Media Dragon: 14 indicted for international scam that debited bank accounts for millions; claimed charges were for things like cloud-computing

Opinion | Poynter Report special edition: The Pulitzer Prizes A big day for journalism turns into a huge celebration of local news. Plus, well-deserved awards for coverage of the war in Ukraine.

When John Archibald started looking into a tip about local policing, he had no idea it would eventually lead to him sharing a Pulitzer with his son.

The AL.com columnist had just returned from a journalism fellowship and was questioning the worth of opinion pieces. All he wanted to do was write straight news. The opportunity to do that came when someone suggested he look into Brookside, a tiny town just north of Birmingham, Alabama. Archibald started digging and found that half the town’s revenue came from fines and forfeitures.

Among this year’s Pulitzer winners, a father and son from Alabama

UK approves major anti-fraud push; allocates £400 million; 400 new investigators; new fraud center

Los Angeles: 14 indicted for international scam that debited bank accounts for millions; claimed charges were for things like cloud-computing

Myth #3: Fraud victims are primarily older people. By Anthony Pratkanis. A 2022 report by the FTC using its Consumer Sentinel data, the most comprehensive US database for reported fraud, finds just the opposite: younger people (below the age of 60) are more likely than older adults to be victims of a fraud crime. Similar results have been obtained for over two decades in both the US and the UK.

With a nest egg of a lifetime of savings, older people do lose more money overall to fraud than younger people. And sadly, they are also targeted when they experience cognitive decline. Younger people tend to be targeted for their labor (fake job offerings; work at home schemes; multi-level marketing), in their life circumstances (romance fraud), and on social media (online shopping fraud). However, when they have savings, younger people can quickly find themselves targets for bigger losses, especially in investment fraud. A 2021 FTC study found that younger investors in cryptocurrency were over five times more likely to report losing money to cryptocurrency investment fraud than older consumers.

One problem with thinking that fraud only occurs against older victims is that it may encourage younger people to believe that it can't happen to them, and, thus, they need not pay attention to consumer education on fraud and that they can easily detect fraud (because they believe that only those who are slipping mentally are victims).

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 fraudand crypto scams

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