The Gru Clue

Cardboard cutout of Gru (Advanced Graphics)

North Korean scammers have infiltrated the American work force. One of the crooks' distinguishing features is a fondness for the fictional "Despicable Me" villain Gru.

The FBI believes thousands of North Koreans have infiltrated the U.S. workforce by assuming the identities of Americans to secure remote jobs. Many of them, investigators have found, are bound by a few defining characteristics: total devotion to Dear Leader Kim Jong Un, a penchant for stealing cryptocurrency and an obsession with Minions, the cuddly agents of evil from “Despicable Me.”

The North Koreans’ love of the animated movie franchise has become a recurring, if slightly baffling, joke among the security researchers who investigate them.

Many of these fake workers use Minions and other “Despicable Me” characters in social-media profiles and email addresses. Some investigators initially thought their use of “Gru” was a reference to Russia’s famed GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Instead it was a tribute to the Minions overlord, Felonious Gru Sr., the Steve Carell-voiced animated character who tries to steal the moon.

My 2025 bingo card didn't have the Gru clue as a scam detector.

Changing the Terms

I receive over a hundred e-mails every day, and about 20% are phishing scams (is that a redundancy)? I don't even bother to read them and can tell immediately they are fake (you have won a trip/tool set/gift card; your subscription to Netflix/Microsoft/Quicken has expired).

However, the most recent e-mail from "McAfee" piqued my curiosity because of the "espouse" in the subject line. Espouse ("to become involved with or support an activity or opinion"), although not obscure, is not a word used in regular parlance.

Looking into the text, I saw that "espouse" had replaced "expired" and "submit" was substituted for "subscription." The scammers had changed common phishing words to evade e-mail screens. They were successful in that they made me look at it...this one time.

Smishing

We ordered a FasTrak "toll tag" (a plastic transponder that charges us for bridge tolls and express-lane fees when passing under a scanner) eight years ago.

As largely housebound retirees who live on the Peninsula, we rarely need the device, as we avoid highway traffic jams during rush hours and go over toll bridges once every 2-3 months,

On our drive to and from Yosemite last weekend we did use the toll tag and I received the text message (shown right) on the same day we left.

It was the first time I had received a text message that asked me to make a FasTrak payment. It had caught me off guard because it coincided with the first FasTrak use of 2025. My travel companion said that the message was a scam that had been going around.

Road toll scams that besieged the Bay Area and and other parts of the country last year have ramped up again, with insistent text messages that demand payment — and sometimes threaten penalties.

A Chronicle reporter received three such missives since December, purportedly for not paying fees to use toll lanes. Other Bay Area drivers have shared screenshots of similar messages on social media, asking about their validity. Some say they are getting hammered multiple times a month, and note the language in these texts has evolved: fewer spelling errors, increasingly detailed instructions, and a more intimidating tone.

“In order to avoid excessive late fees and potential legal action on statements, please pay the fee in time,” one message sent on Jan. 12 said. It provided a website to resolve violations, imitating the real web address for Southern California’s toll authority but stringing a sequence of numbers and letters at the end...

Law enforcement officials have a name for the tactic: “smishing.” The term is a portmanteau of phishing perpetrated through SMS text messages, and describes an aggressive and sophisticated form of social engineering. Bridge and road toll scammers use smishing to cast a wide net, tricking people to pay bogus fines for crossings they didn’t make.

Smishing---a crime that could only exist in a world with SMS text messages and toll tags, which in turn exist because the State government eliminated human toll takers. It's progress, I suppose, but we have to be on our guard more than ever.

California Forms Scam

We first wrote about form scams 15 years ago. The grifters are still at it, evidenced by the "501-LLC, Declaration of Members and Managers" (not a real California form) I got in yesterday's mail. As I wrote back then

Limited Liability Companies that are operated by harried small-business folk provide especially fertile ground for the scam artists.

A plumber or painter can't be expected to know every form that needs to be filed by his LLC, consulting with his accountant and lawyer costs money, and they may well say that he needs to pay the fee anyway,

The form scam is sufficiently widespread that California has devoted a web page to it:

Certain business entities have reported receiving misleading solicitations like this sample (PDF) urging the business to submit an order form and processing fee to a third party to file a Statement of Information on their behalf with the California Secretary of State or suffer penalties, fines, suspension or seizure.

