Officials around the Bay Area are warning residents to stay vigilant for potential online and phone scams that have begun popping up during the coronavirus outbreak.
The Federal Trade Commission has warned that online scams could spike with millions of Americans working from home, going to school remotely or otherwise being stuck at home trying to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Public safety officials advise that residents use websites they are familiar with when doing things like online shopping. Scammers may try to set up fake websites or false claims of a product being available, so checking for a seller’s contact information and ratings can be an important safety precaution.
Should the federal government begin sending stimulus checks or direct deposits, residents will not be asked to pay fees, produce gift card codes or provide credit card or bank account information, the FTC said.
Authorities added that scammers have claimed they are trying to offer coronavirus treatments or a vaccine, neither of which have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Scammers have also launched fake charities in an effort to prey on philanthropic desires around the country and sent fake emails posing as officials from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Haley.
Pacific Gas & Electric warned Bay Area residents to beware of scams as well, announcing that it has received several reports of scammers calling ratepayers and asking for immediate payment on past due utility bills.
PG&E scams could also include pretending to sell solar evaluation services, sell and install a product in a customer’s home and falsely telling ratepayers they qualify for a tax refund related to their utility bill.
“It’s alarming that people are trying to capitalize on the pandemic and people’s fears,” PG&E Senior Director of Corporate Security James Murphy said. “Unfortunately, that’s the reality with scammers. We’ve seen a steady stream of scam calls recently and are reminding customers that PG&E will never ask for personal information or a credit card number over the phone.”
PG&E scams can be reported to pge.com/scams.
Suspicious activity and confirmed scams can also be reported to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint or to a resident’s local police department or district attorney’s office.
This is good advice! Beware of the BART
“We Need More Of Your Money Scam”.
It’s been going around for years but is
back again.
Scammers caught during this crisis should have fines and jail time quintupled. They are truly the dregs of society.
Good luck with that! They’re releasing low level criminals from the slammer and no one has any money to pay fines.
I don’t know how much truth there was to the report, but I heard the Governor’s office had deemed the judicial services temporarily “non essential.” Well, based on the sentences they have been handing out, we knew that anyway.
The ones trying to get you to load a gift card are usually overseas. Just waste their time then tell them you put the gift card into the PG&E envelope and mailed it to them.
Unfortunately, the biggest scam is run by California politicians and has been going on for decades. Just wait for the next round…
Um there’s a couple bigger fishies in the sea.
I agree with Tsa.
I would add PG&E too.
We ain’t seen nothin yet.
Amazingly robocalls have stopped! Haven’t had any for days.
I noticed that too and am wondering if many of the robocall businesses were in China. I had assumed they were in India.
Postal junk mail also seems to be way down.
I’ve never gotten that much e-mail spam and so don’t know if that’s down.
I’m sure local air pollution is also way down. After 9/11 I recall reading that astronomers loved the week or so after 9/11 as the shutdown of air traffic eliminated the constant though invisible to the naked eye high altitude pollution from jets.
We still get car warranty and credit card robocalls, but the Chinese language robocalls from the 925 area code seem to have stopped.
It’s the middlemen meddlers between CHEENA and the US that Profit and pilfer the most.
Remember back in ’88 or ’89 during the drought when CCC folk were so conscientious about water conservation that they stopped watering their lawns or washing their cars for a year? People didn’t flush the toilet but 2-3 times a day to save water. Water usage plummeted. It was a great community effort. Those who wasted water were both shamed and fined.
What did we get for our civic duty? The CCWD raised their rates due to falling profit.
CCC residents are simply the best.
Makes me wonder how the medical professionals are going to extract their revenge for this one. I can see the cost of everything skyrocketing when it’s over while everyone tries to make up for their losses. Then there is the aftermath of the banking and investment mess during Bush’s presidency. When we’re asked to be stoic, there is usually a painful and expensive backlash when it’s over.
Around 1975 I lived in MD during a drought. The area water company raised rates to discourage people from using water. The following year they raised the rates because people stopped using too much water. It’s an old game I have seen done around here at least twice.
Interesting bury bury Interesting !!
The pg and e scammers tried to get me. I was bored and kept them on the phone for 43 minutes. They called me some choice names when they realized I was not on my way to load a green dot card for them.
oh…… quarantine life….Pretty soon I will be catching flies and pulling their wings off.
I’m with ya! I guess I have way too much time on my hands. To me it’s like telemarketing rodeo. My objective is to stay on for as long as possible. I’m not actually THAT lonely, but it helps keep my brain sharp to match wits with someone in a game of mutual deception. My favorite is pretending to hand the phone off to “another person”.
Does anyone know why my Safari address bar says this site is not secure.
That’s because ClayCord doesn’t have an SSL certificate. Though this particular site doesn’t seem to have anything that would benefit from upgrading from HTTP to HTTPS, it’s completely free to get.
The reason your browser says that it is not secure (instead of just having it be some internal statistic) is because it is the default standard for every site (for a few years now actually) to use HTTPS (which requires an SSL certificate).
You can get more information from a Google search on the terms you don’t understand.
The TLDR of it is that ClayCord is safe, but the site admin not having gotten a free SSL is the equivalent of a news anchor not wearing pants. Technically it works, but I have to facepalm.
Thank you! I did research it and did find some references to sites not having a valid certificate, but they said not to visit them. They did not explain it as clearly as you. In the future, please do not use the pants less analogy. It put an unwanted image of Frank Somerville in my mind. It was okay for Heather Holmes, though.