The Cuyahoga County Scam Squad warns about the surge in task scams, which lure individuals with promises of easy money from home. These scams, often starting with random text messages, involve liking or reviewing products in exchange for payment or commissions. Victims are then encouraged to deposit their own money to 'level up', which ultimately leads to financial losses. The FTC received 20,000 reports of task scams in the first half of 2024.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -The promise of quick, easy money working from home to review products is very appealing for anyone trying to make some extra cash as the price of everything seems to be going up. But the Cuyahoga County Scam Squad is warning people of sky rocketing numbers of victims for so-called task scams.
The victims range from people working from home, to a person looking for a little extra cash, and frequent gamers. Just five years ago, the FTC didn’t get a single report of these game-like task scams.And in just the first half of 2024 the FTC received 20,000 reports of task scams. The game-like online scams begin with a random text message or WhatsApp message to your phone about some type of online work. It’ll ask you to use an app or platform to like or review products or videos in order to earn money or a commission. The messages usually contain some sort of buzz word, like app optimization. “The goal is to hook you into the game or the scam early on. At first you may get some small payout dollar amounts for these jobs that you’re doing. They’re usually assigned to you in task of 40, so you’ll like 40 different products,” said FTC investigator Tiffany Smedley.They will then ask you to deposit your own money into the app or platform to ‘level up’. “The idea of getting a small payout is to garner trust or build confidence within the consumer like, oh, this is a legitimate job. So, I’m doing this and I’m going to get the earnings and the commissions that I’m supposed to be. The hook is that once you deposit your money into this app or platform that they’re using to get what it’s called your ‘next task,’ that money is going to be gone,” she said. Smedley says this can go on for months, and any crypto currency, earnings or credit you think you’ve been paid was never real, neither were the products, or other ‘success stories’. But the losses to victims are. “Job scams in particular we saw about $200 million lost um and money uh that also in the first half of 2004,” said Smedley. The growing influencer culture-where people aspire to make money with their social media accounts is partly contributing to this scam’s success rate. The best way to fight these gamified scams, is to avoid them in the first place.And don’t respond to random text message about online work. Most employers are not going to reach out to you that way. If you think you’ve ben the victim of this kind of scam or any other, you’re encouraged to contact theMom of 2 kids who froze to death while sleeping in a van says she asked for help: ‘I’m sorry, but I tried’Canton woman killed in Perry Township crash21 sex offenders have until Tuesday night to contact Summit County Sheriff’s Office after losing home 21 sex offenders have until Tuesday night to contact Summit County Sheriff’s Office after losing home
SCAMS CYBER CRIME ONLINE FRAUD WORK FROM HOME FTC
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