The cloud of invisible information that surrounds is is a wonderful thing, but there are dangers as well. Brandon ordered a Kindle as a gift for his girlfriend, and upgraded to one-day shipping, but the package went astray. Amazon overnighted a new Kindle and things were glorious…until Brandon started receiving purchase confirmations of Kindle apps and content using his credit card and e-mail address. His girlfriend wasn’t making the purchases. So who was? [More]
fraud
Don't Let Your Parents Fall For Refinancing Scams
By 12.21.11
Your parents may assume they have more financial knowledge than you due to their extensive experience, but you shouldn’t assume the same. New scams pop up all the time to exploit needs and trick people looking for quick fixes. If you can’t protect your parents from these types of financial traps, there’s probably no one who can. [More]
Poker Site Co-Founder Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
By 12.21.11
A federal crackdown on online poker sites continues to rake in chips. In a reported plea agreement, a man who co-founded the gambling site Absolute Poker pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Federal regulators accused his organization of deceiving banks by masking customers’ gambling charges with names of online retailers. [More]
Phony Bedbug Exterminator Steals Jewels
By 11.3.11
New York Police are warning Queens residents to be on the lookout for a jewel thief in bedbug exterminator’s clothing. [More]
Paypal Links Account Missing $2,000 To Yours, Demands You Pay
By 11.3.11
Reader Ben awoke to a rude discovery. Somehow another account had been linked to his Paypal account, and the new account was $2,000 in the red. Paypal was knocking on Ben’s door, telling him to pay up, or else. They locked up his account and froze his cash. When he protested, they treated him like a criminal. [More]
Senator Is Victim Of Credit Card Fraud, Thieves Rack Up $12,000 At Walmart
By 10.28.11
It’s a measure of the brazenness and ubiquity of identity theft that a U.S. Senator has become the latest victim of credit card fraud. Thieves stole the credit card numbers belonging to Senator Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, embedded them on the magnetic strip of a fake credit card, and went on a $12,000 Walmart shopping spree. [More]
4 Suspects Arrested For Keeping People In "Dungeon" To Steal Their Social Security Checks
By 10.20.11
Four suspects have been arrested after being accused of a diabolical scheme where they locked up people in a basement and stole their Social Security checks. [More]
Watch Out For This Netflix Phishing Scam
By 10.20.11
There’s an email that’s been going around that pretends like it’s from Netflix and they’re having trouble with your credit card. Actually, it’s from scammers and they want to steal your credit card. [More]
Bank Of America Can't Help With Warning Of Possible Future Fraud
By 10.20.11
Ralph knows that mysterious deposits in your bank account from unknown entities are probably not a good thing. They’re much more likely to be harbingers of fraud than tiny, mysterious gifts. So he alerted his bank, Bank of America, that someone might be trying to steal from his account. The bank proceeded to do… not all that much, since no fraud had been committed yet. [More]
Business's DSL Still Out 1 Month After Account Breach
By 10.7.11
Derek tells Consumerist that someone contacted AT&T and canceled his business’s DSL account. Which is interesting, because that person had no affiliation with Derek’s business, didn’t have any of the account information, and really shouldn’t have been allowed to edit the account at all. Did that stop AT&T from letting the person end the business’s Internet access, resulting in early termination fees? Guess. [More]
Blind Woman Says Her House Was Stolen And Bulldozed
By 9.19.11
A 77-year old blind Texas woman says she thought she was signing a document to get relief from taxes, but instead she was tricked into signing over the deed to her house. [More]
Here's What A Secret Shopper Scam Looks Like
By 9.8.11
Reader Brian got a surprise $1,530 check in the mail and an invitation to become a secret shopper. The letter told him that he had been selected to become a “mystery shopper” and report on how local stores were doing. He would buy selected items from them and report on the process, and get to keep what he bought. Sounds great, who couldn’t use some extra cash, right? It all sounds so enticing because, as Brian was able to detect, it was the bait to lure him into an advance fee fraud scam. [More]
Credit Card Thief Changes Your Phone Number To His So Fraudulent Charges Get Okayed
By 9.7.11
Dan has a story of how his credit cards were stolen from his wallet and the scammer was able to get the account information changed so when the Capital One fraud department called to verify the suspicious charges, it was the crook who got the call. That way the fraudster could say, yes, I’m Dan, and I made those purchases in New York, even though I don’t live there. [More]
Federal Prosecutor Is Latest Credit Card Skimming Victim
By 9.6.11
ATM credit card skimming has gotten so pervasive that thieves managed to snag the digits of U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, a federal prosecutor, and lift $1,000 from her bank account. [More]
Check Out This Nearly Undetectable ATM Skimmer
By 8.18.11
Reader Andrew noticed this picture of an an incredibly high-end professional ATM skimmer that is virtually undetectable. [More]
Atlanta Teacher Exposes Teacher-Aided Cheating On Standardized Tests
By 8.9.11
Incentivized standardized tests are designed hold teachers and schools accountable for student performance, but they also provide plenty of motivation to artificially inflate test scores. A teacher in Atlanta helped expose her colleagues of doing just that. [More]
Bank Of America Opens, Closes Credit Card Customer Never Applied For
By 7.28.11
As a wee baby consumer, Kodi’s parents taught her that credit cards are terrible things that she should avoid. She did her best, avoiding credit cards, but wasn’t able to stay away completely. Not because of any failure of her willpower, but because somehow Bank of America applied for and obtained a credit card on her behalf without her asking for it–or even knowing about it. [More]
The Black Money Scam
By 7.26.11
It’s called the “black money scam.” The scammer shows the victim a briefcase full of black bills. The victim is told the money has been dyed black so that it could escape the notice of customs. But to turn the money back into usable cash, you need to use an extremely expensive solution, which the scammer is happy to sell for $100,000. [More]
