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.
February 20, 2020
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Canadian Antifraud Centre releases complaint data for 2019
February
13, 2020
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reports or pass along to a friend or colleague
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The FTC saw a big spike in romance fraud complaints in 2019
Romance scam losses of $201 million reported to the FTC
in 2019; up 40% from 2018
FBI releases 2019 report for Internet Crime Complaint
Center
A few trends from the FTC’s 2019 complaint data
US indicts four members of Chinese military over hacking Equifax credit report information
New scam exploding in the UK: Those selling on eBay are getting emails supposedly from eBay saying that a payment has been made; sellers then ship; 3000 complaints in the last three months; over £1 million lost so far
Texas: Nigerian gets more than eleven years prison for laundering BEC money; four others also sentenced
Southern District of Illinois: Two executives at Florida tech support scam get eleven years and nine years prison
Baker Fraud Report – News you can use
February 6, 2020
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FTC releases 2019 Sentinel Data on fraud and identity theft
Do you need some consulting work or an expert witness? Let me know and let’s chat.
Baker Fraud Report – News you can use
January 30, 2020
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FTC announces top scams reported to them in 2019
Atlanta, Georgia: Eight sentenced to prison for roles in India-based IRS and payday loan collection fraudPolice in Indonesia arrest three; infected e-commerce sites worldwide with malicious code to steal credit card numbers entered on them
Baker Fraud Report – News you can use
January 23, 2020
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American Bankers study shows attacks on bank accounts are growing
Do you need some consulting work or an expert witness? Let me know and let’s chat.
Tip of the week. Let’s use Valentine’s Day to warn about romance fraud. Feel free to use or share the BBB studies I’ve done on romance fraud and on romance fraud victims being used as money mules. This area is one of the largest losses that the FBI and FTC see. And there is a serious suicide risk for victims.
https://mailchi.mp/03fc4bafb40e/baker-fraud-report-1313049?e=115aca7ac6
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Houston, Texas: Man from Ahmedabad, India pleads guilty to operating and funding fraud call centers in India
Spain arrests 40 for online extortion
Agari releases new report on Ancient Turtle BEC fraud
https://mailchi.mp/699baee2abf7/baker-fraud-report-1309621?e=115aca7ac6
Pindrop releases 2017 report on fraudulent calls to customer service centers
The rauds are not only calling us directly, they are calling our banks and credit card companies trying to get more information in order to steal our money and benefits. A new report provides some startling insights into how widespread this fraud is and how successful it can be.
There are call centers who handle customer service calls for banks, credit card companies, major retailers, and a variety of other entities. We can call one and change our address or password, pay bills, and even withdraw money. The report says that call centers are the “weakest links in online security. 61% of fraud losses from account takeovers involve the call center.” Pindrop estimates that losses from calls to call centers were $14 Billion last year.
How does the call center know it is really talking to the right person? Obviously they require a variety of personal information to authenticate that we are who we say we are. But as a result of data breaches and underground traffic in personal information enterprising crooks may be able to convince the call center that it is dealing with its real customer. For example, a caller pretending to be you may claim they have lost their credit card and ask that a replacement be sent to a new address controlled by the fraud. And of course if they get access to your bank account they can just steal the money.
Organized crime has people around the world that can spend their days on the phone with call centers. The frauds can spoof caller ID’s, use cheap mobile phones, Skype, or Google Voice to place the call, and use voice distortion software – all to hide their actual location. Pindrop’s technology allows it to determine the actual location of the caller and thus whether the caller is a real customer.
Pindrop reports that fraud on call centers increased 113% between 2015 and 2016, and that fraudulent calls doubled in volume during that time, from one in every 2000 calls to one in every 937. For US call centers 83% of such calls are coming from outside the United States.
Credit card issuers are one of the most frequent targets of this fraud, with 1 out of every 800 calls received coming from a fraud. Banks have fraudulent calls coming at the rate of 1 in every 867 calls. Insurance companies are also frequent targets, as are retailers. Frauds often try to obtain access to loyalty cards or points (think frequent flyers or hotel points) that can be turned into money.
The highest fraud rate for a single industry was for device insurance, the policies people have for lost or stolen phones. Fraudulent calls were 1 of every 194 last year, a 55% increase.
Have you received an email that looks like it came from someone you know, but it only had a hyperlink. What is that all about?
The FTC’s Chicago office has brought two cases against the people that use these spam emails to sell bogus diet pills.
Several years ago crooks hacked the Yahoo email accounts of a massive number of people, also obtaining the email contacts in these hacked accounts. Thus if they had hacked the account of Bob Heinlein, all of his contacts would receive an email containing a hyperlink, perhaps with a subject line such as “Hi, have you seen this?”
Those who click on the links are taken to web pages that look like articles by real consumer reporters, who claim that they tried diet pills and were “astonished” at how well they work. These fake news pages also claim that celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey use the pills, and contain fake testimonials from supposed users. The fake news pages have a hyperlink to one of the web sites where victims can order the Defendant’s worthless diet pills.
The FTC says that the Defendants in the Fowler case made at least $1.3 million from their efforts, and in Sale Slash at least $43.4 million.
