Scam Squad

Beware of door-to-door contractors knocking on your door trying to talk you into repair or cleanup jobs. Also, beware of out of town contractors that call you at home with too good to be true low cost repairs and cleanup work. There is a high risk of them being a crook.

Two different incidents last week where crooks stole social security numbers from private medical records and were able to steal two different people out of their entire life's savings bank accounts.

Be on guard against Robo Calls that are Impostor Scams that pretend to be the IRS, police, utilities, and other entities trying to pressure you into acting too quickly to resolve some threat they make up such as threat they will arrest you, or cut off your water, or take you to court unless you send them green dot cards or cash immediately.

There are so many IRS scams today, mostly because it is so easy to hack into tax preparation services computers and steal sensitive data on you. Expert Laurel Sykes tells Patti and the rest of us about the leading types of IRS scams now being thrown at us at the peak and frenzy time of the tax season.

Telephone scammer picks the wrong victim, a former CIA and FBI dept head, and gets extradited and a lengthy prison sentence

Beware of calls from fake utility collections reps. Crooks saying that you haven't paid your utility bill will try to get you to send them money asap under the threat of cutting off your utilities. Learn what to do.

Beware of unrealistic low priced rental ads you see on Craigslist and other scam plagued housing rental sites. Chances are a crook who are not the real landlords are trying to get you to send money to them instead of the real property owner.

We have been seeing an increase in tax return theft where the crooks steal your identity to file early in your name and steal your tax return money before you probably have a chance to file your return. Learn how to prevent this.

Crooks are always looking to make friends with goodhearted, innocent people so that they can trick them into being a money mule who will unknowingly launder thousands of dollars of illegally obtained money for them. Learn how to avoid being tricked into being used by crooks who need to launder their illegal money.

Well selected and trained scammers operating out of India were arrested for running a phony Social Security office scam. The scammers were selected and trained to have little or no foreign accents and called threatening prosecution unless you pay out up to $3,400 to fix the problem.

Beware of anything to do with receiving packages from the Ukraine on behalf of a friend or relative or anyone. Since US involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected government in Ukraine and replacing it with a facist neo-nazi regime, you cannot trust anyone who has anything to do with Ukraine. Be very suspicious of anything Ukrainian or anything from Ukraine. Don't get involved, it is v...

While Vicki is on vacation, Patti and Laurel discuss talk online scams that happen while you are paying onlline. There are many fake websites out there that have url names which are similar to real businesses, but people accidentally misspell the url slightly and are sometimes fooled into thinking the fake business they are on is real and thus give out personal information. When their package does...

What are the risks and safeguards when we depend on family, friends, and others to help us manage our money as we become weaker, more forgetful, and frail. Laurel Sykes, Vice President of Montecito Bank and Trust tells hosts Patti Teel and Vicki Johnson all about it in this week's episode of Scam Squad.

Many modern families do not visit their elderly relatives as often as they would like or should in order to see if they are being treated well by their caretakers. With massive budget cuts and deregulation, corporate greed and computer automation, elder abuse is rapidly rising as more and more elderly relatives become isolated and forgotten about except for the quick drop-by during the Holiday Sea...

The Phony Debt Collector Scam has been hitting us hard the past few weeks. Crooks will call and claim that you owe money for all kinds of things. and then threaten to wreck your credit standing and even threaten to have the police put you in jail. Patti and Vicki tell us how to know real debt collectors from fraudulent ones and give out phone numbers of agencies that fight against scams like this.

Beware of people who approach you in parking lots that offer to fix the dents in your car right there in the parking lot for a cut rate price. Almost all of them are cons and scammers that will quote you a low price, but will find ways and excuses for jacking the price up really high. When they're done, changes are they fixed more dents that were agreed upon and will insist that you pay a small fo...

The Grandparents Scam is an old scam that just keeps hanging on, mostly because so many of us post a lot of information about us and often our whole families on social media sites such as Facebook. This information is used by crooks in order to be so successful at pulling off the old Grandparents Scam again and again. Find out how crooks take information off your Facebook and other social media si...

Warning, the Phony Tech Support Scam has been running out of control lately in Santa Barbara County, costing business and individuals tens of millions of dollars. This is a very DANGEROUS SCAM because it allows crooks to get your credit card and personal information as well as wreck your computer. This week, Patti Teel and D.A. Vicki Johnson get the latest info on this scam from Laurel Sykes the C...

This week Vicki and Patti talk over the most common scams currently being called into our local Sherriff's Dept. Shockingly, according to the FBI, most of the fake kidnapping calls are coming from inmates inside the Mexican prisons and jails while an accomplist in the U.S. collects the ransom money and sends it to the Mexican mafia. Learn more by listening to this podcast.

Patti Teel and Deputy D.A. Vicki Johnson interview a new guest who had a near miss with a romance scam. Listen to all the horrible details of how these crooks romance women out of their entire life's savings.

This week, Patti and Vicki ask Sheriff's receptionists what it is like being first responders to phone calls from victims of all kinds of heartless and mean spirited scams and swindles such as the Sweetheart Swindles that have cheated so many senior aged women out of their entire life's savings.

Laurel Sykes explains the basic types of scams that are being used to defraud the public.

Laurel Sykes, Chief Risk Officer at Montecito Bank and Trust, shows us all of the most recent new angles crooks are using to swindle and cheat us out of money through the use of Phone Scams. Be sure to listen and learn about the most evil and heartless phone scams sweeping the nation and how you can protect yourselves from the possibility of losing your life savings to crooks. Don't miss this one.

Beware of phony vacation tours and cruises that offer very low prices to get you to sign up quick and very early way in advance of the start of the vacation or cruise. , When it's time for your vacation cruise, the boat and the crooks have left the port long, long time ago with your money and a very, very cold trail that's probably too hard to probably catch up and jail the crooks .

Learn how to avoid common scams. This week Patti and Vicki tell you how to avoid getting taken by crooks that use the Phone Vacation Rental Scam.