The "501-LLC" I received demands a payment of $243 for filing the same information required by California Form LLC-12. The latter is a biennial Statement of Information for LLCs that takes less than five minutes to complete online. The fee is $20.

Freeze Your Credit Now

(Image from Dealing with Dementia)

In early 2015 I read about how freezing one's credit can provide protection against one consequence of identification theft: a crook being able to open a new loan, credit card, or line of credit in my name.

I paid $10 to each of the three major credit-reporting agencies, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax, not to furnish credit reports to new lenders who come asking. It has been a minor hassle to unfreeze the accounts to obtain car leases and a new Apple Card, but it's been worth the $10 charge to sleep a little easier every night.

Credit freezes have cost nothing since 2018, so everyone should do it.

The good news is that freezing your credit is less of a pain than it used to be. It became free and simpler under a 2018 federal law following the massive Equifax breach the year before. But it does take a little more effort than locking your door...

Aside from making it a little less convenient to apply for a loan or credit card, freezing your credit costs nothing and has virtually no downside. It doesn’t hurt your credit score. Landlords and employers can still run a credit check. Existing creditors can increase your credit limit.

Making it harder to open new lines of credit might also be a form of financial discipline, since you won’t be able to sign up for buy now, pay later offers or store credit cards without first unfreezing your credit...

To freeze your credit, you must go online and request a freeze at all three of the major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Reversing the process requires going through each bureau again.

To prove who you are, you will need to have a government ID, like a driver’s license, pay stubs and utility bills. Once set, it should take less than a half-hour to complete the process, says Miklos Ringbauer, a financial adviser in California. He encourages clients to keep their credit frozen and only lift the freeze for short periods, such as when they plan to apply for loans. After the initial setup, the freeze can be turned on or off with a few clicks, he said.

Freezing credit doesn't relieve one of the need to review one's existing bank, credit-card, stock-brokerage, retirement, etc. accounts for unfamiliar transactions, but it's a necessary part of a scam-protection program.

To Make Our Displeasure Known

Last year the EDD lost $20-$33 billion because of fraud.

On specific categories (income, property, sales, gas) California may not be the highest-taxed state, but there's no question that in the state rankings of the overall tax burden California is #1 or #2.

The pain would be lessened if the monies were employed somewhat effectively, but California continues to spend $billions on homelessness, high-speed trains to nowhere, and public education, with no signs of progress. And we've not even mentioned the $billions lost to fraud.

We've lamented the situation for years, but the voters keep re-electing the same people, and the one-party state rolls on, more dominant than ever in its taxing and spending and wastefulness.

However, once in a blue moon the political process still has the capacity to surprise (pleasantly).

Headline: These California taxes could be overturned by ballot measure before state Supreme Court [bold added]

The initiative, a proposed state constitutional amendment, would require any increase in state or local taxes or fees to be approved by the voters — and by two-thirds of the voters if the funds are for a specific purpose, like housing or zoo maintenance, rather than general government revenue.

Perhaps the most far-reaching feature of the measure is that it would apply retroactively to taxes and fees passed since the start of 2022. They would be rescinded unless voters gave approval by the required majority no later than a year after the initiative took effect.

Overall, state officials say the retroactivity standard would affect 15 bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that could affect statewide fees or taxes, and at least 131 such measures passed by local governments since the start of 2022.

This initiative received enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, but, not unexpectedly, Governor Newsom and Democratic legislators have filed "emergency" lawsuits with the State Supreme Court to have it removed.

The initiative threatens to halt the endless cycle of tax and spend, and strikes at the heart of the one-party State. Your humble blogger doesn't give the initiative much of a chance of surmounting the obstacles in front of it, but at least those of us who are fed up with the way things are finally have a chance to make our displeasure known.

Regulators Gotta Protect Themselves, Too

SEC headquarters (WSJ photo)

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which is the powerful agency that makes financial rules and enforces them, is the victim of a fake tweet that purportedly approved exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that hold bitcoin.

