[00:00:04] This is Scams and Cons News with Jim Grinstead In today's news, real estate agents are being asked by scammers to sell property they don't own. A medical device company is tricking customers into having useless devices embedded into them.
[00:00:22] And a scammer promises to restore your beautiful VW van, but instead drives away with your money. We began in Newark, New Jersey, where the city was about to accept an invitation to become a sister city with a community in India.
[00:00:37] In fact, it had already held a ceremony celebrating the new relationship. There was one problem. The city didn't exist. It was a fiction created by a scammer. CBS2 in New York explains how things went wrong. Though it has a detailed website, Kailasa has no real government.
[00:00:57] It's the brainchild of Swami Nithyananda, a notorious scam artist and fugitive from India who has been on the run from rape charges since 2019. A few days after the papers were signed, city council rescinded the agreement. This is an oversight. It cannot happen any longer.
[00:01:15] The Newark City Hall insists no money was exchanged in this deal to become sister cities. The mayor's office told us based on the deception, the ceremony was groundless and void.
[00:01:25] In a statement, City Hall said although this was a regrettable incident, the city of Newark remains committed to partnering with people from diverse cultures in order to enrich each other with connectivity, support and mutual respect.
[00:01:37] In Egypt, 29 people were arrested, including 13 foreigners, on charges of scamming $625,000 from people who thought they were investing in Bitcoin mining. Simply put, investors put money into a pool to buy Bitcoin transactions. Once verified, those transactions are put into a block.
[00:01:59] Once that block has been validated, proving there are funds to back it up, a puzzle is produced and the first to solve the puzzle gets the funds.
[00:02:08] It takes a huge amount of computer power to solve the puzzle, but if someone has enough of it, the rewards can be substantial. It can also be risky as the value of the block can change while miners try to solve the puzzle.
[00:02:21] The scam lured investors into a fake company, which promised guaranteed returns. Some invested a little, while others invested all their savings. Egypt's faltering economy helped drive interest in the company. CoinGeek said authorities seized 95 phones, 3,367 SIM cards, 7 computers, 41 credit cards and the equivalent of $20,000 US.
[00:02:49] If you had a beautiful VW van and wanted it restored, you best not live in North Carolina. Theraband was arrested for scamming owners into paying for restorations that never happened. Fox 59 tells the story.
[00:03:04] Darcy Bell and Brian Ferry say they're both victims of John Bragg II, but to them he went by JB. Bell and Ferry both hired Bragg to restore their vintage Volkswagen bosses, giving him thousands in down payments and feeling like they'd done their due diligence.
[00:03:21] Until things went south, Bell says Bragg stopped responding to her when she broke off the contract after he took her bus to Tennessee without asking her.
[00:03:32] For Ferry, he showed up to Bragg's shop thinking his bus was finished, only to find the building with eviction notices on the windows. Both were able to get their buses back, but Ferry was out $7,500 and Bell was out $14,000.
[00:03:44] As soon as I said where's my bus? It went from blue to green so he obviously shot off the phone or did something. They and many others went to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office in the summer of 2022. Bell says she's talked to dozens of apparent victims.
[00:03:57] She estimated Bragg made off with more than $350,000 at least. Johnson County says they've had more than 30 victims come forward. This is Scams and Cons News. This scam smells fishy from the start.
[00:04:11] A local grocery chain sends you an email, asks you to fill out a customer survey, then send them $1,500 in gift cards. If you did it, you were supposed to receive a bonus, but no doubt the bonus was to put you on a sucker list.
[00:04:25] The offer was mailed to residents near Yakima, Washington. A Florida company sold potential customers on a device that reportedly would ease chronic pain. Useless plastic devices were embedded in patients under the guise that it was a receiver. Each device cost about $16,000.
[00:04:44] The US Attorney's Office charged Laura Perryman, the former Chief Executive Officer of StemWave, in connection with the scheme to create and sell a non-functioning dummy medical device for implantation into patients suffering from chronic pain, resulting in millions of dollars in losses to federal health care programs.
[00:05:03] The company agreed to pay the government $10 million in penalties. In a civil action, StemWave admitted and accepted responsibility and agreed to pay $8,600,000 to the United States. This payment will be credited toward the $10 million penalties from the criminal case. The settlement was made in 2023.
[00:05:25] The company filed for bankruptcy in 2022. In Richmond, Virginia and around the country, scammers are convincing real estate agents to list properties for sale they don't even own. The real owners likely don't even know their property has been listed for sale.
[00:05:41] If the property is sold, the real estate agent is left holding the bag. Macy Moores of NBC 12 in Richmond reported the story. Laura Lafayette with Richmond Association of Realtors. Sissy scammers are looking to target properties that don't have a mortgage. Typically, vacant lots.
[00:05:59] We've actually had a realtor who showed up, was taking pictures of a vacant parcel. A homeowner came out and said, what are you doing in the realtor? So I'm getting ready to list this vacant lot. And the homeowner's like, I own that vacant lot.
[00:06:13] You can't list that lot. She says they will offer the property for below market value for cash, with the goal of completing the transaction before the true homeowner becomes aware. Sometimes they even go through property records to pull personal information that helps them pull off the scam.
[00:06:30] One red flag realtor should look out for odd communication. You get a text or an email. You never talk to the person. You never, they never want to set up a Zoom meeting. They can't meet with you.
[00:06:43] They'll say they're in another part of the country or they're out of the country. But it's urgent that they sell this property. This is Scams and Cons News. Did you guys hear about that couple that went on vacation and one spouse murdered the other?
[00:07:14] In fact, the entire vacation was planned just so that they could make the murder look like an accident. Ah, so like a slaycation. Oh boy! Sounds like a fun new true crime podcast to me.
[00:07:26] On every episode of Slaycation, we'll examine true cases of people who were killed while on vacation. Was it murder? Or just a horrible accident? That's up to you and the law to decide. But either way, if you leave for your vacation in the plane
[00:07:49] and come home under the plane, you've definitely gone on a slaycation. Join us every week for a fascinating new episode. 9-1-1, what's your emergency? But make sure to pack your body bags because getting away can be murder. This is Slaycation.