BBB Alert! New "Credit Card Declined" Scam

Really? Another scam we all need to be worried about? Unfortunately, yes. And I say that because this is a scam that I think many of us could fall for. And the Better Business Bureau is warning about a card declined scam. And essentially, the bad guys are getting even more ambitious. They're not satisfied to just steal one of our credit card numbers. They want to steal as many of them as they can. So what is this scam? And more importantly, what can we do to protect ourselves from it? So according to the Better Business Bureau, this scam is just increasing dramatically, which is why they put out a press release to warn the public about it. And essentially, the bad guys are setting up fake websites and offering great deals. So we go on to their website and we share our credit card information. Now, that part of the scam is not new. That's been going on for a long, long time. Fortunately, it has not been that common, but a new twist has made it much more common. And they're seeing it just explode in popularity and explode in the victims that are getting scammed out of, in some cases, hundreds of dollars, other cases, thousands of dollars, and in some cases, even tens of thousands of dollars. So the bad guys get us to go to their fake website. We put in our credit card information. But then what they do is they say, oh, we're sorry, your credit card has been declined. And so then what do most of us do? We think, huh, why in the world would my credit card be declined? But we don't give that much thought to it. We just say, okay, we bring out another credit card and we put that in as well. And guess what? Then they say that credit card has been declined. And now we're getting worried. Now we might say, you know, forget about buying this pair of tennis shoes or buying this outfit or buying this game or whatever it is. And we say, I've got to figure out why my credit card's getting canceled or declined. Or maybe we say, well, let me try a third credit card. And now they've got three of your credit cards. And then we call the number on the back of the credit card, right? That's the number that we know to be true. And we call in the credit card company says, you know, actually your card wasn't declined. And you think, huh, well, why, why would anybody do that? Why would they say that my credit card's been declined? Well, they say that so that they can get more credit card information from you, a second card, a third card, et cetera. And unfortunately, then when you're on the phone with the credit card company, they'll probably tell you, Hey, there's been a lot of charges that have just taken place in on this account. Or instead of buying that, you know, $80 pair of tennis shoes that you were getting, maybe you got charged $800. So the charges are much higher than, than what, um, what the website said it was going to be. So importantly, the Better Business Bureau has some tips to protect ourselves from it. And the first one, of course, is you want to verify that you're shopping on a legitimate website. Unfortunately, scammers can, can make websites look like very popular, common websites, Amazon, of course, being one of the big ones, or some of the retail sites, maybe you get a text message saying, you know, as an example, Nike's having the sale, here's a link. And you go to the link and indeed, everything's 50% off. And you're like, wow, this is a great deal. Unfortunately, maybe it's a scammer's website. And then you get that credit card decline. So the first step to protect ourselves is to verify that we're dealing with a legitimate website. The second one is we want to watch out for fake emails, text, fake ads. And yeah, scammers are taking out ads on Facebook, on social media, and driving people to, unfortunately, illegitimate websites that look like the real thing, but we're getting scammed. So the Better Business Bureau says look out for fake emails, it might look like it's coming from Amazon. But often, if you click on the email address to find out what the full email address is, it might be, you know, amazon1.com. I'm just making things up here. But it's not the real website. Or instead of having each of the words spelled out correctly, maybe one of the letters is incorrect. Or it's a foreign letter that looks like an A, but maybe it's it's not an A, maybe it's something else. And they were able to grab that URL. So look out for fake emails, text, and ads. And then the next one they say is don't be fooled by great offers. You know, if it seems too good to be true, it likely is. Now, as I record this, we're coming up on deal season, right? We have the pre Black Friday sales that are taking place. I know Amazon's got their big sale, their Prime Day, I forget what they're calling this one, but it might be Prime Days. So there's that sale going on. And then we've got Black Friday, where everybody's going to be offering deals. So we have to be careful, we just have to pause, we have to say, is this really the email address that I thought it was? And, you know, if the deal seems too good to be true, sometimes good Friday deal, good Friday, Black Friday deals are too good to be true, which is what makes Black Friday so much fun. But sometimes they they're going to be scammed. So just keep up your sense of vigilance a little bit higher. And then of course, this warning was put out by the Better Business Bureau. And so the Better Business Bureau says to research the business. And what's the best website to research the business? Of course, the Better Business Bureau thinks it's them. And their website is BBB.org. Then they also say, you know, a credit card probably offers you more protection than a non credit card, using a non credit card. And they say, if you plan to make a purchase, make sure that you're up to date on what protections your credit card offers you against fraud. And they may offer you may have some credit cards that offer more fraud protection than others. And maybe thinking about using the credit card that offers you the best protection against fraud for online purchases. And then the last one is just to check up on your credit card and your debit card. Debit cards in particular understand what your protections are there as well, and then decide again to use the one that gives you the greatest protections along the way. So, you know, unfortunately, as we get older, you know, our net worth increases, which is the good thing. But our cognitive abilities, we're not at our peak anymore. And the older we get, the more susceptible we might be to something that maybe when we were 20 years younger, we would not have been susceptible to something like that. So just be super careful, know that you become more of a target as we get older. And, you know, measure twice and cut once, take the time. The other thing is all of these scams rely on a sense of urgency. And you have to do something quickly in order to protect something bad from happening. Not this scam in particular, this is more of a passive scam. This is more of, you know, they're putting out the bait and waiting for consumers to come to them. But more and more these scams are, they're coming out to us, they're pursuing us, they are predators. And unfortunately, we are the prey. So we need to be super careful. We also need to be super careful that we're enjoying our journey along the way. Yeah, there are things to worry about. Yes, there are scary things in the world. But you know what, I want to make sure we're all enjoying our journey, whatever that means to us to the best of our ability, so that when we look back on the one life that we've had to live, we look back and we say, you know what, I lived my life to the fullest. And I lived the youth of my senior years to the fullest. And that's why I made this video here, which talks about seven things to stop doing in your 50s and 60s in order to enjoy your time until you get to retire. Thanks for watching this video. I'll see you in that one.