EAST LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — In the wake of tragedy, support has poured into the Michigan State University community.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the university says $346,000 has been donated to the newly created Spartan Strong fund, and thousands more will be donated through the sale of official Spartan Strong T-shirts.

Alumni have also been giving their time. On "Spartan Sunday," parents and alumni flocked to campus, giving out snacks and hugs to students returning to campus this week. Steve Culp of Troy was one of many alumni on campus.

“Went up to East Lansing for Spartan Sunday to volunteer and help out, and as happens with most things, pictures were taken,” Culp explained.

A picture of him and a friend volunteering was posted to the Detroit Spartan Alumni page, but it soon spread in ways he never thought.

“All of a sudden, I get direct messages or people tag me saying, 'Hey, do you know this is going on with your picture?' And it’s a copy of the picture, but it has a different image on it," he said.

Just six hours later, his picture appeared on a random Facebook page cropped with a different logo on his sweatshirt. The post also included a link to purchase the sweatshirt, which by the next day had over 600 likes.

"It's kind of hurtful, honestly," Culp said of his picture being used to deceive Spartans.

He added that it's not a complete surprise that this happened.

“But it was still shocking once you do see what's going on," Culp said. "They say they’re selling merchandise — I hope no one is ordering them.”

The website has numerous other Spartan Strong shirts for sale, which are supposed to be benefiting the Spartan Strong fund, but the site has no affiliation to the university.

"We have seen an uptick in scams as well as individuals selling unlicensed apparel," MSU deputy spokesperson Dan Olsen said. “The university cannot independently verify that those proceeds from the sales of those unlicensed products will be donated to the Spartan Strong fund."

The Better Business Bureau says these scams often happen in the wake of tragedies across the country.

“Anytime there's a tragedy such as what’s happened at MSU, there are scammers out there that try to play on your heartstrings and play on your emotions,” said Laura Blankenship, chief of staff for the BBB in Eastern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. “It's very sad and unfortunately, it's something we see happening more and more.”

Blankenship says to always look out for red flags and only rely on licensed, official websites. If a website doesn't have a mailing address, company name or was newly created, it is likely a scam. Getting your money back after a scam purchase can also be challenging, and scammers are often never caught.

“Sadly, it’s easy for them to pop up quickly and then disappear, especially if they’re in another country, which more often than not they are,” Blankenship said. “In true scams, which is what we’re seeing pop up currently, the person never receives the product and none of the actual funds go to who it says that it’s benefiting."

In fact, the Facebook page posting the links and the doctored photo was newly created, and the profile picture is of an MSU freshman who also survived the Oxford High School shooting. The photo was provided us by her family last week, but now, scammers have taken the photo and are using it without her permission.

“On top of everything else that has happened, for this to happen, it’s like the straw breaks the camels back,” Culp said.

The university says the only vendors licensed to sell Spartan Strong merchandise are:
 

• Nudge Printing
• Colosseum
• Underground Printing
• Blue 84
• CDI Corp.
• A. Dean Watkins
• 4Imprint
• Sewing Concepts
• Zephyr
• Gametime Sidekicks

Other retailers can contact the university to become licensed, and the school says all royalties are also being donated to the fund.

Consumers who believe they have seen products or services that do not appear to be licensed by MSU can contact University Licensing Programs at licensing@union.msu.edu or 517-355-3434.

You can also file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or local police if you fall victim to a scam.

This article was written by WXYZ.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Authorities are warning people about questionable COVID-19 testing sites that health experts say may put patients' health and personal information at risk.

Scripps station WFTS in Tampa, Florida, uncovered allegations that a company, which operates hundreds of testing sites nationwide, failed to provide test results to some consumers and sent results to others before they even took a test.

A massive COVID-19 outbreak in December and January caused by the omicron variant drove millions of Floridians to test sites statewide.

Steve Weiner owns COVID Same Day PCR near the Tampa International Airport.

"I had 120 people wrapped around the building and I had to get out and basically gave them a speech, saying 'I'm sorry this is happening, it's happening everywhere,'" Weiner said.

State-run sites often had to turn people away as the number of people showing up for tests outpaced available supplies. That was especially true for PCR tests, which are considered the most accurate.

