.
[00:02:14] Police are saying that a casino supervisor walked away with the money after receiving
[00:02:18] a phone call.
[00:02:19] This happened weeks after the gaming industry warned casino operators about a phone scam
[00:02:24] aimed at workers.
[00:02:26] According to an alert from Nevada's Gaming Control Board, scammers pose as high-level
[00:02:31] casino executives.
[00:02:32] They call employees and convince them to break internal security protocols to deliver the
[00:02:37] cash off-site.
[00:02:39] The largest known incident netted scammers with 1.1 million in cash.
[00:02:43] On July 13, the National Indian Gaming Commission issued a similar alert warning employees to
[00:02:49] be aware of that scam and know what to do in case of a similar call.
[00:02:54] Well about three weeks after that alert, Fourwinds' cage supervisor Danica Young allegedly walked
[00:02:59] away with $700,000 in cash after receiving a phone call.
[00:03:04] Young allegedly delivered the money
[00:03:05] to an unknown person in Gary, Indiana.
[00:03:08] The cash has still not been recovered.
[00:03:10] Young has been charged with embezzlement.
[00:03:13] Detectives say the investigation
[00:03:14] into the missing money is ongoing.
[00:03:18] Scammers have found a way to steal gasoline
[00:03:20] from station pumps.
[00:03:22] NBC Philadelphia tells us how it's done.
[00:03:28] Well, this is probably something that has happened to a lot of people. Someone comes up, offers to pump your gas, and well, you may be tempted to accept
[00:03:32] the help, but police and lower Marion are telling you to say no.
[00:03:35] And if not, you could become the next victim of a scam called pump switching.
[00:03:40] It's a scam targeting drivers filling up at the pump.
[00:03:43] Somebody will
[00:03:45] and wait for the customer
[00:03:49] say, I'll put that away fo
[00:03:52] very insistent and kind o
[00:03:53] out of their hand and lov
[00:03:55] putting out this warning
[00:03:57] be aware of anyone offere
[00:04:00] up your tank. I will give
[00:04:03] some money. I'll give, dollar to three, f
[00:04:07] had money, but I would n
[00:04:10] to touch the pump where t
[00:04:13] is that instead of ending
[00:04:15] will pump for other dribers
[00:04:18] all on your dime or somon
[00:04:22] a gas pump and someone sa
[00:04:24] and I'll put gas in your car. You're participating in this. Nothing's free. Police say these
[00:04:29] scammers who usually are young also can be aggressive and don't take no for an answer
[00:04:34] when they ask you for help. Sometimes they even just physically take control from you.
[00:04:39] Well, if someone was to do that to me in our court, it would be very bad. It would be immediate
[00:04:44] reaction because you don't you don't take from people to try to avoid becoming the next someone was to do that to it would be very bad. It
[00:04:45] reaction because you don'
[00:04:47] people to try to avoid be
[00:04:49] police say you should alw
[00:04:52] hang up your own nozzle a
[00:04:55] It's really scary and it
[00:04:58] worry for older like peop
[00:05:01] It just makes me really s
[00:05:03] that that's what our world has come to.
[00:05:06] This is Scams and Cons News.
[00:05:10] A Better Business Bureau report says that Canadian women are more than twice as likely to report a
[00:05:16] scam than men. That's 63.5% to 36.5%. The women were reporting sweepstakes and lottery scams, fishing
[00:05:26] scams, employment scams, online purchase scams, and advanced fee scams. The Bureau
[00:05:33] says the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center estimates that Canadians report only
[00:05:37] 5 to 10% of actual fraud cases, meaning that the actual impact of fraud is much
[00:05:43] larger than they know.
[00:05:45] If you live in Georgia, hang on to your money.
[00:05:48] A new Forbes report says Georgia is the state where financial scams are the most prevalent,
[00:05:53] with 437 fraud reports for every 100,000 residents during the first quarter of 2023.
[00:06:00] South Dakota is the least affected by financial scams, with 132 fraud reports per
[00:06:06] 100,000 citizens.
[00:06:08] The state with the greatest number of financial scams is California, not surprising considering
[00:06:13] its size, followed by Florida, New Jersey, and Texas before landing again in Georgia.
[00:06:19] Imposter scams emerged as the most common method of fraud in the United States, with
[00:06:24] 178,000 incidents reported during the first quarter of 2023.
[00:06:30] Vermont ranked highest for imposter scams, with the schemes accounting for 47.3% of the
[00:06:35] state's roughly 840 fraud reports.
[00:06:38] While Vermont has the highest number of imposter scams, Georgia has the fewest.
