It seems as though every day I read or hear about a new company that has been hacked into or a new scheme that has been exposed. So today I'd like to discuss the top 10 scams and frauds. I will list the top 10 and in subsequent weeks I will go into a detailed overview of each scam or fraud and provide some tips to help you avoid the scam and some action items for you to take if you have been a victim of fraud.
*Home improvement fraud *Debt relief fraud
*Funeral fraud *Reverse mortgage scams
* Investment scams *Telemarketing fraud
*Internet fraud *Lottery and sweepstakes fraud
*Phony government scams *Grandparent scam
In my next blog I will discuss in some detail the first two items on the top 10 list which is home improvement fraud and debt relief fraud.
Also a heads up as we come into the income tax season. I came across an article in the local paper about income tax fraud where eight people had been arrested for using stolen Social Security numbers and filing bogus tax claims. Some of the numbers were from people who are deceased but most were from people who are alive and were not aware that their Social Security number had been compromised. The dollar amount that was fraudulently taken from the U.S. government was in excess of $1.4 million. This created a serious problem for the people who filed legitimately and found out someone had already used their Social Security number,and had to deal with the bureaucracy of the IRS, Social Security administration and any pension funds that they may have had. I can't stress enough the importance of having an identity theft program to protect you and to help you in your time of need.
And finally last week I mentioned the website that Peter Brusso and I have developed to bring awareness to our senior citizens about the various identity theft scams that are out there. We now have three podcasts that are posted on our site. I invite everyone to go to our website and check out our podcasts. Our goal is to inform the senior citizen population of the risks that are out there on a daily basis. Your feedback is very important to us (the good and the bad) so we can make this a valuable tool to help our seniors in the fight against identity theft.
http://seniorscamspodcast.com/index.html
richardbentley.us
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