All societies are both the creators of their myths and are created by them. All artists are the makers and remakers of our myths of meaning — myths we co-create whenever we engage with art. The best of them transmigrate across societies and epochs, naming what is difficult to name and difficult to bear, touching other lives — often lives wildly different from the artist’s — with that luminous longing for elemental truth that is the creative impulse in its purest form, the fundament of our shared humanity.
Top Stories
Hundreds of millions lost at FTX result of hacking, unauthorized trading, or both? I wonder if scammers lost money to FTX?UK House of Lords issues report on consumer fraud; recommend a cabinet ministry, more police attention to the issue
New links!
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, and crypto scams
Fraud News Around the world
- Israel: Hotels not only post fake bad reviews about competitors, they also post fake positive reviews on their own sites
- Online trolls disrupt Global Anti-scam summit in the Netherlands
- Amazon helps Chinese police take down three counterfeiting operations
- Ireland arrests three operating as money mules for scammers
- Three largest ISP’s in Australia pay $33.5 in fines for deceptive claims about connection speed
- St. Louis: Court shuts down 18 domain names used to recruit money mules for reshipping scams
- Singapore: Police investigating 537 scammers for fraud and acting as money mules
- How UK engineer Jim Browning tracks down fraud boiler rooms in India
- UN official warns countries in SE Asia to work together to fight large scam gangs operating there
- Adobe Flash is dead; now being used by scammers
- Nigeria: 19 year old gets a year in prison for internet fraud
- New York: Two indicted over company, previously sued by the FTC, that used deception to enroll victims into credit monitoring service; 169,000 people lost $6.8 million
- UK: Ghana woman, musician and socialite, arrested for $8 million in fraud; money mule?
- India interview with man who was prisoner in Cambodia at scam call center
- Man who lost everything in crypto wishes several hundred more people had warned him
- Man arrested for DUI was on meth, had owl inside his car that he had bought at a gas station
- Security camera captures two men stealing an ATM machine from a hotel dressed as maintenance workers
- FTC sending $9.8 million in refunds to victims of DC auto dealership over deceptive acts and discrimination
- Analysis of the FTC’s rulemaking that would eliminate “junk fees”
- FTC resolves case against operation that company that made deceptive claims about crypto investments, investing in Amazon business; and business coaching; used fake reviews and manipulated bad ones; to pay $2.6 million
- New Jersey: Man from India charged with $8 million PPP fraud
- North Carolina: Man pleads guilty to PPP fraud as well as laundering funds from other PPP scams; got $4 million
- New Jersey: Man pleads guilty to theft of unemployment benefits; got $400,000
- Texas: Woman charged with PPP fraud; got $1.2 million
- Los Angeles: Man pleads guilty to theft of unemployment benefits using inmate’s identities; also drug charges; got $5.5 million
- Colorado: Man pleads guilty to PPP, EIDL, and phony unemployment benefit claims; got more than $550,000
- Minneapolis: Woman pleads guilty to PPP fraud; other fraud as well; got $300,000 from PPP
- South Africa warns of rise in gift giving scam on Facebook; must pay fee to have “gift” delivered
- North Carolina AG warns about fake twitter accounts
- Russian Lockbit ransomware operator arrested in Toronto in Europol effort; will face charges in the US
- Hits Canadian retail grocery/pharmacy chain Sobey’s
- Attack on Dallas property appraisal agency
- Takes out thirty county government offices across Arkansas
- Hits popular auto racing circuit in the UK
- Shuts down two school systems in Mississippi
- Shuts down schools in two Michigan counties
- FTX crypto exchange files for bankruptcy
- Bahamas, where exchange FTX is located, freezes its assets over financial concerns
- FTC warns of scams offering to get your crypto back -- for a fee