‘Money flipping’ is a new twist on an old scam during the pandemic

“Earn money” and “quick cash.” Both have a nice ring to them, but they should also raise your suspicions.

There’s now a new version of an old scam.

It’s called “money flipping,” and it’s happening more and more during the pandemic while people spend more time online.

Here’s how it works; You see a post saying if you invest in the stock market through a specific contact, you’ll get a huge return guaranteed.

However, if you do your research to check it out, you’ll learn a lot more.

With the Better Business Bureau of Southwest Florida, Bryan Oglesby said, “These scammers are making fake posts. They’re making fake thank you’s, and the information is not genuine and is not real.”

It’s a scam, and the people falling for it have a form of what the BBB calls ‘optimism bias.’

“These are people who feel they are not going to be the victim of a scam,” Oglesby says,” that they know better, that scams won’t happen to them.”

But it can, and does, happen to many people. Florida ranks number two in both victims and losses to online scams.

There are never any guaranteed returns, and if you get a call asking for you to invest, just hang up and never provide personal information.

RESOURCES

• BBB Scam Tracker
• 2019 Internet Crime Report
• Report Scams to the FTC
• FBI Exec Discusses COVID-19-Related Schemes
• Homeland Security: Common Scams
• FTC: Get an Identity Theft Recovery Plan