"It's really hard to get a turnaround for your tests," Elena Maluzin said.

Maluzin and her husband needed a test for an upcoming cruise.

"Everything is empty, everything is taken. There's no available appointments. Nothing," Maluzin said.

WFTS

It's especially difficult to find an appointment for a PCR test at national pharmacy chains, where most appointments to get tested are unavailable for at least three days.

Out of desperation to get back to work or travel, some people are turning to pop-up clinics, which are sites that don't show up as trusted sources on county health department lists.

Erin Kates now knows why.

"We ended up going to get tested so my husband could return to work. That's when we went to this testing site," Kates said.

After she couldn't get an appointment anywhere else, Kates, her husband and her three children went to a Cape Coral, Florida clinic operated by the Center for COVID Control.

Erin Kates

The sign out front advertised free COVID-19 testing.

"We had to take a picture of our driver's license. They've got our driver's license number. Take a picture of our insurance card. They have our insurance information. So is it really free?" Kates said.

Soon after registering, she got an email with her test results.

"We were still in line waiting to be tested. We hadn't been swabbed yet. We hadn't gotten up to the gentleman to be tested and we had already received an email stating that we were negative for COVID," she said.

Kates' husband, her three children and three other people in line all received emails saying they tested negative before taking the test.

Erin Kates

"There were people in line with us who were getting on planes, going to visit elderly family members. Just to think of those people — God forbid they were positive," Kates said.

"There are going to be opportunists who are going to make themselves available, 'You need a test, I can give you a test,'" said University of South Florida Healthcare Vice President Jay Wolfson.

"We don't have the resources"

Wolfson says it's hard to police testing sites that aren't playing by the rules.

"We don't have the resources at the county level; we don't have the resources at the state level, the federal government certainly doesn't have the resources to monitor compliance," he said.

"And as fast as you can get one bad guy out, there's another guy popping up," Weiner said.

Journalists with WFTS wanted to check out the Center for COVID Control's two Tampa-area clinics for themselves.

The first site — an empty metal office building with a tent in a field — was a bust.

A sign written in magic marker on notebook paper said the clinic was "closed due to a supply shortage."

The next stop was a strip mall in Clearwater, Florida.

Melanie Payne, a producer with WFTS who is fully vaccinated and has had a booster shot, had been experiencing cold symptoms. She wanted to get tested.

Inside the clinic, she scanned a code, provided her insurance and ID, then had her nose swabbed by the only person who appeared to be working there.

Rapid antigen tests were the only tests offered that day.

While waiting for results, Payne took her own rapid test that she recently purchased from a pharmacy.

WFTS

After about 15 minutes, that test showed she was negative for COVID-19.

An hour after that, she got an email from the Center from COVID Control with the same result.

Agencies issue warnings

But according to the Beter Business Bureau, the drug store test was likely more reliable.

The BBB gives the Center for COVID Control an "F" and issued an emergency alert.

BBB

The Federal Trade Commission also warned consumers about "fake" COVID-19 testing sites.

"Their end-game is to get consumers' personal information, maybe bill your insurance company when they claim it's free and a lot of consumers complain that they never receive the tests anyway," said Bryan Oglesby, spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau.

The Clearwater clinic was closed the next day.

A sign said locations nationwide were closed for a week to "re-train our management and staff while rolling out new procedures to help meet the unprecedented demand for testing."

In their return visit, WFTS journalists ran into a woman still waiting for her PCR test results from a test taken a week earlier so she could go back to work.

She finally reached a company representative on the phone who said it was never processed.

"I'm not gonna get it," she said. "That's horrible. That's horrible."

Kates, a cancer survivor with a weakened immune system who was told by the Center for COVID Control that she tested negative, got some bad news of her own.

"I ended up going to the emergency room the next day because I was having such difficulty breathing. Turns out I was positive for COVID," Kates said.

She advises people to do their homework before going to a pop-up testing site.

"Google the different testing sites before you go," Kates said. "If we had done our research beforehand, we would have seen that this testing site was not legitimate. There were complaints beforehand."

