Home restoration claims arising from Hurricane Sandy were among the Better Business Bureau (BBB)’s Top 10 Scams of 2012.
“BBB spends a lot of time investigating and reporting on home improvement scams, but this year we saw an unusual amount of ‘storm chaser’ activity following Super Storm Sandy,” said the umbrella organization for Better Business Bureaus across the United States.
“Tree removal, roofing, general home repairs – some were legitimate contractors who came from other areas for the volume of work available; others were unlicensed, uninsured and ill-prepared for the work. Some were even out-and-out scam artists who took the money and never did the work. In an emergency, it’s tempting to skip reference checking, but that’s never a good idea.”
Insurance is singled out in some of the more common loan scams, the BBB noted.
“Most of the scams advertise online and promise things like no credit check or easy repayment terms,” the BBB said. “Then the hook: you have to make the first payment upfront, you have to buy an ‘insurance policy,’ or there is some other kind of fee that you have to pay first to ‘secure’ the loan.”
And then there are the cyber liability and identity theft scams for which some insurance companies offer cover.
According to the FBI, Internet scams have become more sophisticated because of the amount of personal information available in cyberspace. Details culled from people’s or companies’ websites can be used to make a totally false story believable for the purpose of soliciting money from unsuspecting victims.
“The FBI says that, thanks to social media, it’s getting easier and easier for scammers to tell a more plausible story because they can use real facts from the supposed victim’s life (‘Remember that great camera I got for Christmas?’ ‘I’m in France to visit my old college roommate.’),” the BBB said. “Easy rule of thumb: before you wire money in an emergency, check with the supposed victim or their family members to make sure they really are traveling. Odds are they are safe at home.”