Bitcoin briefly jumped to near $48,000 before [SEC Chair Gary] Gensler said on the social-media network that the message was “unauthorized” and that the SEC “has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.” The agency later posted that its account was “compromised.”

“It’s a hack,” a spokeswoman for the SEC said.

Bitcoin prices rose above $48,000 after the tweet then fell below $46,000 after the SEC disavowed it. As of today, the fault doesn't appear to be X's (Twitter's) but was due to the theft of the SEC's login credentials.

Nevertheless, it's embarrassing that powerful government agencies like the SEC, IRS, and FBI have security breaches that give the impression of incompetence and even untrustworthiness.

Update: SEC Approves Bitcoin ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to allow mainstream investors to buy and sell bitcoin as easily as stocks and mutual funds, a decision hailed by the industry as a game changer.

California: The Dysfunction All Around

(Image from Facebook)

California's dysfunctions--homelessness, crime, taxes, regulatory red-tape, schools that don't educate, housing costs, etc.--have been written about endlessly, and not just by opponents of Progressive ideology.

One aspect of that ideology is intense criticism, even vilification, of other power centers (religion, private enterprise, Republicans, etc.) that won't toe the line. The irony is that California's government can't even meet the minimum performance standards that other institutions are held to. [bold added]

for five consecutive years, California has failed to produce audited financial statements on a timely basis. In fiscal 2021, California took 642 days to issue its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, more than twice the nine months the federal government allows for such reports. New York took only 120 days to issue its 2021 financial report.

One reason for California’s tardiness is the incomplete rollout of the state’s new accounting system. Launched in 2005, the Financial Information System for California, or FI$Cal, was intended to streamline the state’s financial processes. But 18 years and $1 billion later, FI$Cal has yet to be fully implemented, forcing accounting staff to consolidate data across multiple systems.

Also complicating recent attempts to produce a state audit was the pandemic-era meltdown of California’s unemployment system. Although many states had problems keeping up with the rush of unemployment claims in Spring 2020, California’s crisis was far worse, combining long delays for legitimate claimants with tens of billions in benefits collected by scammers. Unlike most other states, California had no procedure for matching claimants against a list of prison inmates...

California’s local governments are taking on their own big, hairy, audacious goals and not attending to core services. San Francisco is studying reparations for slavery and implementing public banking, while failing to provide public safety and clean streets. Cities around the state are adding sustainability managers to reduce municipal carbon footprints, even though any individual city in California contributes a small fraction of 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Why don't California residents, the majority of whom can see the dysfunction all around them, try to change things? It's a puzzlement that's worthy of serious study.

'Tis the Season of Sharing and Scamming

We will be making a donation to Al-Ahli hospital, which was
heavily damaged by explosions in Gaza (Guardian photo)

Boston University professor of humanities Joshua Pederson advises us not to contribute to organizations claiming to help victims of natural or human-caused disasters: [bold added]

I’ve become convinced that donations to disaster aid — whether in the immediate aftermath or as part of a nonprofit’s annual holiday drive — often provide only limited relief and sometimes none at all. There are a few main reasons why.

First, the field of pop-up disaster relief is rife with fraud as bad actors prey on the desire of well-intentioned people and bilk donors in the process. As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, many such scammers pose convincingly as employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or well-known charities, tricking even savvy givers. Donations to crowdfunding calls can be an even riskier venture. Notre Dame law professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer suggests that they are “particularly vulnerable to fraud” and urges caution when supporting them. One of the most egregious examples was Katelyn McClure, a New Jersey woman who used GoFundMe in 2017 to wheedle over $400,000 out of givers with a fake story of a homeless man who needed help.

...many would advise us to turn to locals. But even such on-the-ground efforts sometimes come up short. Take for example the Maui Community Power Recovery Fund, one of whose founders is former Hawaii House Rep. Kaniela Ing. It turns out that the fund is actually a political action committee, and while its website indicates that gifts will support “relief, recovery and rebuilding,” donors likely don’t know that donations could be used to fund political candidates.

