Uncertain times – and 2021 certainly qualifies – breed opportunists who will stop at nothing to enrich themselves at your expense. The year-end statistics have been crunched, and we’ve gone to our sources to find the most pervasive scams of the past year.
Most of these scams are variations of ones we’ve seen in past years, but a couple of relative newcomers piqued our interest.
According to Google Trends, remote payment methods were one of the top-searched terms related to “scams” toward the end of 2021. Remote payment apps are perfectly legitimate and super convenient – and they’re catching up with gift cards as a means for fraudsters to secure easy, untraceable money. That’s because the second you hit ‘send payment,’ the cash is gone from your account – and there’s usually no recourse.
Another thing we’ve noticed is the proliferation of search engine ads. You might be Googling the tech support number for the company that makes your printer, or the site of a magazine you want to cancel, but most or all the ‘hits’ you see are paid ads for other companies that may or may not be legitimate – and might convincingly mimic the website you’re looking for. Searcher Beware – scroll down past all the ads to find the company’s actual URL.
That being said, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lists these as the main types of scams in 2021:
1. Social Media…
