Calm Down — Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World. “So don’t even worry about it.”
Canada: Toronto man shoots and kills two who he believed were scammers that took him for $1 million
NYT: IRS suspends payments from Covid employment retention tax credits; 90% of claims may be fraudulent
Clerk at Chevron station saves 84 year old woman who was feeding money into a bitcoin ATM; victim thought she was talking to bank security person; had been close to sending $40,000
Brooklyn: Four Nigerians charged for BEC and romance fraud and money laundering; handled $50 million; one to be extradited from France
Why does Facebook permit a 70,000 member group that even calls itself Fraud University, and that teaches fraud, continue?
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 fraud and crypto scams
Fraud News Around the world
- India arrests 8 at call center offering overseas jobs and just taking money from victims
- New Jersey: Two arrested for phone scam where they pretended to be government agents assessing a fine; apparently arrested when they went to pick up money
- Singapore: In two week operation police investigate 309 scammers and money mules involved in internet fraud
- Ghana arrests 11 Nigerians for internet fraud
- Oregon: Man from China gets six months prison for selling counterfeit N95 masks during the pandemic that he got from China; bought $2.5 million worth of them
- FBI’s IC3 warns of increase in rare coin frauds; ask victims to send them in for appraisal; pay less than promised or scammers steal them
- Man caught on video buying face mask before we went across the street to rob a bank
- Dumbest criminals in movie history
- FTC report shows it returned $324 million to consumers last year
- FTC resolves massive prize/sweepstakes scam ; defendants sent mass mailings telling people they had won and needed to send in small sums to claim winning; no one had; took in millions
- Boston: Man indicted for unemployment scam; was living in Brazil when he applied and thus not eligible
- St. Louis: Man from Slovakia pleads guilty to PPP fraud; got $730,000
- Baltimore: Man gets seven years prison for PPP fraud; got $18 million
- UK considers actions again Russia over attack on National Health Service
- Attack closes 60 US credit unions
- Closes Oregon school district
- Russian ransomware gang claims it attacked the US Federal Reserve
- Hits Indonesia’s National Data Center
- Scammers are increasingly trying to use fake coins at bitcoin exchanges
- Virginia: Man pleads guilty to crypto investment scam
- Hackers take over accounts of rapper 50 cents; use his account for $300 million rug pull scam
- FBI’s IC3 warns fake law firms are advertising to crypto fraud victims that they can recover lost money from crypto – but don’t
- Illinois: Dixon police charge man (Romanian?) with ATM skimming
- Texas: Police arrest three (Romanians?) for skimming
Romance Fraud and Sextortion