- These are 10 more scams you
should not fall for in 2021. Welcome back to the channel. I'm the YouTube deal guy, Matt Granite, I'm excited to have you here and hopefully protect you
from these awful scams. From a giant Amazon hoax to
real estate investment scams, work from home, and utility bill scams, and even a giant Facebook scam that will leave your jaw on
the floor, I am here to help. If you guys like this content, please feel free to give
this video a thumbs up and if you do have anyone in
your family, your household, or friends that might be
susceptible to any of these scams that I'm going to explain, please feel free to share
this video with them. The first scam you should
protect yourself from is a very prevalent Amazon scam. I could have easily become a victim if I had just simply clicked a link in one of these emails that
I'm gonna show you right now. So for this first scam
that I'm going to explain, it's an email from
Amazon that will tell you that your order is on hold. At an initial glance,
it kind of looks legit. It has the Amazon logo, although it is only addressed dear customer rather than your name. You actually read through it, there are plenty of people that will just be waking
up in the morning, a quick glance at the
smartphone, they're in a meeting, and they simply click the update now, which will then pass all of your personal
credit card information and even your Amazon
account along to a hacker that could then scam your account, buy other items that are fraudulent, and compromise your identity. My general rule of thumb is don't click on any link in any email. If Amazon does indicate there's
a problem with your account, you can always call them on your own. They have an actual
customer service number, which I'll put in the
video description box. You can also just visit the
Amazon website on your own without clicking any of the links and see what's going on in your account. And speaking of Amazon, if you've ever wondered
how those porch pirates and video doorbell bandits
are stealing your packages right in plain sight of a camera and other people in your neighborhood, there is a new tactic that they are using, and that is the second scam that I want to make you aware of right now and this is a package stealing scam. If you've ordered anything from Amazon or countless other online retailers, you've likely seen a rental
truck and a delivery person wearing a crossing guard
type construction over vest. Countless companies, including Amazon, use these third-party
independent contractors that typically rent cars
and are not direct employees of Amazon or other retailers to complete many of
their local deliveries. You don't always see a UPS,
a FedEx, or a DHL truck. Thieves, including many package
burglars in my community, have picked up on the fact
that if they rent a truck and wear some type of crossing guard vest, they can actually steal
packages in plain sight. Here's how it works. A thief will come out of a truck or a van with three to four packages and find houses where packages
are already sitting outside. They'll put a fake box in place of the two to three
that they are grabbing, and if someone catches them in the act, they simply just tell them that they realized they
were at the wrong house, or they were sent back
to reclaim a package that was mislabeled. It sounds convincing enough,
but these people are so bold, they will come right up to
your house while you're there and even wave to you or your
neighbors in plain sight. And in many cases, they get away with it because they look oddly official or at least more reminiscent of what you would see for
a typical Amazon delivery from an actual delivery person. Before I play you actual audio tied to a phone scam that I've received, the number three spot is a top 10 scam you should not fall for in 2021. It's a click bait scam and this is something that
you'll otherwise often see tied to reputable websites,
including local news. So if you watch while I scroll through this specific webpage, you're gonna find actual news stories tied to this organization, and
then beside ads for Toyota, which don't really apply to me because I don't need a new car or oval cut diamond
eternity rings, which again, don't apply to me because
I'm already married and my wife seems to like what she has, although this looks very nice. But then you're gonna
see other icons or tiles that kind of look similar
to the actual news that's being covered on this webpage, trying to bait you to click. So woman files for divorce
after seeing this photo. Not only do they want my location, but if you go through the actual gallery before this article
usually gets to the point and you keep clicking the continue banner and scrolling past all
of the advertisements, and you'll often see some of these scams tied to Hollywood gossip, but what they're hoping you'll do is eventually just misclick. You'll click here or you'll click here, or you won't click the continue and then when you do
click on the wrong page, you'll often end up on something that will then lock your computer. Your computer will tell
you you have a virus, you need to give a company
a credit card number to unlock your computer. My point being watch very
carefully where you click and if you do see these so-called stories, the best way to differentiate
many of these click scams from actual reputable content is to look for something
that says, "Sponsored," often in very small text
right under the photo. And it is confusing
because it is thrown up around actual content
from a reputable source, but something that you
definitely want to be very careful of before you click. In the number four spot is another scam you should not fall for in 2021. It's a telephone scam
where you are rewarded for being the best customer
for a service that you use that isn't necessarily
actually from a company anywhere near you, a company that might be calling to offer you a great deal on- - [Woman] Maintenance
and oil change package for being a loyal customer. Call me back at eight. - They're very personable voicemails. You may have received one, and you're just thanked generically for being a great customer with a huge deal on your next oil change or maintenance for your vehicle. Kind of like the car warranty
