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.
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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.
FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center issues new report on crypto fraud
FINcen releases in depth report on check fraud due to mail theft
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How many fraud victims report to the law enforcement or the BBB? The FTC actually looked at this in a nationwide fraud survey, and found that less than 5% of them ever do. Many are embarrassed, or don’t know where to report. Victims are more likely to report some fraud than others. Some don’t even realize that they have been defrauded. But this is important, since many of us received complaints and suspect, correctly, that these are just the top of the iceberg.
Review and Recommendation: Civilization, by Niall Ferguson. I’ve previously recommended his book Empire, on how the British Empire developed. In this one he expands on the subject of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel to ask why after 1500 the other emerging empires in China, the mideast, and elsewhere didn’t emerge to change the world like Europe did. Very good, and I highly recommend it.
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There are no “Safe” Accounts: A wide variety of scams, particularly those that impersonate law enforcement and banks, are claiming that your money is at risk of being stolen by bad actors or seized by a government and that you need to transfer your money to an account where it will be protected. There is no such thing! Please warn people that anyone that wants you to turn over your money is a CROOK.
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Gold – A new Trend. I am seeing more and more scammers who are asking victims to pay with gold. And it appears that this tactic is being headed by scammers from India. This is a huge red flag of fraud (no legitimate operation will ask for funds this way) and of course this makes it harder to follow the money.
Fraud Trend to note: It is becoming clear that groups from China are handling the money collection for scammers from India. I’ve seen this in a number of recent cases, but it has not been commented or reported on so far. Sometimes it involves gift cards; at other times it does not. Let me know if you have seen or know more about this.
Crypto fraud coming from Nigeria is up 1000%; deepfake fraud coming from China up 964%
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Massive data breach: hackers get all data on almost all AT&T customers
Chainalysis releases in depth study of money laundering through crypto for fraud and other crimes
Text message scams are exploding; 60 billion in June alone; that’s 60 per person in the US
US Treasury releases money laundering risk assessment
