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FTC releases 2022 data on fraud and ID theft- Total losses reported of $8.8 billion; up 40% from 2021
- Total complaints were down somewhat
- Investment fraud was largest, and more than double 2021
- Those aged 20-29 reported more losses than those 70+
- Top payment method was bank transfers; crypto second
- Losses to business imposters tripled
- 22% of the time first contact was by text
- Breaks both ID theft and fraud state by state
- Down: grants, ID theft, internet service, online shopping, travel
- Up: Sweepstakes/lotteries; advance fees for credit/loans; payday loans; student loans; job scams; pyramids; romance scams
Need an expert witness for consumer protection or fraud issues? Let me know.
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
- Hackers using fake ChatGPT sites, especially on social media, to get victims to install malware
- Ontario Provincial Police arrest two from Quebec for grandparent fraud
- UK shuts down huge counterfeit ring with £65 million per year; traced back to one trader
- New York: Nigerian man gets five years prison for ordering goods such as medical equipment from businesses and pretending to be with US government
- UK arrests six people for selling nonexistent vehicles online
- Online internet safety quiz: How hackable are you?
- Australia’s ACCC shuts down 5579 scam websites in three week period; many used for crypto romance frauds
- WSJ: Scammers are watching/'filming people as they log into iPhones and then stealing the phone and getting access to online accounts and passwords
- Florida man finds crook had stolen the title to his home; crook arrested, and had stolen five more homes
- Washington State: Jury convicts woman who acted as money mule for Nigerian scammers
- 31,000 fake customer service numbers found online; 88% of those found on social media
- Fraud in the UK is 40% of all crime but only gets 2% of the funding, says Which?
- Those 65+ lose £1 million every day to scams in the UK
- TD bank to pay $1.3 billion for role in Ponzi scheme
- FinCEN and Postal inspection service warn of increase in fake check scams; up 22% since 2020
- Rhode Island: Three men each get more than 30 months prison for grandparent fraud
- Postal Service announces big increase in counterfeit postage, notes that this is a crime, and considers just treating materials with fake stamps as abandoned mail and not delivering it
- CFPB succeeds in getting court to award $10 million against TitleMax over high interest car title loans
- FTC and CFPB seek comments on the use of background checks and credit reports to screen applications from renters
- Judge in CFPB case against CashCall over tribal credit offers orders $167 in restitution and penalties
- CFPB bans mortgage lender RMK Financial from lending after it violates earlier order; alleges preyed on military families; $1 million fine
- OpEd: The FTC is out of control under Lina Khan
- Los Angeles: Woman who hds been sentenced to prison for $20 million PPP fraud, and then fled, is extradited from Montenegro
- West Virginia: Man pleads guilty to PPP fraud; got $16,000
- Maine: Man charged with PPP fraud; got $150,000
- Seattle: Two Nigerian men living in Toronto indicted for theft of unemployment benefits; used ID theft; got $2.4 million
- Kansas City: Woman gets 4.5 years prison for identity theft to steal food stamp benefits in four states
- Rhode Island: Man gets three years prison for stealing identities to get unemployment benefits; got $152,000
- Florida: Previously convicted felon gets more than seven years prison for PPP/EIDL fraud; got $2,6 million
- Colorado: Man indicted for PPP fraud; got $913,000
- Boston: Man pleads guilty to ID theft to obtain Covid unemployment and food stamp benefits
- DC: Woman (Nigerian?) gets 32 months prison for ID theft to get Veterans and social security benefits; got $400,000
- North Dakota: Nigerian man extradited from the UK gets 30 months prison for apparent BEC scam
- Brooklyn: Nigerian man pleads guilty to BEC scams and also using bank account takeovers to get home loans; got $5 million
- Outage at Dish Network, which lasted several days, believed to have been caused by ransomware attack
- How the police in Peel, Ontario, took down a ransomware group
- Attack on city of Lakewood, Washington
- Cripples Dole production operations
- Amsterdam: Dutch police arrest three men for ransomware fraud; got €2.5 million
- Steals employee data after Inigo Books, largest seller in Canada, gets hit
- FBI’s IC3 says healthcare most common target on ransomware aimed at infrastructure
- Nebraska: Man pleads guilty to $55 million scam that claimed investments in crypto
- California launches a crypto scam tracker site
- FTX cofounder Singh pleads guilty
- Singapore: Woman who acted as money mule gets 15 months prison; met Nigerian romance scammer and had a child with him; he got five years prison
- Crypto romance frauds run by Chinese organized crime, says FBI (but are the Chinese actually Nigerians living there?)
- BBC: UK woman learns that thousands of scam victims have been lured in using her photos
- New book on the history of Ponzi schemes
- Ohio: Last of seven defendants gets 18 months prison for laundering money from romance scam victims: got $11.8 million; money went to Ghana, China
- Los Angeles: Nigerian man gets more than 11 years prison for laundering money for BEC, romance, and other scams; got $25 million