Scam Alert

We have all seen on television news reports of people (mostly elderly folks) who have been taken advantage of by scams. The story is often the same. The person is contacted and told a friend is in need of money. Can they wire transfer funds into a foreign account? The person out of the goodness of his heart complies. It is a scam, and the person loses all the money.

Recently, schemers have become clever. They call and pretend they are the IRS. They call and claim there is something wrong with your credit card or bank account. Using a keen eye, it is fairly easy to side step being a victim of scams. However, yesterday, I was involved in a new scam, one which was VERY HARD to realize it was not a real situation.

My mom gave me my mail. There was a letter from a medical company. I opened it. Inside, on official stationary, the letter explained the company’s records had been breached by a third party. An investigation was conducted. It was discovered my records were part of the cyber attack. The letter explained I should contact the three credit bureaus to ask for copies of my credit report to make sure there was no fraudulent activity. I was given the information to the three credit bureaus. The letter also advised placing a freeze on my account to prevent any unauthorized activity.

The letter continued, stating they valued my relationship with them. The company was offering one year of free credit monitoring. I was given a code to sign-up with the credit monitoring company. The letter ended with another apology for the security breach and promised the company was doing everything possible to prevent future attacks. The letter was signed by the company’s CEO.

As I read the letter, nothing seemed unusual. This letter was almost identical to another letter I had received from another company in 2009 when my former employer suffered a cyber attack. My former employer offered three years of free credit monitoring, which I took advantage of. The credit monitoring was a great service and alerted me to any suspicious activity on my account. Having this great experience from the past, I was happy to sign up for a free year of credit monitoring once again.

When I went to the credit monitoring company’s website, I suddenly had an urge to research the company. How did I know this credit monitoring company was real? I ran the company’s name through an internet search. The company’s website looked real. There were reviews about the company and articles written on various websites stating what a great service this credit monitoring company provided. As I scrolled down to the bottom of the search page, I saw there were suggested searches listed. One of them was, “Is ‘X’ credit monitoring legitimate”. I clicked on the suggested search.

Immediately, my screen lit up with urgent warnings stating: “‘X’ credit monitoring is a scam!” I read people’s stories. They were all the same. They received a letter from a company stating there was a cyber attack. Their information was part of the attack. Information was given to contact the credit bureaus, and free credit monitoring was offered.

One man stated this happened to his company. I will call his company Good Tree Inc. “X” credit monitoring service cyber attacked Good Tree Inc. They stole Good Tree Inc clients’ information. The clients were then sent letters on fake Good Tree Inc stationary that Good Tree Inc was cyber attacked. The victims were told to contact the three credit bureaus and to sign up for a free year credit monitoring service with "X" credit monitoring company.

The catch with this all is when you sign up for the free credit monitoring service, you have to provide your personal information including your date of birth and social security information for the company to monitor your credit. What they are really doing is getting your person information to steal your identity. I was shocked how good this scheme was. I also was surprised I was almost scammed.

Schemers are lurking around every corner. With the convenience of the internet, protect your personal information. If you sign up for any service, make sure the company is legitimate. Do internet searches on the company and also read reviews. Please make sure if you are reading reviews, they are NOT on the company’s own website. Look for independent reviews and find websites which allow anyone to post a comment or review. After carefully doing research, then make a decision if your should use the company and its services.