...the American Red Cross. Its pleas for donations after major disasters are nearly ubiquitous. But as ProPublica revealed in a series of headline-grabbing investigations a few years back, the organization has significant problems with transparency, oversight and follow-through. And there are legitimate concerns about the way it tracks and spends the money it collects.

Immediately after a disaster, when the emotion to do something is at its highest, is the time to be especially cautious. I have made it a personal policy, as well as for charitable organizations over which I may have some infuence, not to rush to help. As you would with any major purchase or investment, do your research first.

EDD: The Gift (to Fraudsters) That Keeps on Giving

EDD offices have been closed to the public
since the Oxnard shootings in 1993.

Since COVID payments began, losses from Employment Development Department (EDD) fraud range between $20 billion (EDD) to $32.6 billion (analyst estimate). This Chronicle headline seems to name the culprit:

California EDD lets go of Bank of America for unemployment payments, will soon start direct deposits

I am a customer of Bank of America and have no love for it. In fact, I'm seriously considering moving three accounts because of the bank's high fee schedule and minimum-balance requirements.

In this case, however, Bank of America is getting the short end of the public-relations stick. It was caught between the rock of getting payments out quickly and the hard place of screening for fraud. [bold added]

California’s Employment Development Department has selected a new contractor to pay unemployment and other benefits starting Feb. 15. The new vendor, Money Network, replaces Bank of America, which drew criticism during the pandemic for sometimes blocking payments to legitimate recipients...

A class-action lawsuit says BofA left the door open for unemployment benefit accounts to be hijacked by criminals. Then, the lawsuit said, BofA would freeze accounts, leaving victims unable to access past or future benefits, even with a replacement card.

The upshot is that B of A has been trying to get of this contract for years, not that EDD is "letting go" of the bank.

BoA had made it crystal clear that it no longer wished to administer California benefits, but under the terms of its contract with EDD, the state had the “sole option” to renew its contract with EDD for two-year periods, which it chose to do, both in June 2021 and June 2023. “We have advised the state that we would like to exit this business as soon as possible,” BoA said in summer 2021.

The new service provider, Money Network, will, like B of A, put "recipients’ benefits on prepaid debit cards" and "offer direct deposits to laid-off workers’ bank accounts." There's no mention about improved audit controls.

$40 billion in cumulative fraud is within reach, if we haven't gotten there already.

If China and the U.S. are Both Against These People, They Must Be bad

As of March: My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

We posted about "pig butchering" earlier:

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

I have never connected with any of the attractive Asian women who send me invitations on LinkedIn. Nevertheless, I still get 1-2 requests to connect every week. It's annoying.

China, which was suspected of being one of the sources of the scam, has cracked down on pig butchering:

In recent months, China has unleashed its most aggressive effort to crack down on the proliferation of the scam mills, reaching beyond its territory and netting thousands of people in mass arrests. Its main target is a notorious stretch of its border with Myanmar controlled by narcotics traffickers and warlords.

Five suspects, flanked by Myanmar police,
were turned over to China. (WSJ)

For decades, frontier fiefdoms such as those in Myanmar have been havens for gambling and trafficking of everything from drugs to wildlife to people. Now, they are dens for pig-butchering operations.

The scammers operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds, many of which are run by Chinese fugitives who fled their country to places where it was easier to flout the law. They cheat Chinese citizens out of billions of dollars each year, as well as victims across the globe. The U.S. Treasury Department in September warned Americans about the scams...

For Beijing, it is a significant source of embarrassment that Chinese criminals are at the center of scams ensnaring people the world over, said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the United States Institute of Peace, an independent research organization founded by the U.S. Congress that specializes in conflict mitigation.

China is “quite sensitive to the narratives that could potentially emerge,” he said. “These are largely Chinese crime groups which China, for years, did very little to check.”

Although the crooks will regroup and move on to other locales, this effort will save many thousands of people from being scammed in the immediate future.

FICO Score: Shrinking Like a Lot of Other Things

Unofficial FICO score from one of our credit cards. Others show
scores in the 700's. Nice, but we're not applying for loans anyway.

ID crooks not only steal from bank and brokerage accounts, they also take out new credit cards and loans in victims' names.

