“Your checking account balance is low.” It’s an alert no one would ever want to receive—especially if you’d just been paid. But such was the message that a friend—let’s call him Ron—received recently. A hacker had gained control of his account and had started to bleed its balance toward [...]
122 years old? Really?
Fraud wears many faces—but perhaps the most unusual is that of Jeanne Louise Calment. For years, the French-born Calment, who claimed to have been born in 1875, was celebrated as the world’s oldest person. By the time she died in 1997, she would have been 122— if she had been telling the truth, that [...]
McClure, Bobbitt and your money
In 2017, just before Thanksgiving, a heartwarming story hit the news. A young woman from Philadelphia named Katelyn McClure had run out of gas on the highway and found herself stranded. Luckily, a homeless veteran named Johnny Bobbitt happened to be nearby, and in an act of selflessness, he gave [...]
Advice I hope you never need
I don't mean to be a fearmonger, but today I would like to take some time to make sure you are aware of a new type of financial fraud that in recent years has been on the rise. This new fraud involves the theft of tax refunds. Here's how it works: First, an identify thief starts with a few basic [...]
King of Polka
If I told you the story of Jan Lewan, you might think I was making it up. Born in World War II-era Poland, Lewan emigrated to the United States and settled in rural Pennsylvania. Gregarious and musically gifted, Lewan soon achieved small-town fame as “The Polka King of Northeast Pennsylvania” and [...]
