The FTC has got 10 ways to protect yourself from international scam rings. The most important one has go to be to never deposit a check in your account with the agreement that you’re going to wire a portion of it elsewhere. [More]
fraud
Robosigners Showered With Jewels, Cars, Even House Payments
By 10.19.10
It’s hard work signing thousands of documents a day, even if you don’t have to read them. Your hand can cramp like something awful! [More]
Pizza Place Employee Forces Customer To Undress, Beats With Pipe
By 10.18.10
A Dallas-area pizza parlor employee forced an elderly customer to undress and beat him with a pipe after he tried to pay for his $17.60 meal with someone else’s credit card. According to the police report, the worker did it because he was “sick and tired of this type of thing happening at his business.” [More]
How The Looming Mortgage Bond Scandal Could Dwarf The Foreclosure Fraud Crisis
By 10.14.10
If you thought the fake doc foreclosure fraud crisis is bad, wait till you get a load of what could happen once people start looking at the pending mortgage bond meltdown. Reuters blogger Felix Salmon dug into the documents and he says it looks like banks have been lying to investors about the quality all this time. [More]
Biggest Medicare Fraud Scam Ever Busted
By 10.14.10
Authorities busted a ring of reputed Armenian gangsters who they allege perpetrated the most ginormous Medicare fraud of all time, racking up $163 million in fake claims. [More]
AGs In Every State Open Joint Foreclosure Investigations
By 10.13.10
On the heels of a massive fraudulent foreclosure document scandal, Attorneys General in all fifty states opened a joint investigation into home foreclosures, pledging to halt any and all wrongful practices at mortgage companies and banks. [More]
Mom Arrested For Faking Kid's Leukemia To Scam Donations
By 10.5.10
A Detroit-area mother was arraigned this weekend on charges that she had faked her 12-year old son having leukemia to scam for donations. She shaved his head and eyebrows, drugged him with opiates in his apple sauce, and started posting Facebook updates about his condition and her need for help paying his medical bills. [More]
"Rogue Trader" Gets 3 Years, $6.7B Fine
By 10.5.10
The “rogue trader” who cost his former employer, French bank Société Générale, $7.1 billion through a series of high-stakes bets that leveraged fictitious transactions outside his trading limit was sentenced today to 3 years in prison and a “symbolic” $6.7 billion fine. [More]
Russian Hotties Collared In $3M Bank Hack Scam
By 10.1.10
Several comely young Russian woman were snagged by the feds in New York yesterday for allegedly working as money mules for hackers who stole over $3 mil from American bank accounts using trojan viruses. [More]
Foreclosure Firm Allegedly Forged Bank Execs' Signatures On Affidavits
By 9.23.10
A foreclosure firm listed “Bogus Assignee” as the mortgage owner on the documents they submitted to the court to process the foreclosure. That’s one of the many oddities surfacing in the investigation of a Florida foreclosure firm for allegedly using improper documentation to speed up foreclosures. Another is an employee “Linda Green” who signed of on thousands of foreclosure affidavits claiming to be executives from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and other lenders. [More]
A Site That Sells Stolen Credit Cards And Slaps Scammers With Fees
By 9.22.10
We’d heard that credit card information can fetch as little as $1.50 on the open market, but we never really thought about what the experience of actually purchasing the info was like. Well, it turns out that buying a stolen credit card is a process riddled with fees. Who knew? [More]
Mugging Alarms On ATMs Are Expensive And Useless
By 9.22.10
Anti-robbery systems at ATMs, like an alarm button button or a PIN code used to alert police you’re getting mugged, are rarely installed on the cash disgorgers, and with good reason. [More]
Xbox Live Marketplace Card Already Used, Even Though It Was Opened Only Moments Ago
By 9.22.10
Tyler says that on four different occasions now, the Xbox Live points and subscription cards he’s bought have been invalid when he redeems them. He had a friend at Gamestop help him out with the invalid subscription card, but he’s stuck with useless paper when it comes to the points cards. [More]
Scammer Flips Free Kitties For Profit
By 9.21.10
A Park Slope woman who gave away her kittens on Craigslist was later shocked and aghast – a common affliction among Park Slope residents – to see the buyer posting an ad trying to sell the very same kittens, even though her ad said that if the buyer wasn’t going to keep the kittens themselves, they were to return them to her. Turns out the woman she gave them to is a serial “cat flipper.” [More]
Diesel Website Wants Color Scan Of Your Credit Card Via Email
By 9.21.10
I know credit card fraud is rampant, but I’m not sure sending full scans of your card through email is the proper way to fix things. [More]
Debit Card Skimmer Found On Train Ticket Dispenser
By 9.15.10
Be careful, travelers, skimmers aren’t just for ATMs. Here’s one a Dutch guy found on a local train ticket machine. This is even a little bit more insidious than an ATM skimmer because busy passengers are even less likely to hide their PIN or notice a skimming device before rushing to their next train. The site is in Dutch but just scroll through the labeled pictures. With phrases like “betterijen uit mobiele telefoon” it’s pretty easy to figure out what he’s talking about. [More]
ID Theft Victim Receives Ceaseless Cavalcade Of Stolen Packages
By 9.14.10
This lady’s address was used by credit card thieves who were scoping out different merchants’ fraud triggering levels. Which meant that she was receiving packages for and calls about a portable night light, Vietnamese movies, and a $2,500 Gibson. Every day for two months she got something new, and no one could stop it. [More]
Best Fraud Spam Ever
By 9.10.10
Something about this spammed fraud attempt that landed in our inbox amused me. Maybe it was the chicken burgers for mother. [More]
