Every day there are billions of websites
waiting to scam and defraud you.
That's right, billions with a
B13 Investigates reporter Sierra
Putman Learn Google alone blocks
40 billion malicious pages a da.
And Sierra? You actually found ?
They got through.
And it devastated a local
mom just looking for help,
She said it stole her sense of security.
Now she's speaking out to warn
other vulnerable families
and for somebody to come in,
pretend that they're going to help us.
Vivian Clayotto has her hands full, a
single mom of three kids with special needs.
She thought she found a new
resource to help make ends meet.
Really, I was like,
they're helping people like us.
She applied for help through this website,
claiming to be the Aaron Family Foundation.
The site promised grants for the elderly
and families with special needs.
Another mom who says she was approved
for a grant sent her the link.
Vivian shared these messages
with 13 Investigates,
showing she was approved for $1.
She waited and waited.
But the money never came.
They
would have paid my rent and a ce
of my bills and we would have been OK.
But now we're behind no
help. Instead,
her son's Social Security checks
rerouted to a different account.
She caught it quickly after one check.
This letter shows Social Securiy
is investigating the fraud.
Vivian realized she gave the wee
all the information a person
would need to take the money,
the pay that they just caused m.
I would have wished that or not. Buddy
Vivian is not alone. Last year,
the FBI reported nearly 12,000 Hoosiers
lost money to Internet scams nationwide.
Americans lost $27 billion
over the last five years.
We had two cybersecurity
experts review the site.
Both say they understand why Vin
thought this seemed real at fir.
Look, there are no glaring spelling errors,
and it uses the HTTPS prefix
showing the site is secure.
The experts spotted several issues that,
combined, made the.
Ask questions like why these sol
media links don't take you anyw.
Anything that you click on
keeps you within the website.
Even the phone number listed
didn't work. Vivian thought.
She did her due diligence,
even finding that the IRS list e
Aaron Family Foundation as a nonprofit.
Shouldn't that be
a sign that this is a legit gro?
If they're a registered nonprof,
yeah, that's very tricky.
That is an indicator that you need to
look for, but it's not an absol.
There is an Aaron Family Founda,
but when 13 Investigates
reviewed its tax returns,
the group reported given money
only to churches and organizati,
not individuals.
We tracked down the real Aaron family
and they told us This site is f,
even though it uses some
real information. This
is the person that
supposedly I was talking to.
The website Vivian used has pics
of people reportedly in key positions.
We do the reverse image search.
Turns out the people are real, but they.
They do not work with this webs,
and these are not their real na,
obviously. A very big indicator. Red Flag
13 Investigates discovered the
majority work for a Cancer Institute.
The man, Vivian, thought she was
talking to works at a universit.
After we reached out, he contacted the
site and this picture disappear.
The same happened when we contacted several
companies whose logos were also on the site.
Even with all of those red flag,
the website Vivian used still shows up
as a top result in some Google searches.
Asari thinks it's time lawmakers
consider legislation that would
put more responsibility on the
government and businesses,
like web providers,
hosts and search engines,
to better verify these sites.
You best believe that if Google.
Could be held accountable
for this site showing up
in their in their search
that they would find a way to solve it too.
13 Investigates did reach out to Google.
It doesn't comment on specific sites.
It did say it blocks 40 billion pages of
spam and malicious content every day.
But it doesn't catch everything,
which is why Vivian wants to warn others.
It seemed real, but I guess
you know when you're hopeful.
Who want it to be real?
Vivian says this experience will
make her more cautious in the future.
Our experts say as scammers get
smarter and new technology emer,
it's harder to tell real from f.
I've called and emailed
the website operators,
but haven't heard back again.
The Aaron family tells me
they have nothing to do with
this website. You know,
it is so hard to protect oursel,
but checking these images,
that's really something good to know.
And it's actually not that hard to do.
We're actually going to walk you
through how to do it yourself online.
Just look for this story on
wthr.com and go to the 13
Investigate section. All right.
Sierra, thanks so much.