SCAM ALERT

The Consumer Rescue team often receives pleas for help from readers who have been victimized by a scam. The articles here serve as cautionary tales to alert potential victims so that they can avoid falling victim to a similar scam.

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

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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.

Stanley Steemer van, yellow van

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

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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.