scam, but in this case, many of us are not as suspicious. It's a kind voicemail from someone with a specific number to call. The issue is that when you call to book this too-good-to-be-true oil change offer for your next vehicle, where they're quoting you a price of $100 for your next eight oil changes, you are in fact giving your
credit card information and sending payment to a company that doesn't even do oil
changes, often overseas. But if you own a car, you get oil changes. If you own a car, you typically
get maintenance done on it. And sometimes we don't realize
from that first phone call that this isn't actually
in any way associated with the auto body shop or the dealership where we get our car regularly serviced. So of course, just another
scam to be cognizant of. Which brings me to the next scam. In the number five spot,
a common real estate scam that's making its way
from one town to the next, one city to my voicemail
right now with this message. - [Woman] Hey, this is Sarah. I just wanted to follow up on a voicemail I left you a while ago. My partner and I are real estate investors here in Mount Summit and we're interested in
property that you own. If you've at all thought about selling, give us a call back, 248-657- - Anyhow, I don't own property other than this home
where I live right now. And often these companies will do research on the specific area code
associated with your phone number, and then sometimes actually
narrow down the area where you live and tell you that they are interested in your property. Of course, they're not real. All they really like other
than the deed to your property, through some error that you
might make on paperwork, is of course some type of processing fee or a brokerage fee that
you pay out of pocket before they give you
that huge amount of cash for your home from people
that are not in any way located anywhere near you nor are they actually
licensed real estate agents. In the number six spot, before I get to a company that
is possibly going to steal a sample of your voice
and use it against you, there's another scam going around called Operation Income Illusion and this is essentially a check scam where you will be paid from a
company to then buy supplies for a venture that, at a first
glance, appears to be real. One example of this is you are tied to some new work from home company where they mail you a check
for a certain amount of money and then you go to an online portal and you buy all of your supplies with the money you've been sent. Another example is this car wrap scam going around tied to the
same type of concept. A company will send you a check, you sign up via social media through some of these other websites that will target your inbox, you give them your information, and then they mail you
a check for 2 to $3,000 and they tell you keep a thousand dollars, but spend two of the
$3,000 that we've sent you on this special printer you need to print these decals for your car, or decals if that's how
you prefer to pronounce it. And once you've paid
for all of the supplies through this online portal, given up your credit card
and personal information, your bank where you've cashed the check will likely realize that
it is in fact fraudulent and when they've reversed all
of the funds from that check that was never really yours to begin with, you spent $2,000 on supplies that you're never gonna get tied to an offer that was
really too good to be true in the first place. In the number seven spot, it's a voice sample stealing robo scam, often from a Washington DC number or an area code that you trust. And here's one of the things that I will play for you as a sample. I receive phone calls every week and when I answer my phone, I hear this. (speaking foreign language) And then it goes silent. And at that point, some of us
will yell back at the person or we'll say, "Hello, hello, I think you have the wrong number." And what's actually happening is the other end of the telephone line is recording a sample of your voice. Now we're never quite sure how our voices could be used against us, but just an example,
many banks, including TD, use a specific technology
called VoicePrint and if their system registers that it is, in fact, your voice, you can sometimes have
access to a bank account, which without the regular
path of verification would allow you to potentially move funds. Now, this might be a bit of a stretch for this specific example, but if there's an area code
that you don't recognize, don't answer the phone call. And if there's nothing on
the other end of the phone, certainly don't supply additional
examples of your voice. In many of these cases, these services are just testing to see whether or not your line is active. And then it gets added to some type of massive robocall database, but it's those longer calls
where you keep saying hello and talking that someone could potentially use your voice against you. In the number eight spot, before I tackle that
Facebook marketplace scam, there's another scam yet again tied to your utility provider. There are two examples
of this scam going around and I recently just received
this bill informing me that I have $648 due for
one month of electric use and there's absolutely no way in my home that that would have ever occurred. So the first thing they want you to do is log in and review your bill and whether you are a so-called commercial or residential customer. And in this case, all
you're gonna be doing to this specific website is providing your personal information. After getting your attention
with this crazy amount due, you'll be greeted by another page that will then tell you that
you are in fact owed $648 because you've overpaid your bill and how can they get that money to you? Well, with your direct deposit information that you then supply further
opening up your bank account or credit card to more illicit activity. So first thing's first, other than the whole
