Chris Chmura

Unwanted robocalls seem random, but the next one you receive might not be random at all. NBC Bay Area exposes how today’s scammers tailor their calls to personally target you — and you might unknowingly be helping them.

When she made a change to her phone service, a San Jose woman realized she’d spent more than $16,000 on satellite TV over ten years. The problem: she never requested or used the service. Her plight serves as a reminder for all consumers to closely monitor auto-pay bills.

Very few air passengers are aware that certain flight delays trigger a rule known as EU261. It dictates cash payments to passengers. A Half Moon Bay woman needed NBC Bay Area’s help to get her EU 261 cash.

Some taxpayers fear the Internal Revenue Service, worried a single mistake will cost them their car or their house. Uncle Sam’s finance arm can and does flex is muscles. But should we really be that afraid of the IRS? We spoke with a former IRS agent who shared a revealing take on the agency’s ruthless reputation.

An identity thief is spoofing their caller ID, and displaying information that suggests their bogus call is coming from NBC Bay Area and Telemundo 48, our sister station.

With the number of spam and scam calls to our phones getting worse every day, there’s finally hope of silencing the unwanted robocalls. New tech to stop caller ID spoofing is now just months away.

Families are paying triple-digital interest on everyday items despite a cap on small loans around 36%. The crux of the practice is whether you’re getting an ordinary loan or an unconventional lease.

A man looks to book a simple roundtrip flight for his family of four, but mistakenly winds up with enough airline seats to occupy one third of a jumbo jet. He hit turbulence trying to get a refund.

A Redwood City man won a small settlement in a class action lawsuit, and ended up with a check for $500 million. It was an error, but class actions like this affect millions of Americans – and you may be eligible for a tiny slice of the pie, if you’re a “class member”.

BevMo says an unauthorized individual installed malicious code on its web checkout page, giving them access to users’ account info.

Starwood is giving guests something new for free: Identity Monitoring. It basically alerts you if your info is being bought or sold on the ‘dark web.’

A man’s fight with a life insurance company ends in victory. The predicament he faced could easily occur in your family, too.

41,000 donors from all 50 U.S. states and 23 foreign countries gave a total of $32,028,981. We asked where it all went.

A report from one North Bay Fire Relief Fund shows it gave more than 6,500 survivors an average of about $3,000 each to cover immediate expenses. Later, the fund also provided back-to-school supplies for students. Plus about $1 million went to small businesses impacted by the blazes. Consumer investigator Chris Chmura reports.

The Better Business Bureau has logged hundreds of new complaints about Yeezy Supply. Fans of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian say their fashion brand isn’t delivering.

NBC Bay Area Responds to a Santa Cruz woman who has a $400 beef with Kanye West and company. Consumer Investigator Chris Chmura started looking into it, and found she’s not the only one.

Fire victims are discovering that their insurance policies don’t reflect the actual cost of rebuilding. We explain how to fill a potentially crushing gap in homeowner coverage.

Emergency managers say a ‘Go Bag’ is vital for families. It’s useful for when a home is evacuated due to fire, flood, earthquake, mudslide, or any other natural disaster that strikes with little or no warning.

After the North Bay wildfires, some homeowners found even their supposedly “fireproof” safes had completely melted, destroying their valuables.

We can thank Stormy Daniels for adding the term “non-disclosure agreement” to the everyday American’s vocabulary. Even before that episode, more entities were asking consumers to agree to confidentiality — just to get a refund.