John M Peek PC

05/16/2026

It’s easy in hindsight to see where it went wrong. Don’t get in that position.

🚨 Over $500,000 GONE ..... The Town of Surfside Beach sent more than half a million dollars of taxpayer money straight into a scammers hands, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is now investigating what went wrong.

LOCAL NEWS AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Jake Lee - Myrtle Beach & Pawleys Island Top Realtor

The town hired Wildcat Construction to move utilities underground. After the company finished the work earlier this year, it was owed payment. On March 13, Surfside Beach issued a 545000 dollar ACH transfer that was supposed to go to the contractor. Instead the money landed in a fraudulent account.

Wildcat Construction says it has never used ACH payments and had confirmed in writing with the town that it expected a traditional check. When the company followed up about the long overdue amount the town shared the email thread that was meant to document the transaction. That is when the problems became obvious. The email address had an extra letter in the company name and attached documents included a forged signature copied from an old notarized file. The construction company says the town never followed standard protocol to confirm the sudden switch from check to ACH.

Surfside Beach has now acknowledged a potential cybersecurity breach and is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts. SLED confirmed it opened an active investigation after the Surfside Beach Police Department requested assistance on April 28.

Wildcat Construction still has not received any of the money it earned for work already completed and says it has received no update from the towns attorney.

This is public money from right here in the Grand Strand.

A vital reminder to every business, resident ,and local government: Never send money via ACH or wire transfer unless you have personally verified the recipient using contact information you already trust not just an email. Always confirm any change in payment instructions directly with the company through known reliable channels before you send a single dollar.

What do you make of this situation?

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05/10/2026

Take care if you’re selling on Facebook Marketplace of course. But today I’m talking about messages saying a family member wants to buy the item but they are not on Facebook and asking that the seller text a phone number. I’ve seen it twice this weekend. The message is practically identical except it was brother on one, sister in the other. The phone numbers are in area codes not nearby. I’m including a screenshot. The person messaging here, if you look at the profile, has two Facebook friends.
Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into this.
Carry on.

04/28/2026

The AI trap

https://www.facebook.com/share/18kdPrRJpL/?mibextid=wwXIfr

🧑‍⚖️: https://www.al.com/news/2026/04/alabama-supreme-court-fines-lawyer-17000-for-ai-hallucinations-in-legal-filings.html?utm_campaign=aldotcom_sf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

“They appear to be artificial intelligence ‘hallucinations,’ i.e., fake authorities created by an AI system,” the Court's opinion reads.

04/27/2026

Not much surprises me anymore...but I have to admit I did a double-take when the Dillard's website indicated that I was agreeing to an arbitration clause for any disputes merely by visiting their website. Do better, Dillard's.

04/25/2026

True fact…

03/15/2026

First one of these texts I’ve gotten. New scams regularly emerging. This is a screenshot not a share of the text.

03/06/2026

11/03/2025

Do real lawyers cringe at the inaccuracies in lawyer/courtroom drama shows and movies, or do they just see it as "Hollywood" entertainment?
As an attorney and a huge film buff, I mainly just see legal inaccuracies in films as Hollywood misunderstandings of what attorneys and judges do for a living. But then I can always turn around and watch My Cousin Vinny, and have my faith in Hollywood, screenwriters, actors and directors restored.

(Expert witness testimony should not make for a humorous scene. My Cousin Vinny, though, takes it from start to finish and milks it for every bit of drama and comedy. I love Fred Gwynne’s face here, too, because he’s simply so blown away by the quality of Vinny’s examination and the testimony.)

My Cousin Vinny, other than being an amazing comedy, is just that accurate as to what criminal trial practice actually looks like. And lawyers universally agree, if you want to see a good depiction of what litigators do for a living, it really is the best game in town.

Yes, it greatly compresses the time scale of events from arrest to trial: felonies, let alone murder charges, often take a year, if not far longer, to go to trial, but that’s pretty much the only inaccuracy in the film.

(Vinny Gambini, multiple bar failures or not, would be one Hell of a criminal defense attorney in real life.)

The crazy thing, of course, is that trial practice is quite dry and boring. Testimony by expert witnesses, effective objections, and conducting competent direct and cross examination, and impugning eyewitness testimony, all of which this film is stunningly good at accurately presenting are not all that fun to watch, or dramatic, in the best of circumstances. The writer, director and actors here, though, make it a joy to watch, going through all the correct motions with grace, wit and drama.

It really is amazingly good.

08/06/2025

"What's Wrong With This Picture?" was a great game from childhood to pass the time...I don't know if it's even a thing anymore. But we could play that game today with the scam text messages that come in from time to time. The reason I don't is that I could be educating scammers on how they need to improve their messages to trick more innocents. All that said, the Alabama Department of Transportation is not sending you a text message and if they did it wouldn't come from the Philippines. What's wrong with the text otherwise? At least 8 things, but some of them you might not immediately recognize. It's best to just remember to use caution when interacting with anyone online or on your phone.

05/31/2025

It has been an eventful week and a half for Covington County and the judiciary in the State of Alabama. It is awfully important at a time like this to express gratitude for the work Ben Bowden has done in Covington County. Please recall that Judge Bowden stepped in as Probate Judge at a difficult time, performed admirably, and then became the Circuit Judge and along with Judge Short and others helped lead the local legal system through the unprecedented challenges of the COVID environment. Nice work, Judge. Now onward.

05/25/2025

https://www.al.com/news/2025/05/culture-of-secrecy-how-alabamas-public-records-law-fails-transparency-with-10-compliance-rate.html

State lawmakers may revisit open records law next spring as one expert criticizes 2024 legislation for making transparency problems worse.