DETROIT – The Eminem scam continues to grow after Help Me Hank first exposed that a high-tech thief was pretending to be the rapper to steal people’s identities.
“I was having my coffee in the morning and the phone rang,” Frederick Mclelland, of Taylor, said. “He said, ‘This is Marshall (Mathers).’”
The scammer isn’t just targeting people in Metro Detroit, but also across the country. A woman from the state of Washington showed Help Me Hank messages she received from someone posing as Marshall Mathers.
He complimented her appearance and, in a later exchange, asked her to go and get him an eBay card.
This comes after Mclellaind was targeted by a similar scam. Someone reached out to him and offered to cover expenses for his injured grandson, but soon after, the scammer was asking for personal information and more.
“If he can use that person’s likeness, use that person’s reputation to bring people into the scam, it’s actually a pretty good fraud,” one expert said.
Celebrity scams are on the rise, and romance scams are up 80% in the last year. The Better Business Bureau warns that everyone should be cautious of calls, texts and emails from unknown senders.
“You have to be very, very careful whenever you’re clicking links, and that goes with emails, as well,” said Laura Blankenship, of the BBB. “Phishing emails are still very large. People are still sending those out. Text message scams -- those are still coming out.”