"Check this company out. Are they verified through the state of Florida? Are they a legitimate site that can give these tests?" Oglesby said.

"Do your homework. Do your due diligence," Wolfson said. "You're messing with your own health and the health of the people you care about and love."

This story was originally published by Adam Walser on Scripps station WFTS in Tampa, Florida.

A lot of people decided to start home improvement projects during the pandemic.

However, supply chain problems, the labor shortage and companies taking on too many projects have led to a surge of complaints about unfinished and shoddy jobs in the past year.

Many homeowners learned the hard way that a little research goes a long way when it comes to finding the right contractor.

Tiffany Rosen is among those people. She has a mess of a patio outside her home.

"It looks really awful, and is already starting to crumble," she said.

Rosen hired a contractor last summer after reading reviews on Facebook.

"He had quite a few finished jobs posted online," she said. "It looked great, and he said all of the right things."

Four months later, her patio remains unfinished.

"I think I am beyond crying now, and I am beyond upset," she said. "He stole 40% of my pay for the year."

Better Business Bureau issues warning to homeowners

There is no shortage of jobs for contractors right now. There is also no shortage of complaints about them at the Better Business Bureau.

The complaints prompted the organization to issue a warning about hiring a contractor last spring.

"There's been a disconnect between the consumer and the contractor on exactly when they can expect supplies again," Don O'Brien of the Better Business Bureau said.

O'Brien said many homeowners don't realize it can now take months for certain supplies to show up, which can stop a project in its tracks.

"Our supply chain, right now, is really in disarray, and the good contractors are making sure that they tell their clients they are waiting on these things, and it's going to be a while before we get them," he said. "The ones we hear complaints about at the BBB are those contractors who don't have really good communication with their clients, and the clients are left to wonder, 'Well, gosh, are they ever going to show up again?'"

What you can do

The BBB suggests that anyone hiring a contractor should:

• Do their research. Check the contractor's reviews at the BBB's website and Google their name for complaints.
• Ask for references: A reputable contractor should have no problem producing satisfied homeowners who are not friends or relatives.
• When selecting a contractor, make sure to read the contract thoroughly and be aware of any conditions or "riders" that may raise your final price due to supply issues.

Finally, O'Brien says never to pay 100% upfront.

"Once you do that, there's really no motivation for that contractor to come back," he said.

Do your research, so you don't waste your money.

________________________

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A census scam is taking advantage of the public’s confusion regarding the stimulus payments that were sent out by the government to aid Americans during the coronavirus crisis.

The

Better Business Bureau

says the goal of the scammers is to get their hands on your personal information, which they’ll use to steal your identity.

“The 2020 United States Census is happening at the same time as a global pandemic, shelter-in-place orders, and government stimulus payments,” wrote the BBB. “With so much going on at once, scammers are using the unique circumstances to create confusion.”

Here’s how the scam works:

The BBB says victims receive an unsolicited message via text, email or on social media that explains that in order to qualify for your stimulus payment, you need to first complete the 2020 U.S. Census. Whether or not you’ve completed the real census, don’t click. It’s a scam.

Some versions of the phony message include a link to a website “for more information,” according to the BBB. If you click the link, officials say you could unknowingly download malware onto your computer or phone that can give scammers access to your usernames, passwords, and other personal information stored on your computer.

“In other cases, the link may take you to a website that looks like it was created by the official U.S. Census Bureau,” wrote the BBB. “However, the website is a fake.”

On that website, you’ll be asked for personal information, such as your Social Security number and bank account information. Don’t fill that out. The U.S. Census Bureau does not ask for this information.

The BBB offers these tips on avoiding census scams:

· Know how the U.S. Census Bureau communicates. The U.S. Census Bureau will only send you emails if you already signed up for them, and it will never ask you to send personal information in an email. In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau will never contact you on behalf of a political party.
· Only visit official websites. Valid U.S. government websites almost always end in “.gov”. You can find key information about the 2020 census at

2020census.gov

and information about economic stimulus payments at

irs.gov/coronavirus.

· Never click on links in unsolicited messages. Phishing scams direct you to websites that look official, but these sites may be infected with malware. If you don’t know and trust the person who sent you the message, don’t click on any links.