The holidays are coming and so are the scammers

Two things prompted me to write this story First was my recalling one year ago when I got taken for $400 on an "imposter scam" involving my buying gift cards for a friend's supposed dying cousin. Second stimulus was a news release from the regional FBI office in Salt Lake City describing an uptick in "Phantom Hacker attacks" (where a scammer poses as an unknown government or financial institution worker trying to prevent a hack or scam) that tend to focus on senior citizens. These two types of scams are growing at an alarming rate and the gift giving holidays seem to bring out the worst in the...