Scam Squad

• The Voice of the Village • 27 February – 5 March 2020 MONTECITO JOURNAL 47 Road Trip, Hawaiian Style by Ernie Witham Read more exciting adventures in Ernie’s World the Book and A Year in the Life of a “Working” Writer. Both available at amazon.com or erniesworld.com. M y wife hesitated at a puddle of unknown depth at the former Kahuku Sugar Mill parking lot, which is now a series of small restaurants and food trucks that cater mainly to the surfing crowd at North Shore on Oahu.

“This thing could cross a raging river,” I said.

“The rental company might charge us more if we get it too dirty.”

“It’s raining. It’s a free car wash day.” Still unsure we could make it, Pat floored it and we bounced through the puddle and careened over a couple of large potholes. I almost hit the roof, which wouldn’t have been good because it might have come flying off. Pat had reserved a compact car for our trip, so the “Advantage” car rental company at the airport gave us a fullsize Jeep Wrangler. Or should I say Cheap Wrangler? It was such a basic model that you have to use the key to lock and unlock both front doors and it had hand-crank windows. I looked in the manual to see if there was a hidden auto feature. The manual showed this multi-functional key fob. Our key fob had nothing on it – not even a “Welcome to Hawaii” stamp. The instrument panel in the manual showed all these hi-tech features. Our dashboard had a large gaping hole where someone forgot to put in the features. Earlier we had searched for the mirror adjustment button, then figured out you had to crank the window down and push the edges of the mirror around.

“Lower. Too much. Not enough. Okay, now right. No, left. No…” Did I mention it was raining? Fortunately, being the “sport” model, it offered the option of taking off the hood, the roof and the doors. I guess some tourists stay in extralarge rooms so they can store half a Jeep exterior leaning up against the mini bar. Being a guy who loves to take things apart, but is not always completely successful putting them back together, and being in a smaller, second-floor room at a hotel with no elevator, I had pretty much decided against vehicle demolition.

The Jeep had 4-wheel drive – important for managing the streets in Waikiki Beach which, on a good day, allow for speeds up to fifteen miles per hour. It was also a tad large for one of the eight Smartcar-sized parking spaces we had to rent for thirty-five dollars a day at our 1970s era hotel, which was undergoing some minor renovations involving jack hammers.

But it was nice to have a vehicle. The previous evening, we had headed for Hawaii Kai for dinner with our Hawaiian family members. The Wrangler, surprise surprise, didn’t have a GPS, but I did have my iPhone. The street we were looking for began with a K, one of the more popular of the seven consonants in the Hawaiian alphabet. I must have missed one of the eleven vowels in the 17-letter-long street address when inputting because it took us an hour to go 12 miles and it told us we had arrived after we turned into a vacant field.

I must have missed one of the eleven vowels in the 17-letterlong street address when inputting because it took us an hour to go 12 miles. We did see a part of the island that is not included in the travel brochures including a tent city and some buildings that last saw paint during the Eisenhower administration. Pat put the directions into the phone for the trip back to the hotel.

We were getting somewhat used to driving the Beast, so today we decided to cut through the middle of the island from sunny Honolulu and go to the Dole Plantation. Halfway there it started raining and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. We were wearing shorts.

“Can you figure out how to turn the heat and defroster on,” Pat asked.

“I think it suggested in the manual to bring along firewood.”

It was raining hard at the Dole Plantation. Plus, it was mobbed. A lot of people were wearing brandnew Dole sweatshirts and hats. One woman had Dole socks under her open-toe sandals.

So, we decided to keep going, but cold, damp, daredevil excursions can make you hungry, so we had bounced up to a small burger joint called Seven Brothers.

“Maybe they have ice cream,” I said. Pat gave me the hang loose hand sign. At least I think that’s what it was. •MJ Recognizing & Avoiding Scams by Patti Teel, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson & Richard Copelan, CEO/President of the BBB of the Tri-Counties T his week’s Scam Report will focus on Business Email Compromise Scams (BEC), which have tripled in the last three years, resulting in more financial losses than any other fraud type in the U.S. It’s when a fraudster uses a compromised email account to insert himself into a transaction where two parties are exchanging money. The broad consensus among law enforcement and internet security companies is that 90 percent of BEC groups operate out of Nigeria.

Here’s how the scam typically works. You receive an email which appears to come from the head of a company. For example, a fraudster manages to hack into your boss’s account, so it looks like the emails you receive are coming from her.

The main way a fraudster gets into someone else’s account is through an email that asks the receiver to click on a link. If the link is clicked on, the crook can insert malware and gain access. Sometimes they get access to many accounts this way, for example if they hack into a company’s payroll records.

Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson and Richard Copelan, CEO/ President of the BBB of the Tri-Counties, report that the BEC Scam has been affecting real estate transactions, small businesses, and even individuals in Santa Barbara County. The BEC Scam and Real Estate Transactions

Here’s how it works. A hacker gets into an escrow officer’s email. The savvy crook sits back for a while, watching messages go back and forth between buyer and seller and their representatives, while learning the language specific to the company they are targeting. When the sale is about to be finalized, the hacker, pretending to be the escrow officer, instructs the bank to release the funds and will provide the account information for the deposit. Within hours or days, that money is gone and in the fraudster’s account.

Here’s a quote from an FBI special agent who works these cases: “…the perpetrators leave a long wake of financial and emotional damage, stealing money from small businesses – leaving them unable to pay bills, and from families in the process of buying a home, all but erasing their dreams of home ownership.” The BEC Scam and Small Businesses

A scammer recently hacked into a business account, pretending to be the owner of a Santa Barbara company. When the accountant received email instructions to pay an invoice, she wired several thousand dollars to an account controlled by a crook before realizing that the invoice was fake. Con-Artists Use this Scam to Rip off Individuals, Too

A Santa Barbara woman received an email from someone she thought was her uncle. He said he was very sick and needed immediate funds for emergency surgery. Since the email contained a lot of believable details, the woman thought it was real and wired $20,000 into the crook’s account.

BBB advises us to always use the telephone to confirm requests before acting. Most BEC fraud could be stopped if those directed to send money simply called the person who’s supposedly asking them to send the money.

To report a scam, call the District Attorney’s Fraud Hotline at 805-568- 2442. The Better Business Bureau urges you to visit their Scam Tracker site at https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/santa-barbara/reportscam or call them directly at 805-963-8657.

The District Attorney’s office and Better Business Bureau of the Tri-Counties each have segments on the Young at Heart Radio Show, with host Patti Teel. It airs on KTMS Newstalk 990 on Saturdays at 5:30 pm and Sunday mornings at 8:30. During Scam Squad, Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson warns listeners about the latest scams and often interviews victims. This is followed by Your Moment of Trust, a segment by BBB of the Tri-Counties – providing timely advice to businesses and individuals. After airing, they can be found at www.hubforpodcasting.com. •MJ