SF News Four Arrested in Sextortion Scheme Linked to San Jose Teen’s 2022 Suicide Two years after 17-year-old Ryan Last of San Jose took his own life, authorities have arrested four men in Côte d’Ivoire for their alleged roles in an international sextortion scheme that targeted thousands, including minors.
SF News PayPal Scammer Nearly Bilks Elderly Atherton Man Out of $15,000, Caregiver Thwarts the Plot An apparently Bay Area-based con artist was on the verge of scamming an elderly Atherton man out of $15,000, but fortunately his caregiver and family intervened, and the would-be con artist was taken into custody.
SF News Beware: Those ‘Unpaid Parking Invoice’ Tickets Texts Are a Complete Scam, Everybody An untold number of San Franciscans have received a text message claiming they owe money for unpaid parking tickets, but this is a pretty poorly executed scam that appears to have its origins outside the US.
SF News Beware Phony QR Code Scam Popping Up on SF Parking Meters Some fairly sophisticated scam artists have been slapping QR-code "Pay by Phone" stickers on SF parking meters, and the SFMTA just caught on last week.
SF News Santa Clara County DA Is Looking For This Convicted Con Artist Who Skipped Out on Prison Sentencing A scamster who likes to bilk investors with phony tech invention schemes may be out there conning someone new, after he was a no-show at a sentencing hearing last month in Santa Clara County.
SF News 28-Year-Old Chinese National Charged In Multi-Million-Dollar Fraud Scheme Involving Fake Names, Bank Accounts A federal judge has ordered the 28-year-old suspect in a broad-ranging fraud scheme to remain detained at Santa Rita Jail after he reportedly tried to flee the country and return to China.
SF News Avoid Being Scammed By Fake FasTrak Texts Telling You to Pay Penalties Bay Area drivers should know that a scam has been going around involving fake websites posing as the FasTrak toll system trying to extract payments from people.
SF News San Rafael Couple Nearly Scammed Out of $15,000 by AI Fake of Their Son’s Voice We are in era where AI can recreate someone’s voice, and scammers are taking notice, with one San Rafael couple almost paying $15,000 to con artists who’d accurately mimicked their son’s voice in a panicked phone call.
SF News Scammers Are Spoofing SF Sheriff’s Phone Number, Demanding Bogus Fines Be Paid Don't take a call if your caller ID identifies the caller as “SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY,” and don’t pay the $5,000-$10,000 fine they’re demanding for some non-existent arrest, as it’s the latest scam hitting San Francisco.
SF Politics Some Joker Is Advertising an SF ‘Doom Loop Walking Tour’ For $30 a Ticket In what seems an elaborate troll job, but managed to get published and promoted on Eventbrite, someone’s offering a chance to “view the open-air drug markets” at Civic Center for $30, which I’m pretty sure you can do for free.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Scammer Used Eventbrite to Peddle Fake Dinner In SF Beware that not all things on Eventbrite can be trusted! A San Francisco chef was recently alerted to a phony wine dinner being advertised at his Noe Valley restaurant, and it took a few days for him to get Eventbrite to pull it down.
SF News Massive Fraud Scheme Netted 'Hundreds of Millions' For CA Unemployment Scammers Using Prison Inmates' Names A scam involving the names and identities of tens of thousands of California prison inmates — including convicted wife murderer Scott Peterson — has apparently enabled scammers and some inmates themselves to make off with at least $140 million.
Arts & Entertainment Shocker: Company Called 'Silicon Valley Matchmaker' Appears To Be A Pricey Scam A new exposé from the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit combines two common local gripes the notorious difficulty of the Bay Area dating scene, and Silicon Valley companies’ constant desire to charge thousands
SF News NYE Concert Supposedly Benefiting Food Bank With K-Ci & JoJo Is Bogus Internet Scam What more fitting way to conclude 2016, a year full of surprise horrors and tragedies, than by getting scammed out of $100 or more for admission to a New Year's Eve benefit concert
SF News Facebook 'Spam King' Sentenced To Two Years In Prison By San Jose Judge A prolific Facebook spammer was sentenced yesterday to two-and-a-half years in prison by a federal judge in San Jose and ordered to pay $310,000 in restitution. The Associated Press reports that the
SF News D.A. Takes Down Two Scam Artists Targeting Chinese Community There two reports on grand theft cases hot of the presses today over at the Examiner. First up, the story of a Chinatown wedding scammer. The paper reports that 45-year-old Stanley Kwan was
SF News BART Station Agent Busted For eBay Ticket Racket While most BART employees are asking for a raise, one station agent came up with an enterprising side hustle in order to make a few extra bucks. Over the past three years, 40-year-old
SF News Online Date To 'Roll Around In Cash' Turns Out To Be (Deplorable) Teens With A Gun In the most unfortunate catfish meetup ever, three male victims were robbed on separate occasions when they thought they were meeting a woman who wanted to fulfill her fantasy of rolling around in
SF News They're Going To The Super Bowl! Scammed Couple Gets Free Tickets From Ticketmaster That Hayward, California couple's embarrassing decision to wire $5,900 to some joker in Boca Raton actually paid off in the end. After the story broke yesterday, Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard called Sharon
SF News Grifters Caught On Tape Scamming Little Old Asian Ladies Two SF women fell victim over the weekend to a curious scam that we reported on in July in which the targets are exclusively older Chinese women, but now the crooks have been
SF News Curb Painting Scam In The Richmond? "I'm no fan of law breakers, and especially those who is looking from a quick buck from elderly residents of my neighborhood," writes Agent Akit regarding these pieces of paper taped over curb
SF News Berkeley High Students Face Expulsion For Awesome Computer Hijinks About fifty students at Berkeley High School are facing suspensions and four others are facing expulsion for masterminding an elaborate scam to ditch class. The scam itself wasn't that elaborate — the kids apparently
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Mobile Spinach Offers Food Discounts Without Asking Restaurants Mobile Spinach, a Groupon-like site based in San Francisco, offers restaurant deals that seems too good to be true. Which just might be the case. Grub Street reports that the coupon site offers
SF News Bay Area Empty-Handed After 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today. And guess what? No one from the Bay Area won. Even though local pubs (new and old) entered a bunch of samples -- it's super pricy
SF News Glen Park Mother Fooled By Spanish Scammer A little fact-checking might've helped a Glen Park mother from essentially throwing away thousands of dollars this week. According to SF Weekly, 'A San Francisco woman living in Glen Park received a call
