SCAM ALERT - Consumer Rescue

Keto scam alert, scammer calling asking for payment, diet pills, con artist demanding payment

Keto Supplement customer service says I owe big money! What is this scam?

March 9, 2025February 27, 2025 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

There’s a new scam coming to your home phone. Aggressive, fake customer service agents are on duty, demanding payment for Keto supplements you didn’t order.

I learned about this bizarre scam firsthand when a pushy, fast-talking woman called me to deliver an ultimatum. She told me that her company, Keto Supplements, wanted me to pay for the diet pills they’d sent me. If I didn’t give her a valid credit card immediately, she said, I would regret it.

Cruise ship passengers beware, Carnival freedom

These cruise ship passengers say they lost $30,000 to scammers in Nassau

February 2, 2025December 31, 2024 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

A Carnival cruise ship passenger says a beauty shop in Nassau somehow extracted $30,000 from her and her husband during a port stop. They’re the latest victims of the free facial scam to contact me in recent months. But the story she has to tell is much more sinister than the others. She says these bad guys drugged her and then filmed her thanking them and praising their products.

Facebook friends sharing government grants is a scam

Beware the government grant scam! That isn’t your Facebook friend

March 1, 2025December 23, 2024 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Picture it: A Facebook friend messages you with some fabulous information about a free government grant she discovered. It’s definitely not a scam, she excitedly assures you. She knows this for sure because Federal Express just delivered a check right to her front door!

Fake Verizon customer service calls, phone scammers pretending to be Verizon customer service, protect yourself and know the signs of a scammer

Verizon customers beware of phone scammers pretending to be helpful agents

December 24, 2024June 24, 2024 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Verizon customers are being targeted by phone scammers pretending to be helpful agents of the wireless titan. The predators deliver troubling news to their unaware victims and then provide urgent solutions to “fix” the problem.

I know this firsthand because one of these crooks called my Verizon number and tried his scheme on me. As you can imagine, things didn’t go quite as this phone scammer had planned.

Reaching scam call center easier than ever, scam call centers rising

Scam call centers are rising on the Internet. Here’s how to avoid them

February 27, 2025May 29, 2024 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Scam call centers are having a moment on the internet, bizarrely appearing in the top search results for many of your consumer questions. Here’s what you need to know about spotting and avoiding these World Wide Web predators.

Fake rental car damage charges are increasing, Investigating damage charges on a rental vehicle.

Hit with fake rental car damage charges? Here’s how to make them go away

September 9, 2024November 22, 2023 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Could you be accused of causing costly damage to your next rental car even if you didn’t do it? Several hours after returning his Budget rental car Derek Melber found out the answer to that question. That’s when an employee emailed him with the surprising news that the driver’s side window of the vehicle was shattered.

Despite Melber’s best efforts to convince Budget that he didn’t damage the rental car, the company charged him for repairing it.

Melber says it wasn’t him who shattered that window, but he thinks he knows who did. He’s hoping Consumer Rescue can prove the rental agency has wrongly accused him. And of course, he wants Budget to refund the nearly $500 repair charge it billed to his credit card.

But without any proof of what the rental car looked like when Melber returned it, that might be impossible.

Or maybe not. Let’s break this case down.

Why did Stanley Steemer charge me $1,408 and damage my wall, too?

August 15, 2024October 5, 2023 by Abe Wischnia

The coupon offer from Stanley Steemer was attractive: $160 to clean up to eight furnace air ducts. Roberta Cirino thought she was doing a smart thing by responding to the mailing from the well-known cleaning service company. However, what happened next is a homeowner’s nightmare. The job came complete with a shockingly high final invoice and repair bills to fix the damage the Stanley Steemer crew did to her wall.

To add insult to injury, the owner of the franchised location responded to Cirino’s complaints about this “hatchet job” with indifference.

Now Cirino is asking Consumer Rescue to help right this wrong. She would like Stanley Steemer to adjust her bill and pay for the damage to her wall.

That seems like a more than reasonable request. So why hasn’t the company already agreed to correct the problem?

Zelle scams often start with a phone call, This is an iphone on a tablet.

Zelle scams are on the rise. Could you fall for this one?

August 19, 2024July 23, 2023 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

All types of Zelle scams are reported to the Consumer Rescue advocacy team every week. Blindsided victims reach out to us, minutes too late – after they’ve sent their cash to cunning thieves through the instant money transfer app.

And although Zelle scams are a common theme with consumers who fill out our help form, it’s rare to hear from the thieves themselves. In fact, it’s unheard of.

That is, until this week. That’s when a criminal called me posing as a Bank of America executive. He tried his best to scam me into using Zelle to fix a problem he said the bank had detected.

Consumer alert, gas station card skimmers warning, don't use debit card at gas station.

How did a gas station skimmer drain my prepaid debit card balance?

April 22, 2023November 23, 2022 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Danger could be lurking at the pumps of your local gas station in the form of a tiny card skimmer. These small, almost invisible devices quickly retrieve and store all of your card’s information as you make your payment. Then the “owner” of this illegal apparatus uses that data to extract whatever funds he can from your account.

Sylvia Powers wishes someone had warned her about gas station skimmers before she swiped her prepaid American Express Bluebird debit card at the pumps. Unfortunately, her education on the topic came in the most unpleasant way – after a skimming device drained all her money from her Bluebird card. But she assumed that American Express would protect her against this fraud.

She assumed wrong.

This consumer got caught in an online shopping scam.

How did I lose the credit card dispute after this online shopping scam?

February 19, 2024October 10, 2022 by Michelle Couch-Friedman

Before you do any more online shopping, you’ll want to read about the scam that just ensnared Susan Leipholtz. She paid an online “merchant” $129 through PayPal and received absolutely nothing in return. But getting blindsided by the internet thief wasn’t nearly as shocking as what happened next. That’s when Capital One sided with the scammer in her credit card dispute.

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