Beware of the warning of a new scam going around New Jersey

Every week, there seems to be a new scam looking to take your money or steal your identity. It pays to stay a step ahead of the crooks who do this for a living.

If it were up to me, they would serve 30 years of hard labor. I'd put them on stationary bikes and have them peddle to make electricity for seniors. But I digress.

You may have noticed a warning from your "local police department" about a brushing scam. With all of the packages we might be getting delivered to our doorstep this time of year, it could be easy to fall for this one.

This is the warning that's popping up all over the country. It's been copied and pasted over 250,000 times in less than 24 hours.

It's called a "brushing scam." A brushing scam is when someone receives an unexpected gift or item not ordered in the mail from a place like Amazon or another company. Examples of gifts include rings, bracelets, necklaces, Bluetooth speakers, etc.

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The gift will have the recipient’s address but not include the sender's information or be from a known retailer. When the recipient opens the package to see what it is and possibly who sent it, there is a QR code to scan to find out who sent the gift. Once the code is scanned, all the information from that phone will be sent to scammers.

The warning also claims that the scammers receive all access to the phone. All personal and financial information is accessible to the scammers, and often, the victim's bank accounts are drained. Some people advise that the gift can be kept or thrown away, but the QR code should NOT be scanned for any reason.

We checked to see if all of that is correct, and here's what Snopes had to say.

"Snopes received inquiries from readers asking whether these warnings were legitimate and accurate. What was found that in many cases, they were indeed posted by legitimate sources — such as police departments — but were not entirely accurate. Therefore, we have rated the claim as a mixture of truth and falsehood."

The final verdict from Snopes was that the Facebook posts legitimately warn consumers of so-called "brushing scams," which are real and potentially dangerous.

What's false, however, is that specific claims made in some of these warnings exaggerate the capabilities of QR codes.

The mere act of scanning a QR code does not by itself trigger immediate consequences such as compromised phones, stolen personal and financial information, or drained bank accounts. Typically, scammers require further steps from their victims to acquire personal and sensitive information.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.

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