New study on online sextortion
- This involves blackmail and money demands, unlike other conduct often referred to as sextortion
- Victims most often meet on Facebook, perform sex acts before a camera, and then demand money or threaten to release video
- Data drawn from Scamsurvivors.com site
- Victims most often males in their 20’s
- Most often originate from the Philippines, then Ivory Coast and Mali
Credit repair firms drive big increase in synthetic identity theft, provide consumers with fake social security numbers to challenge credit reports or get a new credit identity; losses of $20 billion
Payment App Zelle is now giving refunds to victims of imposter scamsProvides online form here to apply for refunds
Bob Sullivan podcast interview for AARP with a man who was kidnapped and forced to scam – and escaped
Minnesota: Jury finds three guilty in massive telemarketing fraud selling magazines; got $300 million
Say Yes Scams. We’ve heard various concerns about phone scams that ask you to “say yes” or “can you hear me now. There are a variety of theories about what scammers do with that information. But one consumer group has looked hard for evidence that this tactic is actually used in scams – and has found none. My own suspicion, only that, it that the computers used to make robocalls use this tactic to confirm that a real person it out there, and it not a fax or answering machine.
Need an expert witness for consumer protection or fraud issues? Let me know.
Fraud Studies: Here are links to the studies I’ve written for the Better Business Bureau: puppy fraud, romance fraud; BEC fraud, sweepstakes/lottery fraud, tech support fraud, romance fraud money mules, crooked movers, government imposters, online vehicle sale scams, rental fraud,gift cards, free trial offer frauds, job scams, online shopping fraud,fake check fraud and crypto scams
Fraud News Around the world
- Florida: Couple arrested for sales of counterfeit goods; had $400,000 in goods
- India seizes millions from operation that laundered money for tech support, loan, and other scams aimed at the US, UK and Australia
- Apple settles class action charging it over gift card fraud for $1.8 million
- Big recent increase in scam that steals money from online bank accounts by texting victim impersonating bank, telling victim they will then call them, claim problem with account and need to move money to different account
- Scammers sending texts using QR codes was up 50% in September
- London: Three sentenced for selling counterfeit underwear on eBay; made £394,000
- Oklahoma: Ten indicted for fraud in claiming refunds from online marketers; did this themselves and also got customers to make purchases and share information with them
- Interpol report looks at increase in money laundering by “cyber-related fraud”
- Large scale scam operations advertise guns and ammo online, take payment, but never deliver; website stopgunscams.com takes complaints and reports on scam sites
Humor
- Alaska man caught counting cash outside bank after he robbed it is caught again trying to rob the same bank
- Nebraska man arrested for drunk driving after calling 911 reporting car going wrong direction – and it was him
FTC and CFPB
- Federal court stays CFPB subpoena until the Supreme Court rules on agency’s constitutionality
- CFPB sends refunds to victims of student loan debt relief fraud; to get $240,000
- CFPB fines online lender Enova $15 million for withdrawing money without permission, violating earlier order
- FTC settles with company that provides phone services of prisons and jails; promised great data security and did not have it; must notify users of breach
Virus Benefit Theft
- Kansas City: Former bank manager pleads guilty to aiding $12 million PPP fraud
- Palm Beach: State arrests three for PPP fraud; got $12 million
- Miami: Three charged in conspiracy over PPP fraud; got $14.5 million
- Virginia: Gang member who was in prison organized unemployment benefit fraud effort that got $210,000; sentenced to 68 months prison
- Kansas City: Man indicted for PPP fraud; got $900,000
Social media
Kidnapping and forced to scam
- BBC: Armed insurgents in area of Myanmar that contain scam call centers try to topple military rulers of the country
- Chinese government issues arrest warrants for crime family involved in scam call centers in Myanmar
- South Korea says 19 have been rescued from Southeast Asia Call Center
Business Email compromise fraud
IRS and tax fraud
- Texas: Man gets 30 months prison for stolen identity refund fraud
- Nashville: Three indicted for stolen identity refund fraud; got $1.5 million
Ransomware
- Hits Toronto public library
- Attack on ICBC, China’s biggest bank
- Hits fundraising arm of group of five hospitals in the UK
- FBI says Ransomware gang has hit 350 organizations and demanded $275 million in ransom in the last year
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency
- Lloyd’s bank warns crypto scams up 24% in the UK, and mainly affect younger people
- New York: Former One Coin executive pleads guilty to fraud in multilevel marketing crypto fraud operation run from Bulgaria
- Binance freezes $12.5 million stolen from its executives after they were kidnapped
- India arrests three Nigerians for crypto mining investment fraud
- Brooklyn: Develop of nonfungible token (NFT) pleads guilty to rug pull, fake international investment; to return $1.5 million
- Scammers are now sending messages on Twitter supposedly from security at crypto operations saying funds are at risk and must be moved — to sites owned by scammers
Jamaica and Lottery Fraud
Romance Fraud and Sextortion
- South Africa: Man arrested for romance fraud; pretended to be airline pilot
- Canada: Peel police arrest man for romance fraud; had claimed to be working on an oil rig; got $250,000 in crypto from victim
- Nigeria: Man gets one year prison for crypto invesment/romance fraud against American woman
Just for fun: Highwaymen, by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristoffeson and Willie Nelson
