Smells like scam season is upon us.

Hacking Humans

This week our hosts, Dave Bittner, Joe Carrigan, and Maria Varmazis (also host of N2K's daily space podcast, T-Minus), are sharing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. We start with some follow-up on E-ZPass scams—a listener suggests that scammers may be exploiting exposed license plate reader data, as demonstrated by YouTuber Mike Brown, to link plate numbers with breached phone records and send scam texts in real time. Dave's story is on how scammers may use conditioning techniques in romance scams—Ben Tasker observed that refusing to provide a phone number led to fewer photos being sent early on, suggesting scammers use rewards like photos to encourage compliance. Joe's got the story of Google's lawsuit against scammers who created and sold thousands of fake business listings on Google Maps, exploiting urgent services like locksmiths and towing to deceive customers and charge inflated fees. Maria's got the story of the FTC suing Click Profit for allegedly scamming consumers out of millions with a fake “passive income” scheme, falsely promising high returns through AI-driven e-commerce stores on Amazon, Walmart, and TikTok while most investors ended up losing money. Our catch of the day comes from Reddit after a user posted a conversation with a scammer after messing with them about a potential job opportunity.

Resources and links to stories:

• Who is sending those scammy text messages about unpaid tolls?
• My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting A Romance Fraudster
• Google finds 10,000 fake listings on Google Maps, sues alleged network of scammers
• AI scammers on Amazon duped investors out of millions with ‘passive income’ scheme, FTC alleges
• Can I work from jail?

Have a Catch of the Day you'd like to share? Email it to us at [email protected].