By Diane Lee (WSPA)
One of the biggest red flags to help you detect scams can be the method of payment. We found out from law enforcement that’s changing.
First it was wire transfers, where scammers asked you to send cash via Western Union or MoneyGram.
Then it was Green Dot’s MoneyPak cards, that added more anonymity, until the company pulled them from store-shelves.
Now law enforcement is finding:
“The Green Dot card is no longer the way that the scammers are asking for it, they’re using other means, and one of them is called
‘Reloadit.’ These are legitimate companies and they have legitimate business. But the scammers have found out a way to use their cards and their company to conduct this scam,” said Sgt. Tony Brown with the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office
And it’s not just the Reloadit cards. Trista McRay, a manager at Edible Arrangements in Spartanburg got one of those bogus Duke Energy scam calls, you know, the one that goes like this:
“They said that I had a balance of $1,598 and that if I didn’t pay it in full you’d be disconnected within 30 minutes,” said McRay.
She says this time a re-loadable card wasn’t even mentioned.
“They said well do you have access to a credit card number or a PayPal account. And that was a little alarming to me cause usually Duke doesn’t ask for that information,” she said.
We reached out to Duke to get the facts. The company tells us they’ll never accept payment by PayPal or re-loadable card. They will of course accept a credit card, but they’re not going to call you and demand you pay up right away.
Regardless of which scam it is, the callers can now take new forms of payment, from reload-it cards, to PayPal transfers, even credit cards now that readers are available to anyone.
It’s your job to make sure you don’t give into their fear tactics and give away your money.