As a protective measure we froze our accounts at the credit-reporting agencies in 2015; a thief could apply for a loan under our ID but the agency will not give a credit report to the prospective lender--hence, no loan.

Since 2015 we've had to "unfreeze" the Equifax, Experian, and Transunion accounts temporarily when we took out car leases and added a credit card. In general, however, we've been simplifying/consolidating our accounts and reducing debt obligations.

Reducing debt is commonly viewed as a virtuous activity, but it does lower one's credit score. Why do credit scores matter if we, like many retirees, don't intend to take out loans? [bold added]

Even people with pristine records of on-time payments can expect their scores to slip after they stop working. While stopping work doesn’t ding your credit directly, living on a fixed income and paying off old loans can lower a score, said Ethan Dornhelm, vice president of scores and analytics at FICO.

Credit scores matter to millions of retirees even if they are less likely to apply for mortgages, loans or other debt, financial advisers said. Scores are used in a range of insurance and healthcare decisions, from setting your premiums to whether you are accepted to an assisted-living facility.

We do have enough set aside for assisted living, if that indeed is our destiny, so keeping a high credit score is not important for that purpose.

The ego had already been crushed when the IQ score started shrinking and there was nothing I could do about it.

As we go gently into that good night, the high (IQ, credit, energy) shall be made low and the low (weight, A1C, blood pressure) shall be made high.

Beginning to Push Back Against Scammers

Roger Anderson (WSJ)

Scam artists pollute all avenues of communication--telephone, email, text messages, social media...except for the plain old U.S. Postal Service!--and we've posted our frustrations over the years. I'm willing to spend time and money to entrap some of these people, but the authorities can't be bothered. The next best solution is to make the crooks spend a lot of time on a lead that comes up empty.

Roger Anderson of Monrovia, CA has written software that uses artificial intelligence whose objective is to waste the time of telemarketers and scammers.

Anderson takes pleasure in foiling them. He began his war on telemarketers nearly a decade ago, he said, after one called the family’s landline and said a bad word to his son. He started with an answering machine that said “Hello” a few times before hanging up.

Anderson has since rolled out his weapons of mass distraction. He has posted conversations between man and bot, some lasting as long as 15 minutes before the telemarketer hangs up.

The posts are part of Anderson’s own marketing. He has several thousand customers paying $24.99 a year for use of his call-deflection system, called Jolly Roger...

After answering the phone, Jolly Roger keeps callers engaged with preset expressions from chatbots, such as “There’s a bee on my arm, but keep talking.” Chatbots also grunt or say “uh-huh” to keep things going.

This sounds like a terrific invention by a motivated entrepreneur. This year our phone calls have died down, but if they pick up I'll give the product a try. $24.99 per year should buy a lot of emotional enjoyment.

Pig Butchering on LinkedIn

My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

Lately I've been receiving regular invitations to connect on LinkedIn. None of these individuals are known to me, nor do we have any shared organizations (schools, businesses) in our histories.

They do have attributes in common with each other: young, female, attractive, and Asian, mostly Chinese and Chinese-American. Yes, these are honey traps. [bold added]

The profile of “Mai Linzheng” is actually one of the millions of fraudulent pages set up on LinkedIn to lure users into scams, often involving cryptocurrency investments and targeting people of Chinese descent all over the world. Scammers like Mai claim affiliation with prestigious schools and companies to boost their credibility before connecting with other users, building a relationship, and laying a financial trap...

This wasn’t the first time [Financial Times columnist Jeff] Li had noticed what he thought were fake LinkedIn accounts. Starting in late 2021, he says, he started seeing profiles with less than a few dozen connections—rare for real LinkedIn users—and with profile photos that were always good-looking men and women, likely stolen from other websites. Most appeared to be of Chinese ethnicity and to live in the United States or Canada.

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

Guys, know yourself: if a pretty girl strikes up a conversation with you, it's not because she's interested in a romantic relationship. The saying on Wall Street applies to social media: "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."

Successfully Claiming the Middle Class Tax Refund

The California Middle Class Tax Refund (MCTR) card came three weeks ago. It was time to get the money.

From news reports scammers are able to drain the account after the card is activated, so I delayed that move until I was ready to use the card.

