New scams target fear, shame and pet lovers

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The Troubleshooters have a warning scammers are capitalizing on a wide range of human vulnerabilities from our love of pets to fear and shame compelling consumers in very personal ways to send money.

Even if you think you are a savvy consumer, these latest scams are so personal and so disturbing, you might fall for them. And these latest cons use information that in many cases, we ourselves have put online.

The latest sextortion scam is an email threat that includes your phone number, your address and a picture of your house. The sender claims to have "access to all of your emails, social media accounts, and all your contacts," even naming some of your closest contacts, usually family members then claiming to have "footage of you doing embarrassing things."

"If you don't pay this certain amount of money. In most cases, Bitcoin... we are going to spread this footage to everyone in your contact list," said Tjitskey de Vries of Malwarebytes.

The email ends with a QR code to pay.

"They're banking on someone feeling ashamed someone feeling anxious," said de Vries

All while using information that in many cases consumers themselves have put online.

Scammers are also increasingly targeting animal lovers and pet owners they find via social media. They use a bogus account and play the long game building trust then releasing the bait.

"They would basically release like a photo or a video of a missing pet. And they will say, like, I'm looking for my pet," said Leyla Bilge, director of scam research labs at Norton Gen Digital.

Once the pet is supposedly found, the scammers claim to need money for the animal's care and medical treatment.

To avoid falling victim, look at when the profile was created. If it's pretty new, that's a red flag.

"They don't have a history, they don't have photos, they don't have communication, they did not post anything. So if you see a very empty profile, you should be really, really suspicious about it," said Bilge.

Any time you get something suspicious, you can check it using a free Norton app called "https://us.norton.com/products/genie-scam-detector." It's an AI-powered detector that will tell you in seconds if what you're seeing could be a scam.

You can also use "https://www.malwarebytes.com/personal-data-remover" for a free scanning tool to see which sites are exposing your personal information.