When retired teacher Doug Fodeman read a recent story in the Current about a woman in her 70s who was targeted by online scammers, he was upset … but not surprised.
Fodeman and his neighbor David Deutsch have been running the website TheDailyScam.com for 12 years, tracking the latest scams and teaching people how to spot them.
“This has been a passion of mine for decades,” said Fodeman, who taught computer literacy for years at the Brookwood School in Manchester.
A growing threat
About 13 years ago, Fodeman and Deutsch’s sons were each targeted by online scammers.
“We got talking about the number of people who are targeted by fraud, but there’s no website, no resource we could find online that teaches people how to recognize fraud,” Fodeman said.
So, the neighbors launched The Daily Scam website. Fodeman also writes weekly newsletters about how to protect yourself from the newest hoaxes.
The threat has grown exponentially since then.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, up 14% from the year before.
“There’s a tremendous diversity of fraud,” Fodeman said.
He has written about scams involving dating, sex and romance, jobs and hiring, customer and tech support, deceptive marketing, fake products, taxes/insurance/legal threats, awards and giveaways, real estate and rentals, and fake people and businesses.
“We’re doing this and we’re passionate about it because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
So, what are the most prevalent schemes out there today?
“There are several,” Fodeman said. “Scammers are heavily targeting people via texting.”
Fodeman said so-called pig butchering scams are prevalent. They have nothing to do with pigs or butchering.
“It always starts with the most innocent sounding ‘accidental’ texts,” he said. “I’ve gotten a dozen of these in the last six months.”
A scammer might send a text reading, “I missed you at yoga today.”
The recipient might innocently answer, “I didn’t go to yoga. You must have the wrong number,” and the scammer will then engage them in a dialogue, ultimately leading to some kind of swindle.
“There are also texts targeting people’s phones related to fake package deliveries,” he said. “You think you’re getting a text from UPS, and they want you to confirm something.”
Fodeman gave an example of a woman who was trying to sell a dress on Poshmark, a fashion-sharing website.
“She got an email from what she thought was Poshmark.com saying, ‘We have a buyer for your dress, but before you can complete this transaction, you need to verify your bank account information.’”
The link referred back to a website — poshmark.id038.com — which is a sub-domain of Poshmark.com. It was fake.
Fodeman says scams related to Venmo are popular right now.
Also, “romance scams and sextortion scams are all still common and brutal,” he said.
One key piece of advice: Be especially wary of texts from banks.
“I just added the 646th fake bank to a page [on The Daily Scam] that lists all those banks,” he said.
Real banks use what’s called a “short code” when they text, and Fodeman wishes banks would educate their customers about what short code to look for to confirm a text is legit.
Fodeman says people around the world read The Daily Scam and his newsletters.
Trig Simon, who lives near Toledo, Ohio, checks out The Daily Scam every week. He first found it after getting conned by what he thought was an advertisement for a part-time job packaging merchandise, relabeling it and shipping it. It turned out the merchandise was stolen.
“It’s easy to get scammed if you’re not aware, and that’s where Doug’s newsletter is very handy,” Simon said.
Still, even those in the know can get tricked. Simon said he was cheated out of $200 in a Venmo scam last week.
Fodeman said helping people like Simon is fulfilling work, even though he and Deutsch don’t make any money from their efforts.
“Every single week, David and I hear from people who we’ve helped avoid a fraud, see through a fraud or how to recover from a fraud,” he said. “This makes us feel good.”