At the local Citibank branch this afternoon, I phoned the 1-800 number on the sticker and dutifully typed in the last six digits of my social security number. A computerized voice instructed me to create a 4-digit PIN, at which point it specified the card value.

The teller asked me to insert the Citibank ATM card, input its 4-digit PIN, then insert the MCTR Visa card and type its 4-digit PIN. I said that I wanted the entire amount transferred to my checking account. The teller said that the maximum daily amount was $600 (unclear if that was a card or Citibank limitation). He transferred that sum immediately and suggested that I come back tomorrow to claim the rest.

Fearful of waiting another day, I drove to the Bank of America branch to deposit the remaining funds. After I inserted the BoA ATM card and PIN, the teller inspected my driver's license, then processed the MCTR card. She took more time with the forms than the Citi teller. In the end all was well; the rest of the money was put into the checking account.

Comments:
1) Neither bank imposed a transaction fee.

2) The fund-draining scam clearly isn't occurring at the bank branches but at other venues, like online merchants, where Visa cards can be used.

3) Today the IRS finally ruled that the MCTR payments are not taxable by the Federal government (California declared them not to be taxable by the State last year).

4) I don't see why the Franchise Tax Board couldn't issue checks, like it did in the old days. Theft losses will still occur, but the crooks will have a much harder time.

Prediction: No One Will Lose Their Job Over This

I'm not activating the card until I'm ready
to spend the entire amount immediately.

$20 billion was stolen from California unemployment COVID funds just two years ago, and history is repeating itself. Thieves are draining the funds loaded onto VISA cards mailed to taxpayers under the Middle Class Tax Refund.

The state began issuing payments ranging from $200 to $1,050 to most California residents in late October. State lawmakers authorized the payments, which are not technically tax refunds, to offset inflation.

State residents are eligible if they filed a 2020 state tax return and meet income limits. People who filed their 2020 return electronically and had a state tax refund directly deposited into a bank account were the first to get refunds; they were directly deposited into the same bank account.

Everyone else received prepaid debit cards. As of last week, the state had issued about 7.2 million direct deposits and 9.4 million debit cards totaling almost $9.1 billion. Most people will have received them by the end of January.

There are anecdotal reports that some cards were drained before they were activated. Others seem to be emptied after. There's nothing to be done in the former instance, but if the crooks need the card to be activated, then I will hold off doing so until a few minutes before I activate it, then spend the entire amount in one fell swoop. Shrinking the exposure window might help.

It's unclear how much, if any, of the money will be on the card when it comes time to claim it. One thing is, however, certain. No one will lose their job over this debacle.

Scam Texts

An unfamiliar number sent a text message yesterday (right). Was it just a wrong number, or was it something more sinister?

The FCC says the message is from a scammer: [bold added]

If you recently got an unexpected text about a gift, an account freeze or even just someone unknown saying “hi,” it’s probably from a fraudster. The Federal Communications Commission issued an advisory last month about an uptick in consumer complaints about suspicious texts...

If there is a link, file or phone number in the text, ignore it. Many scammers are trying to get you to share personal or financial information, or type login credentials into a faked website that looks legitimate. (This is known as phishing.) Some links or attachments can download malicious software to access information on your device...

I know enough not to click on a link and risk infecting the device with malware. But what's the harm in responding?

By replying, you could confirm that your number is active, subjecting you to even more spam.

The article recommends three further steps: 1) Forward the message to 7726, which is the suspicious-text reporting number for all phone carriers; 2) Block future texts from the same number (procedures differ for Apple and Android phones); 3) Modify iPhone settings to filter texts from senders who aren't recognized.

I doubt that any of these moves will reduce scam texts, much less catch the people behind them, but like driving an electric car or collecting tin foil during a war, I'll feel better about myself because I'm making a contribution to the fight against a vast evil. And feeling better about oneself, as opposed to actually doing something effective, seems to be what's important these days.

Not Everything is Fake

A teacher and her daughter in need(?)

I thought that this was a scam immediately after reading it on Nextdoor.

