Addressing consumer fraud around the world. The Baker Fraud Report focuses on mass marketing fraud – where victims never meet the fraudster in person but communicate over the phone, though the mail, or on the internet.
Crypto romance ALERT. We really need to increase education on this one. I think it is now the most common fraud in the world. Losses to this fraud last year were more than those from all frauds together just four or five years ago. IC3 reported $4 billion lost to romance fraud; it had total losses for all frauds of $3.5 billion in 2019.
Study looks at worldwide statistics on complaint data and types of romance fraud
Review and recommendation: I watched Judgment at Nuremburg again last night. This 1961 classic involves the trial of Nazi judges for their action supporting the Third Reich. It has a fantastic cast, headed by the great Spencer Tracy. The film reminds us that it is important for good people to stand up against the currents of popular opinion. Hitler did not just appear from nowhere, he built on intellectual currents and ideas developed in the universities.
Full report here
Top Stories
FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center releases data for 2023
Australia’s scam call center issues quarterly report
Investment fraud (crypto romance) drops 38%
Joseph Epstein in the WSJ: All scam callers get from me is a little taste of Gershwin
Chainalysis issues 2024 crypto crime report
FTC warns never to move your money to another account to “save it,” this is always a scam
BBB issues annual scam tracker risk report
Tip of the week: We know that scammers pay to post sponsored links at the top of search results. So when the public uses Google to look for the phone numbers of social media, tech companies, and many other organizations they find numbers posted by scammers and end up calling them. So let’s all do a search for our own organization to be sure scammers aren’t using our names.
House Judiciary Committee releases report detailing abuse of power at the FTC; assert culture of fear; abuse of power
Is this happening in the US as well? New text message scam seeking personal information claims to be Medicare Australia and threatens to suspend benefits: complaints spike to 1500
Top Stories
FTC releases fraud data for 2023
FinCEN sends alert to financial institutions warning of crypto romance “pig butchering” frauds
Huge amount of romance fraud enforcement this week. As you can see below, a huge amount of great work has been done recently. Why? Possibly it will promote education efforts around Valentine’s Day. But whatever the reason, these are welcome efforts.
Robocall deepfake of Joe Biden urges New Hampshire public not to vote in the Republican primary
National Consumers’s League: Ten Resolutions on Fraud for this year
Technology used by scammers. We all know that they can Spoof caller IDs, make fake web pages and passports, fake videos, and use ChatGPT and AI to aid their scams. Here is a 30 minute presentation by Wayne May from Scamsurvivors explaining where scammers get these tools and how they use them.
New Facebook scam claims people can buy unclaimed bags from O’Hare for $10 And this is happening now all over the world.
