With more people working remotely and available face to face and on the phone in the privacy of their home, it becomes increasingly important to avoid online and door to door scams that abound. Fake charities. Fake COVID tests and cures. Fake reps coming to your door to switch your electricity provider. Students trying to enter your home to clean your carpets or sell you a vacuum. You really need to have your guard up at all times.
These days, not bothering to answer your door to anyone unless you are expecting a visitor or a delivery is a good start. Deleting emails that look suspicious without clicking reply or any link can save you from being ripped off. Installing a doorbell camera at your front door or a fence and locked gate at the front of your property can eliminate the need to answer your door, too.
Between COVID and an increasing number of fake charities and social media ripoffs, scams have increased exponentially during lock downs to take advantage of the current social environments and people spending more time at home.
Avoid Online and Door To Door Scams
Scams tend to focus on and always go back to one thing: Stealing something. Stealing your money. Stealing your identity. Stealing physical things from your house. Getting you to sign up and pay for something you don’t need.
Major scams involve often involve:
- Your identity: Imposter scams involving stealing your SSN and pretending to be you by using your ID.
- Social security scams: You get a phone call from someone claiming to be a social security rep and that (for example) a warrant has been issued for your arrest and you need to go to the store and get a gift card in an amount of money and give that person the number on the back of the card to get out of this predicament. Sounds ridiculous but it’s a scam that works.
- Voice recordings: You get an unsolicited phone call from a machine with a voice recording asking you a question that involves you answering “yes.” They may ask Is this the homeowner? or Can you hear me? or something like that. Scammers record your voice saying yes and use it to steal your identity. Don’t say anything and hang up.
- Phishing or spoofed (fake) emails from people pretending to be a major company like a bank or insurance company attempting to steal your identity or money or both.
There are many other scams making the rounds. Some are new scams and many are age old ones that still work.
Online Scams
Online scams come in several different forms typically in phishing emails, on social media and fake websites. Common online scams include:
- Fake bank, financial institution and insurance related emails.
- Spoofed (fake) emails
that look like they come from a business or website you do business with trying to get you to change your password or provide personal information to. - COVID tests, cures and charities that aren’t real.
- An email telling you that you won a trip or prize in a contest you never entered.
- Multi-level marketing (MLM) and pyramid scams involving you paying a fee to join a sales organization of some kind with the promise of earning money.
- Tax-related scammers who pretend to be from the IRS or other tax or government service.
- Scammers trying to steal your stimulus check or other payment.
Solution: Online scams often originate overseas. Look for emails that are poorly written, have grammatical and spelling errors and just look fake. Don’t click on anything but if you hover your mouse over the sender email address you can often see that the email didn’t come from the company they are pretending to be.
If in doubt, delete the email and call the institution on their publicly advertised phone number.
Door To Door Scams
Door to door scams commonly involve services, charities and trying to get you to sign up for something. Often they are high pressure, with time limits to create urgency and reps try to force their way into your home to add to the pressure. COVID-19 and related lock downs mean that with more people working from home, more people are available during the day to rip off.
These scams include:
- Electricity, water and other utilities trying to get you to change providers.
- Vacuum cleaner and other cleaning product sales.
- Internet providers, telcos and cellphone providers.
- Home maintenance scams ie. furnace servicing, roof repairs, duct cleaning, carpet cleaning.
- Students selling art that they claim is for tuition payments for themselves.
- Meat and other food clubs.
- Potential thieves trying to get into your house to see what you have and see if your home is worth robbing in the future.
- Burglars ringing your doorbell to see if there is anyone home and when you answer the door, they make up an excuse. They were just checking to see if the home was empty to rob.
Door to door scams often involve using young people such as students so there is a feeling of innocence and that you feel sorry for this person just trying to earn a living or pay for college.
I once had a guy come to my door – he was a young guy and looked at the ground and made no eye contact the entire time – telling me he was authorized (his words) to check out my basement storm drain on the floor for some maintenance service. That was probably the most original scam I’ve seen. I said no thanks and closed the door.
Solution: Install a doorbell camera so you can always see who is at the front door and decide whether or not to answer it. For a lower tech solution, a peephole on the front door lets you see who is outside your house.
If you happen to answer the door, aren’t sure if it’s real, and don’t have the personality to say “no!” or the person isn’t listening to you, start closing the door and if they try to stop you, ask them if you need to call the police. That will let them know you’re serious.
You could also put up a sign that says No Solicitation, No Canvassers, Baby Sleeping or other excuse to avoid getting your doorbell rung. You can also turn off your doorbell if needed.
If your front yard design allows it, you can also put a fence up with locked gate so people can’t even reach your front door.
Vulnerable Targets
The most vulnerable targets for online and door to door scams include:
- People over the age of 50 and in particular seniors.
- People who live alone, may be lonely and look forward to speaking with someone including a salesperson.
- People who can’t say no and entertain people’s sales pitches.
- Those who can’t distinguish between real offers and fake ones. Sometimes it is hard to tell.
- People who are impulsive and tend to buy things without much planning.
- Immigrants and people whose first language isn’t English and who may not realize that scams are prevalent.
- People who are intimidated by pushy people especially if the person at your door is a man, which it usually is.
Summary
To avoid online, door to door and other scams always remember the following:
- Learn to say NO emphatically, shut the door, hang up the phone or delete the email and send it to Junk.
- Never invite a salesperson that you weren’t expecting into your home.
- Ask detailed questions if it appears to be legit and something you may have an interest in.
- Never pay cash. Paying by credit card creates a paper trail and the possibility of a refund if something goes wrong.
- Be careful about signing contracts from a door to door salesperson who came by unsolicited.
- Call the police – or threaten to call the police – if the person won’t leave your property.