I need your help. I am a [name of school withheld] teacher and a single mom leaving an unhealthy relationship. I have no family in the area, both of my parents are drug addicts with mental health problems, and I’m all I’ve got.

I came to Belmont with my now-ex from across the country 6 years ago, and I can’t afford to live here on my own. I need help affording the move to Richmond, VA. I’m so close to my goal. It won’t cover all of the costs, but it sure will put a dent in them. My daughter and I would be grateful for any help you can provide. Thank you so much!

The post ended with a link to a GoFundMe account.

Apparently, the message is not fake because there are real people who know this teacher and who have been on Nextdoor for years, according to their postings. A couple examples of their responses:

Ms. --- We fondly remember you teaching our kid, and we are so sorry to hear about this situation. Donating to help, and wishing you all the best. Please let us know if we can help in any other way.

Done! You were wonderful teaching my son last year in hybrid kindergarten (Nathan F) and I’m so sorry you are going through all this. Good luck with the move!!

Wait a minute.... you are moving? But I still have another son to go through [name of school], I was hoping he would be in your class at some point... 😕

The teacher answered each message and she herself has been on Nextdoor for 19 months.

It's still possible that this is a scam: she could have set up fake "parents" over the years, or she could be lying about the reasons for getting out of town. Furthermore, what's she got going in Richmond, VA, because it's certainly not family. But these possibilities are unlikely, since such long-term con skills would seek a bigger payoff.

As of this writing, the GoFundMe account has raised $11,660, overachieving its target of $10,000.

As for me.....“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” --Mark 9:24

There's Always a Dark Side

Get to the iPhone Control Center by
swiping down from top right corner,
then tap the QR Code scan button.

Late to the party, I discovered the iPhone's Quick-Response (QR) Code scanner (image right) a few months ago. I scanned codes indiscriminately from menus, TV programs, magazines, and websites.

But wasting time is far from the worst thing that can happen.

Beware of QR Code Scams

in December, a much darker scenario involving QR codes unfolded when malicious actors placed QR-code stickers on parking meters in major Texas cities, directing drivers to a fraudulent website where they supposedly could pay for parking.

“People were tricked into putting in their credit-card information,” says Eric Chien, security threat researcher at Symantec...

The best way to thwart would-be scams is to manually input the desired website when a QR code seems fishy or untrustworthy....

Baiting-the-hook graphic by WSJ

Use a password manager, which won’t autofill your credentials on a suspicious site; make sure your credit cards have functions to protect against theft and fraud; don’t input personally identifiable information on an unknown website.

New, exciting tech breaches our cautious nature.

In the Brave New World we can never let down our guard.

"The Most Significant Fraud on Taxpayer Funds in California History.”

(Fmtrust image)

We're familiar with the reports of prisoners running drug rings and scamming the IRS out of tax refunds. But the new honey-pot is the unemployment benefits enlarged by coronavirus aid.

Headline: Prisoners’ fake unemployment claims cost state hundreds of millions, California D.A.s say [bold added]

The officials said the stolen money amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars and that the fraudulent claims were paid out falsely using the names of tens of thousands of local, state and federal inmates.

Documented cases of fraud in jails and prisons in the past have seen inmates file false claims using their own Social Security numbers, with unincarcerated accomplices receiving the money. Some scammers may also have ripped off Social Security numbers sent through the mail, undisguised, by the state’s Employment Development Department.

Other schemes may have involved online identity theft, the letter said. The district attorneys cited media reports of criminals obtaining personal information from the internet and using it to file claims under the names of unwitting people.

“The word I’ve used is behemoth. This is massive. There is money going out of this state; there is money going out of this country,” said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, whose office is part of the investigation, during a news conference Tuesday.

Schubert said the scams are ongoing and that attempts to work with top officials at the EDD have been unsuccessful.

Schubert said 35 other states have systems that cross-check inmate data with unemployment claims, but California does not. “We need to do what other states are doing,” she said.

The State of California likes to brag about its technological prowess. However, it's clear that the skills lie with the private sector. Want another example? [bold added]

The state auditor sharply criticized the EDD in a report last week for sending out at least 38 million pieces of mail with undisguised Social Security numbers, despite being warned about the practice.

Q.E.D.