Sadly, Idahoans Can’t Stop Falling For These 6 Common Scams

When was the last time you encountered a scam? Unfortunately, it probably hasn’t been long! Scammers keep finding creative ways to con you out of your hard-earned money or damage your network. 

Heck, we’ve stopped checking the inbox on our station’s Facebook page because it’s so overrun with scammers. Back in November, we started getting scam messages from users using Meta’s logo as their profile image. All of the messages were similar. They said that our page was scheduled for deletion due to some sort of copyright infringement and directed us to a link to request a “review” of our page so that it wouldn’t be permanently. 

Well, our parent company didn’t train a bunch of dummies. We knew these were phishing scams and there was NO WAY we were clicking that link. Within the last week, we were receiving 10-15 of these messages a day. And we’re not alone. So many business pages have received the same message, that the Better Business Bureau added it to their “scam tracker”  page back in December. 

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Scammers aren’t just coming after you by e-mail. They’re coming after you via phone calls, e-mails and good old fashioned snail mail too! 

Familiarizing yourself with some of the most common scams is one of the best ways to protect yourself and your money. We’ve shared the ins and outs of the “One Ring Scam.” Whether they call and hang up or leave you a voicemail, they’re hoping you’re curious enough about the missed call to return it. Doing that could mean an ugly surprise on your next phone bill. The scammers use a phone number with a three-digit area code, but they’re usually not American phone numbers. If you call them back, you can rack up some significant per-minute international fees. 

The Boise Police Department has a great scam prevention page where they list some of the most common scams Idahoans and others across the country are likely to fall for. Here’s a look at six of the ways that they say scammers are trying to take advantage of you.