knowledge is power factor, which we've got going on. And again, thank you so much
for watching this video. You can also independently
contact your utility providers or go onto the website
for your utility provider and login on your own,
but don't click any links. Don't click through any portal
supplied to you via email or on social media. In the number nine spot, it's a Facebook marketplace
scam where someone could potentially easily
steal your phone number. Here's how it works. If you are trying to buy
something from someone else, or if you've listed an offer for something that you want someone else to buy, you might hear from the
so-called buyer or seller where they say, "I've been scammed before and I want to ensure that
you are a real person. Give me your phone number, I'm gonna text you a four digit code, give that code back to me, and then we'll wrap up this transaction." So our initial thought is
all right, that makes sense. No problem, here's my phone number. You give them the number and then they text you a four digit code that you send back to them. It all sounds normal, but what's actually occurring is once you give someone
your phone number, they are applying for
a Google Voice number and for Google Voice to
tie itself to your account, you need that four digit code. Google is texting the
four digit code to you, you're then texting it back
to a hacker or a scammer, and there you go, they've just taken possession
of your phone number that they can then turn
into a robocalling number in about 60 seconds flat. So that is one thing you
might wanna be aware of before you deal with anyone
on Facebook marketplace, let alone any type of
transaction on social media. In the number 10 spot,
before I get to two bonuses, including a door to door charity scam, and something you should
be aware of on YouTube, there is a credit card drop
detection scam going around, where you receive an email similar to what you see
on the screen right now, where it actually has my name correct. Matthew, please review your alert. Your FICO score has decreased. And it appears to be coming from Experian. If you're like me, some companies that
you've done business with have now had massive data breaches. For me, it was M Life Resorts in Las Vegas from a stay I had a couple of years ago. Or more recently, a T-Mobile hack. To compensate, companies
like M Life or T-Mobile provide free credit score monitoring through legitimate services like Experian. The problem is that the scammers that have compromised those companies have caught on to this and they
will berate you with emails indicating that your
credit score has dropped. And the alerts appear to come from legitimate companies like Experian. First thing, obviously don't
click the links in the email. The second tool I have is a free resource to stay further ahead of the scammers. And if you expand the
video description box, you will find a link. It's a completely free website where you simply enter your
email address or phone number and then in precisely one second, you can find if your phone
number or email address has been compromised and the source from where it was compromised or hacked. So in my case, there's the
MGM Resorts data breach, which I was aware of and
then something from a company called DriveSure that I had
absolutely no knowledge of, where this breach was
tied to a car dealership that I apparently interacted with. Had I not used the service, I would not have known
about the DriveSure breach. And this is one other
resource to stay a step ahead of cyber criminals,
hackers, and overall thieves when it comes to your
personal information. Before I wrap up this video, I've got two quick bonus scams that I want to share with you. The first is tied to a
door to door charity scam. Sometimes it's a really cute kid, sometimes it's a very
well dressed individual with an employee ID
number where they tell you that if you do support their
charity, it's tax deductible, it's going to a great cause, and before you give them the credit card in exchange for the pamphlet or any other personal
information, there's a quick tool. If you expand the video description box, I also have a link to
this where you can see if the organization is, in
fact, an actual charity. Sometimes they're for-profit organizations and other times they're
not a charity at all. You can quickly search the
register database with the IRS tied to your city, your state, or in addition to just searching
the name of the charity, you can actually check
employer identification numbers that many of us are given when
someone comes to our door, so this is a phenomenal resource. And now for the final bonus scam that I want to share with you, something that affects users of YouTube, whether you are a creator
or a commenter on a video. When I comment on a video, typically you will see a check mark. And if I do respond to
a comment like this, you can generally click on the comment and then it'll take
you to my profile page. But there are other hackers that will use the exact
image of the creator that you think you're interacting with, and then tell you to text
them at their WhatsApp number or join them on Telegram
or some other service where they're just trying to
grab your personal information. Sometimes the schemes appear as someone talking about how reliable a specific cryptocurrency is. And then 30 comments below it, where everyone is all
echoing the same sentiment, if you look at the time or date stamp tied to the subsequent comments, you'll notice that they're all generated within 15 or 20 seconds
of the initial comment and that's because they
are generated by computers. So whether it's someone praising
a hacker or cryptocurrency or someone pretending to
be your favorite creator, just be cognizant of that on any platform, including YouTube. Now, if you guys like the
content that I did share right here on YouTube, it's
actually me, not a scam, please feel free to give
this video a thumbs up. I'd really appreciate it if you subscribe and turn your notifications on. I promise I'll have more
videos like this in the future. Please feel free to share it. Thank you so much for watching. Bye bye.
