White House issues Executive order to combat transnational internet fraud
Ohio: Court affirms $83 million judgment in case by Ohio AG against man responsible for billions of robocallsAustralia wins court case against eHarmony dating platform over deceptive subscription practices
Interpol operation targets Black Axe financial networks; 58 arrested, 39 in South Africa
FinCEN warns of “ghost students” who sign up for college using ID theft and then collect federal loan money, never really attend; $120 billion goes through this system each year
Hackers hit more than 100 municipal water systems in the US
What are “brushing” scams? The FTC just put out a new consumer ed piece on these. These all seem to involve people receiving small packages of items they didn’t order and are not asked to pay for. So why would anyone send these? One theory is that they use the name of the recipient to file a fake review online. Another is that they have a QR code that, if you click, can lead to opening harmful malware programs. I’ve also heard they may contain seeds for harmful plants. Or is it something else? I’d love to hear from any of you who know, or might have another theory.
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
- Analysis of plans for new DOJ fraud division
- Buffalo: Man from India arrested at Toronto Airport and charged with acting as a money mule for government impersonation frauds where group collected cash and gold from victims
- Dallas: Man arrested for using fake ID’s to deposit $15 million in stolen Treasury checks
- Arkansas: Couple from India get five year suspended sentence for PayPal refund fraud
- Buffalo: Man who called to collect nonexistent debt and claimed to be Sherriff’s deputy gets five years probation; got $421,000
- India searches eight locations seeking funds from a tech support operation aimed at the US
- Scams are now sending emails pretending to be from MyChart medical communication tool
- Meta settles social media addiction case; pays $18 billion
- Nigeria busts call centers and makes arrests for romance, BEC, and other frauds
- New study finds nearly 70% of rental offerings in TikTok raise red flags for fraud
- Crooks break into El Paso car dealership but can’t start cars, flee on foot
- Australian man charged for using an air rifle to insist on carnival prize for his daughter
- Alabama: Woman pleads guilty to PPP fraud; got $2.3 million
- Phoenix: Man gets 15 months prison for PPP fraud; got $1 million
- Maryland: Nigerian man pleads guilty to ID theft to get unemployment benefits; got $415,000
- Dallas: Two indicted for PPP fraud where they got $11 million
- New York: Civil case filed against a network of companies for PPP fraud where they got $113 million
- Idaho: Unnamed man gets five years prison for stealing identity of dead child to get social security benefits for 25 years; got $300,000
- Maine: Man gets three years prison for theft of SNAP food stamp benefits
- Pakistan: Law enforcers bust call center; arrest 273 foreigners from Thailand, Viet Nam, China, Indonesia; apparently were running crypto romance frauds
- Singapore: Woman who was part of Cambodian scam compound gets 26 months prison
- Cambodia raids two scam compounds in suburbs; to deport 21,266 from 38 other countries in overall crackdown
- French tax authority hacked; loses data on 678,000
- Boston Scientific suffers cyber attack that disrupts global operations. Ransomware?
- Employee benefit firm Paylogic hit by ransomware attack
- Canada: Two Romanian men arrested in Ontario for ATM skimming
- Mississippi: Man gets four years prison for ATM skimming
- Kentucky: Jamaican woman extradited to the US for lottery scamming
- Florida: Eight people (Jamaicans?) arrested for lottery fraud