MoneyWisdom Blog

Recently two of our members reported unauthorized charges on their Hanscom Federal Credit Union credit cards. Both members stated their cards had been compromised when they clicked on a pop-up ad that appeared after they’d completed a survey on a third-party web site. The pop-up ads offered a choice of three “free prizes” when the member paid a shipping and handling fee. What neither member realized is they were also signing up for ongoing subscriptions of products, which would be charged to their credit cards each month.

Amazon Prime Day starts on July 16, where you can take advantage of deals galore on their website. Unfortunately, it's prime week for phishers, who are already hard at work emailing scams galore to take advantage of you. Here's how these bottom-feeders are operating this year and how you can protect yourself from their nefarious schemes.

It’s tax season and a new scam involving stolen data from tax professionals, fraudulent tax filings, and erroneous checking account deposits has law enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on high alert.

Here’s how the scam works and what to do if a mysterious tax refund appears in your checking account or mailbox.

She opens her messages from the online dating site and her heart skips a beat.

Someone wants to meet her. But not just any man. He is the man of her dreams, dreams sparked the first time she watched An Officer and A Gentleman and enhanced by a decade of Lifetime movie-watching.

In his photo, he sports a military uniform and is dashing, clean cut, a man of action.

The three-letter message on the caller ID strikes fear in any American’s heart: IRS. You pick up the phone, nervously, to hear a somber voice with an unsettling message.

“This is the IRS,’’ the voice intones, confirming the caller ID information. Adjustments have been made to your tax account and an immediate payment is due, the caller is informed. Payment must be made over the phone by cash, wire or services, such as MoneyGram. Even iTunes gift cards will suffice. If not, police will be at your location within an hour.

Reading about such an incident should trigger internal alarm bells. This kind of

With the flood waters of hurricanes Harvey and Irma now easing, a new kind of flood is taking place. It’s created by a wave of waterlogged cars that are heading to the scrap yard. While it may seem that a car should be salvageable once it dries out, that is not the case. Water damage corrodes the mechanics of a vehicle, making it unsafe to drive.

On September 7, consumer reporting agency Equifax announced that hackers gained unauthorized access to its data files. As many as 143 million people, mostly in the United States, are potentially impacted by this breach. The company also identified criminal access to information involving residents of the United Kingdom and Canada, adding that no other countries were affected.

Hurricane Harvey has been wreaking havoc in Texas since it made landfall on Friday August 25, 2017, with heavy rains, damaging winds and flooding expected to continue for days. It began as a Category 4 hurricane when it reached Rockport, Texas, and has stalled over the state, which accounts for the record-breaking rain, predicted as high as 50 inches of rainfall for the entire storm by some forecasters. 

Have you ever seen a post in your Facebook feed that just seemed… sketchy?

That was your internal scam sense telling you to keep scrolling. Overall, Facebook is a secure place to share information and interact with friends, but at 1.28 billion daily active users, it’s also fertile ground for fraudsters looking for an easy target.

So how do you separate scams from legit posts? Be on alert for these common cons:

Like bad house guests, scams come and go – leaving us hoping that they don’t return for another visit. But they do, sometimes altering their appearance a little. As scammers perfect their methods of luring victims, it can be difficult at times to identify a scam. To help all of us, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regularly reports on popular scams in circulation. Here are 5 popular scams making the rounds this season: