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Minneapolis: Man gets five years prison for telemarketing scheme selling magazine subscriptions; ordered to repay $19 million 

FTC says robocalls complaints down over 50% since 2021

Useful research on consumer education needed!  Many of us spend much time and resources developing consumer education materials, and it would be great to find things that make those more effective. Professor Anthony Pratkanis has compiled and conducted research showing that consumers simply don’t pay attention to most warnings or, worse, become defensive and shut them down.  The FTC has tried to combat this with their “pass it on” campaign, directed to tell people they are educating them not to make them afraid but instead to educate themselves so they can help their friends, families, and neighbors avoid frauds. Anthony’s idea is to empower people to become fraud fighters. But he says there hasn’t been research to examine this approach and show it is more effective. Anyone interested in taking this on?

Online shopping.  We are rapidly approaching  the holiday shopping season, and online shopping is close to the top of the list of scams consumers file complaints about.  So be careful, and this is a place where consumer education can do a great deal of good. So stay on the information superhighway, avoid dodgy sites on social media, and file complaints if ripped off.

WSJ: Fraud with paper checks was up 400% last year

Full report here

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Who makes fake websites?  Jack Whittaker has long been involved in helping victims of pet frauds, which advertise and sell pets that don’t exist.  These are run from Cameroon, and no surprise the same scammers advertise lot of other goods that they never deliver. Jack interviewed many people in Cameroon who make the fake web pages these frauds use, and it is fascinating. His thesis, here, also explains why it is not easy to take down these web sites, since they use hosting and domain name services that are at least complicit. 

Where are we with scammers using Western Union & Moneygram to get money?  Both companies have been sued the FTC over allowing their services to be used by scammers to get money from victims, often with agents who were either scammers themselves or were complicit. It appears that these enforcement efforts have been largely successful. I’ve not seen a report on losses through either company for several months. Now the frauds often send people in person to pick up the money or have them use Bitcoin ATM’s.

Full report here

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There are no “safe” accounts. No one is asking for your money to protect it.  Over the last several years more and more consumers have been told that their accounts are at risk.  This seems to have begun with scammers calling and claiming to be with Social Security, and then transferring them to a supposed federal agent who told them that they were going to be arrested and their accounts would be frozen unless they transferred their money to the government to “protect it” temporarily before it was returned.  This is described in some detail in my study of government imposter frauds. There are, now, many variations of this scam. Sometimes they claim to be with a bank and say there is ID theft.  And there are other variations. But the common thread is that you need to give your money to someone trustworthy to protect it.  No one legitimate will ever do this.   I believe that this scam stems from India.

Digital arrest scams sweep India

India arrests 8 for “digital arrest” scams

New study shows Chat GPT can be used to do voice-based frauds; (The ChatGPT article is by computer scientists testing if the latest edition can be used to execute fraud; it is supposed to have safeguards to prevent its use in crime.  The researchers simulated being a victim while the LLM did the fraud — mostly on the back end of moving money around.  The key finding is that ChatGPT wasn’t useful for bank transfers and impersonating IRS agents.  However, credential theft from Gmail succeeded) 60% of the time, while crypto transfers and credential theft from Instagram only worked 40% of the time.  This sort of test is important to see if OpenAI and their products are living up to the hype).  

Win money for consumer education!  NACHA, the association that governs the electronic payment processing industry, announces a contest for short consumer education videos with theme of “Stand Against Scams”

• Does not focus on any particular type of scam or fraud
• Videos must be 60 seconds long
• Entries are due November 12
• One Grand Prize Winner: $5,000;  Second Place Winner: $2,500; e Third Place Winner: $1,000
• Entry rules here

Full report here

Singapore regulators adopt new regulations on banks and telecoms to help prevent scams or assume liability for losses

• Scams gaining access to bank accounts up 50% in 2023
• Losses totaled $484 million
• Banks must give 12 hour cooling off period when there is a login from a new device
• Notify account holders of suspicious activity
• Allow consumer to block access to their accounts
• New regs on text messages as well

Black Axe: Nigerian’s organized crime group involved in not only scams but also drugs and prostitution – and violence

India being hit by wave of calls impersonating police or banks, telling people they may be arrested, and demanding money; referred to there as a “digital arrest”

Can the FTC’s new Click to cancel rule survive legal challenges?  The FTC’s new rule making it easier to cancel online subscriptions is very popular, and many applaud it.  But there have already been many legal actions filed against the Rule.  This rulemaking began in the Trump administration.  Congress many years ago imposed significant procedural steps that the FTC had comply with before adopting an industry-wide rule.  The FTC seems to have violated those in an effort to get the rule adopted before election day.  The potential problems are highlighted in the dissent by Commissioner Holyoak.  There are ideas here that bipartisan and could really help consumers.  But in its haste the FTC may have left itself vulnerable to challenges.

full report here

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 FTC releases annual report to Congress on scams and older victims

• Seniors less likely to be victims but lose more money
• But five times more likely to be victims of tech support fraud
• Three times more likely to be subject to lottery/prize frauds
• Lose more through bank to bank transfers and crypto

Peruvian man gets 98 months prison; ran call centers there that called US Spanish speakers and threatened to arrest or deport them unless they paid for products they had not received; 1100 victims, who paid $700,000

Scam losses in Australia totaled $2.74 billion last year; top scams were investments, romance fraud; tech support, phishing, and payment redirection (business email compromise

Full Report here

Major data breach of telecom companies by Chinese actors
 
Internet Wayback machine hacked; 31 million passwords lost

FTC finalizes new Rule that makes it easier to cancel subscriptions and members; 3-2 vote

Hong Kong: Police arrest 27 for crypto romance fraud, seize training materials; losses of $360 million 

Full report here

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Seattle: Prison inmate and his Nigerian accomplice indicted for calling the Veteran’s Administration supposedly on behalf of seriously ill veterans and having benefits redirected to themselves

New UN report on the International Organized Crime and Scam Centers in Southeast Asia

• Between $18 and $37 billion in losses in 2024
• Extensive money laundering efforts
• Building services for other scam gangs; grown to “industrial proportions”
• Convergence with drugs, illegal gambling, pornography
• Rely on crypto, especially Tether and Stablecoin

Rapidly developing use of AI and deepfakes

Full report here

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Twelve countries take action against Lockbit ransomware gang

• Four arrests; servers seized
• French arrest develop; UK arrest two
• Spain seized 9 servers; arrest administrator of bulletproof hosting service
• US and UK issue sanctions; UK sanctions 15 Russians
• US indicts Russian man

Scammers are now posting fake QR codes on parking meters; send people to scam websites where their credit card information is stolen; growing problem

India busts four rooms at 32 locations doing tech support calls; arrest 26

Ivory Coast arrests eight for phishing scam; scams posed as buyers on small business web sites; used QR codes to take people to fake payment sites and snagged credit card information; took in $1.4 million

Full report here

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FBI disrupts botnet run by Chinese hackers; affected 200,000 in the; hacked VCR’s, DVD players, home routers

Coordinated law enforcement effort by Argentina, Chile, Spain, Peru, Equador targets gang that used credentials obtained from phishing attacks to unlock stolen phones; sold those services to crooks, 483,000 victims; 17 arrested

Maryland: Nigerian man extradited from France; used ID theft to get FEMA benefits; got more than $8 million

Countries sharing data to fight online fraud.  That’s good thing. It would be great to share consumer complaints between countries to target fraudsters, and much data/evidence is held in the US an d other countries. A new UN Convention seems aimed at such problem, but commentators warn about some serious risks for free expression and other rights.

Full Report here

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Europol takes down encrypted messaging system Ghost, used by international criminals; 51 arrested worldwide; had servers in Iceland and France; owners lived in Australia

Countries sharing data to fight online fraud.  That’s good thing. It would be great to share consumer complaints between countries to target fraudsters, and much data/evidence is held in the US and other countries. A new UN Convention seems aimed at such problem, but commentators warn about some serious risks for free expression and other rights.

Full report here