BBB warns summer scams are starting to heat up

Warm weather has everyone coming out of hibernation and that includes scammers.

No matter what the season, there are always the classic scams like high-pressure door-to-door sales tactics, unscrupulous movers and fly-by-night-contractors.

But the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is warning about summer-specific scams too.

The BBB’s Leah Brownridge said vacation scams are always popular during summer months.

“People will call and either complain or report and incident where they have seen a pop-up advertisement online and it advertises a very attractive deal or discount on a trip,” she explained, adding they find out down the road there are restrictions or the whole thing is fake.

Brownridge said concert ticket scams always jump this time of year, especially since people can print tickets at home.

“What they (scammers) can do is sell the same pair of tickets on other third-party sites to unsuspecting buyers and then convince the buyer to wire money up-front,” she said.

Then the customer either never gets the ticket or if they do, it’s a fake.

Another popular one is employment scams targeting students.

“Any advertisement that says, ‘No experience needed,’ you know, ‘Make lots of money in a short amount of time,’ or even ask for money up front and they may say, ‘Oh, it’s for training fees or administrative costs,'” Brownridge said those are all red flags that some research needs to be done to make sure it’s not a scam.

Lawn care contracts can also be tricky.

“If you did use a lawn care service in the past you may have signed up for an automatic renewal of that service and of that contract so you may be surprised when that company shows up again seemingly out of the blue and starts working,” she explained.

Make sure to check the contract, and understand the cancellation policy.