Scam Me Once, Shame On Me 

The Teller was recently warned that Eastern Europe is full of charlatans and hucksters, so it was with a cautious eye that we opened an email from a sender with a vaguely Eastern European name.
And of course, what we got was a pitch for “a potential story idea” that “deals with a lot of crime in real estate and the housing industry.”
It was no young, beautiful Nigerian heiress looking for a secure place to stash a stack of daddy’s cash, but it was suspicious.
In fact, it seemed like a run-of-the-mill press release for a new product launch.
We were, the pitchman said, about to witness “the official launch of a new Android application that has already impacted the lives of millions of people around the globe, especially here in North America.”
Fantastic. But why have we never heard of this app? And why, if this is the official launch, have so many people already been impacted by this new app?
Never mind; the shady part wasn’t even hidden that well. The app, we’re told, “exposes the world’s most fraudulent activities in the Real Estate industry (and more) and educates owners, renters, and potential buyers about how to avoid being victimized. The app is free and is called Scam Detector.”
Scam Detector, eh? Sounds legit to The Teller, how about you? The Teller is confident that readers of Banker & Tradesman will have their personal information and various passwords ready in response to an email from some nearly anonymous Croatian to take advantage of “Scam Detector.”
After all, “Scam Detector has been accessed already in 104 countries via iPhone and Internet.”
“It’s all about good people helping good people,” we’re told.
Sounds good!
There are a bunch of links and a video included in the email from the Scam Detector folks, but The Teller is not clicking on them. It looks like a scam.