[00:06:43] Utah ranked highest for investment-related
[00:06:46] scams, accounting for 4.4% of the state's nearly 3,800 fraud reports.
[00:06:52] If that piece of paper under your windshield wiper looks like a parking ticket, take a
[00:06:57] close look at it. If it contains a QR code, that code may take you to a fake website that
[00:07:03] looks real, but it collects your credit
[00:07:05] card information and other data so they can pick your pocket.
[00:07:09] If you have concerns about whether the ticket is real, call the police department's non-emergency
[00:07:14] number and ask for help.
[00:07:16] They can direct you to someone who can verify whether it's real or not.
[00:07:20] And credit a South Dakota furniture store for blocking a scam targeted a woman with dementia.
[00:07:25] Here's KTIV TV to explain.
[00:07:28] Yeah, they went deep enough to find out that the woman had dementia that she lived in
[00:07:33] Yankton and because she didn't have a car the scammers need to actually call a taxi to take her to the bank and other stores and
[00:07:40] the primary scammer who called himself
[00:07:42] David even paid her phone bill one time because he knew
[00:07:46] he needed to keep her phone on to keep the scam going. To the scammer, it was likely a return
[00:07:51] on investment. Barbara Stolliger raced from her home in North Forkabraschka to Yankton, South Dakota.
[00:07:59] She just got in word her estranged sister Sharon Biscardi had been involved in a scam but Stoliker had no idea just how much money her sister had lost. I would guess
[00:08:10] easily 10,000 but I don't know how long this has been going on. The scam was
[00:08:15] stopped by an unlikely hero. Another day but this one a furniture salesman in
[00:08:21] Yankton. The weeds in the yard were overgrown and it looked like a rundown house from the outside.
[00:08:27] David Steebrel says he got a seemingly normal call
[00:08:29] from the scammer.
[00:08:31] And when he entered the home,
[00:08:32] things also seemed normal at first.
[00:08:35] Walked through numbers with her.
[00:08:36] She would always say, well, let me call David.
[00:08:39] Let me call this other person I had not met yet
[00:08:42] who was not there present in the conversation.
[00:08:44] Steebrel then picked up on Biscardi's mental health issues and the story got weirder.
[00:08:50] He claimed that he worked for Mega Millions and that was consistent with her story.
[00:08:57] But almost everything else that she had told me about him didn't match what he told me
[00:09:02] about himself.
[00:09:03] So that was a huge red flag.
[00:09:06] Now, Steerwell could have easily walked into the home,
[00:09:08] got quotes for all the different furniture,
[00:09:10] including this exact table and sold it.
[00:09:13] That is his job after all, but he didn't do that.
[00:09:15] Once he got in contact with the family,
[00:09:17] they were all able to sit down
[00:09:19] and figure out just how pervasive this scam was.
[00:09:22] Stollinger has spent months investigating the scam against her sister,
[00:09:26] and she's found real people involved here in the U.S. Biscardi set a check to a woman in Texas.
[00:09:32] Well, as Fargo told Stolliger, the woman actually walked into the bank to deposit the check.
[00:09:38] Another scrap of paper in Biscardi's home referenced a name and address of a man in Wisconsin.
[00:09:43] A search Republic record shows the man does live at the address the scammers wanted the check sent to. And finally, the
[00:09:49] Scartie sent a money order to a woman in Colorado. And now the South Dakota train general's office
[00:09:54] has asked police in Colorado to interview that woman. Perhaps most shockingly, Stoliker
[00:09:59] called the number for the scammer a few weeks ago. And to her surprise, David answered.
[00:10:05] He picked up the phone and said, Sharon.
[00:10:08] And I said, no.
[00:10:10] And he said, this must be her sister.
[00:10:13] And I said, yes, it is.
[00:10:15] It is.
[00:10:16] Stollacher provided us with emails
[00:10:18] that show the South Dakota Attorney General's office
[00:10:20] is investigating the case.
[00:10:22] For his part in stopping the scam,
[00:10:24] Steve Rull doesn't
[00:10:25] want any clout, but he does want Sue Lander to look out for one another.
[00:10:30] This is Scams and Cons News.
[00:10:37] My name is Bill Huffman and I am a former Cleveland News producer and I am now the host
[00:10:42] of the podcast Who Killed? I began the show focusing on the unsolved murder of Amy Mahalovic.
[00:10:49] And now each week I explore a different case with a focus on some of the victims who don't
[00:10:54] get the attention they deserve.
[00:10:56] I have a deep catalog of over 225 episodes, so there is a guarantee there will be something
[00:11:02] for you. Who killed as an Evergreen podcast, killer podcasts and slow burn media production?
[00:11:10] Subscribe today, wherever you get your favorite shows.