![]() ![]() Perhaps the most shocking example we saw was along these same lines. Of employment, supplies, and money mulingĪs you’ve seen, sending potential victims to gas stations to use Bitcoin ATMs is a popular technique. The QR code downloaded a Bitcoin app, and at that point they presumably became suspicious and went no further. The only way to fix this was to pay an unpaid bill by going to a nearby gas station and sending $900 or so dollars via a QR code. A victim claims they were told their electricity would be turned off within 20 minutes. When more requests for cash happened, the victim became suspicious.Īnother scam of note was related to utility services. The discussion was moved to WhatsApp where a “withdrawal fee” of $4,102 was sent to a supplied QR code. One person claims they lost $5,100 after a stranger reached out on Instagram and convinced them to get into the wild world of forex (Foreign Exchange) trading. With that in mind, here's the ones which caught our eye: There was no common pattern between scam types, which ran the range of phishing and identity theft to employment fakouts and bank imposters. This is where people essentially crowdsource scams they encounter, adding them into the tracker database. We took a look at some of the recent examples listed in the BBB scam tracker. Monthly fees going out of the victim’s bank account until they notice something is wrong. Whether by QR code and bogus website or plain old unsolicited telephone call, the outcome is typically the same. You can see an older example of such a scam tactic here. Unfortunately once the victim contacted the scammers by phone, they were tricked into an eventual loss of just over a thousand dollars. gov site, and also included “a barcode and QR code that looked legitimate”. The letter contained links to an official. The latest example they give is of a student sent a letter about loan consolidation. The Better Business Bureau are warning us to be on the lookout for QR code scams. Point your smartphone's camera at a QR code and your phone will happily read it, convert it to a URL, and then open the URL in your browser. The problem with QR codes stems from how easy they are to use. This was fertile ground for scammers to move back into a pact they may have long since abandoned.Įven outside of scams, the use of QR codes as a safe way to do important things is questionable. Contactless cards were in, and so too were QR codes. With the spread of Covid-19, people and organisations naturally wanted to move away from physical contact. The most notable example where this is concerned is of course the pandemic. They’re not exactly a mainstay of fakery, but they do tend to enjoy small waves of popularity as events shaped by the real world remind everyone they still exist. Rogue QR code antics have been back in the news recently. ![]()
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