The Better Business Bureau has put together an unscientific list of the top ten scams of 2012. They evaluated scams by how widespread they were and how they hurt Minnesota and North Dakota consumers.
• Phony debt collectors falsely said consumers faced arrest.
• An unsolicited text message came with $10 charge per text.
• Sweepstakes scams charged fees to get a nonexistent prize.
• Official-looking bills sent to consumers charged high prices for copies of deeds cheaply available at county offices.
• Timeshare resellers collected fees, but didn’t sell property.
• Door-to-door asphalt scammers did shoddy work.
• Utility scam said feds would pay utility bill.
• Scammers used dating sites to extort from love-struck.
• Ransomware locked computers until fee paid.
• Power4Home Pro had poor customer service and failed to answer the agency's request for substantiation of its energy-savings claims.
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