93-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast. And now, Preston and Steve's news

updates with Kathy Romano. All right. And today is Wednesday, August 26th. Good morning, Kathy. Good

morning in the news this morning. Officials are reporting a huge spike and fraud complaints due to COVID-19.

More than 170,000 reports have been filed nationwide. And as the pandemic evolves, so do scams that we need to worry about.

So many people are trying to get their money back for COVID-related disruptions.

And now scammers are taking advantage, promising to help get refunds from everything, from canceled vacations to weddings to gym memberships, but stealing your identity instead.

Brian Lewis, the CEO of IntelliChek, says there is no reason any company would ever ask for your personal information because there's no need for it.

Another relatively new scam is con artist pretending to be contact tracers.

They're calling people up saying that somebody they knew came down with COVID. They can't

say who it is, but they need to track and trace you and they ask you personal information.

And they're using that to steal your identity. Louis says, just throw these scammers on the pile,

man, Steve. We were talking yesterday on the phone. You're like, anytime you see a phone number come up on your, on your ID that is the same prefix that you have.

Yeah, first, first three digits.

Yep.

I immediately ignore it.

You're like, okay.

Wait, this looks like my number.

I'm ignoring it.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's just, I get them every single day.

I, some kind of scam call.

I've never gotten a COVID scam call, but it's always your car insurance or your electric bill. We don't have an electric bill. I mean, you know. Do you get the Chinese? Do you get the Chinese one? Where someone is speaking? No, I haven't had that yet. Have you ever had that? I get the voicemails. The Chinese, they're speaking. Completely a different language.

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