The phone spam calls start out essentially the same, "Hi, this is Rachel from cardholder services.." or "Hi, this is Rachel from cardmember services...".. then usually it will either say something like "..calling in reference to your current credit card account. It is urgent that you {take some action}", or "Please hold for an important message..." or she will ask you to select from several options with your phone's touch pad. Most often it is "Press 1 to speak to an operator, press 2 to be removed from the call list." Stacey and Stacy have been making a lot of these calls too, about extended warranties. These are so-called "robocalls" - generated (often overseas) with the Rachel or other similar script and computerized dialing, and almost always peddaling some scam, be it debt relief, credit card consolidation, mortgage refinancing, or some similar financial scam. It has gotten so bad that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ran a "Robocall Challenge", offering a $50,000 reward for the best proposed technology to deal with the burgeoning robocall problem.
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Articles on ScamsThe phone spam calls start out essentially the same, "Hi, this is Rachel from cardholder services.." or "Hi, this is Rachel from cardmember services...".. then usually it will either say something like "..calling in reference to your current credit card account. It is urgent that you {take some action}", or "Please hold for an important message..." or she will ask you to select from several options with your phone's touch pad. Most often it is "Press 1 to speak to an operator, press 2 to be removed from the call list." Stacey and Stacy have been making a lot of these calls too, about extended warranties. These are so-called "robocalls" - generated (often overseas) with the Rachel or other similar script and computerized dialing, and almost always peddaling some scam, be it debt relief, credit card consolidation, mortgage refinancing, or some similar financial scam. It has gotten so bad that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ran a "Robocall Challenge", offering a $50,000 reward for the best proposed technology to deal with the burgeoning robocall problem. Ah yes, email scammers certainly love Facebook, because they know that Facebook users have become like trained monkeys, always clicking on any link to see who has said what about them. This latest scam, which takes you to a site in Russia, draws you in by saying that someone commented on your photo (in our example, it says "Blake Jones commented on your photo"). Whether you call it spear phishing, spear fishing, or spearphishing, it's a computer hack of your email in a way that's targeted toward you, where you work, or a group you belong to. And, it masquerades as coming from someone you know and trust from your family, friends, workplace, or social group. Heads up everyone! We are hot on the trail of what appears to be a wide-spread scam, trying to scare people into coughing up $495 to avoid prosecution for illegal downloading, even though they have never illegally downloaded. This scam is coming in the form of an actual letter, sent on "Internet Copyright Enforcement Agency" letterhead, and signed by David Walsh, identifying himself as "Senior Copyright Law Enforcement Officer". The address, 1455 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20004, is one of those "rent an address and meeting room" businesses. Twitter is trending with the promoted hashtag #AmexSync. Do you get annoyed with the "deals" that your Facebook friends "like" showing up in your newsfeed? Well prepare for it to get even worse on Twitter, as American Express and Twitter introduce Amex Sync, the service that connects your American Express credit card directly to your Twitter account. And rest assured, as Twitter has proven time and time again, your private information is secure behind their hack-proof system. (Not!) Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o, during an interview with ABC News' Katie Couric, has confessed to at least having some knowledge of the fact that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua was fake. At least in the end. And in an even more bizarre turn of events, one of the hoax perpetrators, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, has admitted through his attorney that he was the voice of Lennay in phone calls to Manti. The scene was a pudgy man being chased around by scantily clad girls, but it wasn't an homage to Benny Hill, it was Kim Dotcom's launch party for his re-emergence back into the .com world - his new site, Mega (not to be confused with his now defunct file sharing website, Megaupload). Mega outdoes Dropbox by offering 50GBs of free file storage, unlike the 2GBs offered by Dropbox. Notre Dame athletic director, Jack Swarbrick has confirmed that the school's star football player, Manti Te'o, is a victim of an Internet hoax. Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, was a complete fabrication and reports that she died from leukemia during the 2012 football season are a lie. Initial reports had Te'o as part of the hoax, but Te'o and his family are flatly denying this, saying that Te'o is profoundly hurt and embarrassed by the entire situation. Wondering where you can get tickets to President Obama's inauguration? Well you can't get tickets to the president's inauguration on eBay or Craigslist, at least if eBay and Craigslist follow through on their promise to not allow anyone to sell or scalp tickets to Pres. Obama's inauguration on either site. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security alerted users of Java to a serious and urgent security risk, recommending that users disable Java until a suitable fix has been released. In the statement, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), the branch of the federal government that manages computer security risks, warned that any system using Oracle Java 7 (1.7, 1.7.0) including Java Platform Standard Edition 7 (Java SE 7), Java SE Development Kit (JDK 7) and Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE 7) are at risk. If you, like many, have been using Amazon.com for some of your Christmas shopping, then your account may be vulnerable to a scam using your order number that is genius in its execution, and uncovers some of Amazon's failings in inventory control. It all comes down to the individual order numbers assigned to your orders. Those order numbers are for sale, along with the corresponding email address (as in your email address), and scam artists are using that information to get duplicates of your orders sent to them. Yesterday we featured an article on the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) contest challenging anyone from the public to come up with a way to beat spam phone calls. The reason for expanding their efforts, says the FTC, is because complaints about spam phone calls, or, "robocalls," more than doubled in April of 2012, from their last high in October 2010 . So what should we do to avoid these nuisance calls until our unknown hero steps forward with the answer? A new crop of scam spam is going around, with subjects like "Copies of Policies" and "Changelog as Promised" and talking about things like the "Ocean, Warehouse or EPLI policy". They are short - to the point - and spam scams. They contain links that go to malicious sites such as http://abstract.nassassin.com/wp-content/plugins/counterize/mail.htm, http://flexjobb.se/wp-content/plugins/mail.htm, and http://www.39moto.ru/wp-content/plugins/flv-player/mail.htm, and come from sender names including Brock Buchanan, Darien Forbes, A. Simmons, and A. Blanton. A new eFax scam email that has just been sent out, telling you that you have a new eFax message, actually links to a malicious site being hosted at places such as http://kaskada.tym.cz and http://isolearn.eu/. The full links, in our examples http://kaskada.tym.cz/feHTCmSa/index.html and http://isolearn.eu/z02NKnzs/index.html, we believe cause a malicious virus, trojan, or other software to download to your computer (although we have not confirmed this, our own tests suggest this - regardless, it is spam, and a scam, and the links that supposedly go to eFax actually all go to places such as http://kaskada.tym.cz/feHTCmSa/index.html and http://isolearn.eu/z02NKnzs/index.html). Scammers are targeting Internet users with a new Craigslist scam - well, really more of a Craiglist spoof - wherein they send email to you, mostly from 'robot@craigslist.org', telling you that "you have succesfully posted your Craigslist ad" (although the samples we have seen actually misspell several words, so it ends up looking like "You have successfuly posted your Craiglist.org ad"). It’s one of those things that you never think will happen to you. You’re going along in life, hunky-dory, then boom! There are fraudulent charges on your credit card, or an unknown credit card shows up on your credit report, or you get a call from a collection agency demanding payment on an account that you never even knew existed. Unfortunately, credit fraud and identity theft protection are not one of those things that you think about until it is too late. And if the person who stole your identity is a family member, such as your mother, father, sibling or even your own child, you also have an additional set of special circumstances to deal with. What do Kate Croston (croston.kate@gmail.com), Hannah Howard (hhward22@gmail.com), Kaja Vollmer (kavo.jamer@gmail.com), Melanie Slaugh (slaugh.melanie@gmail.com), and Lindsay Samuels (lindasay.samuels04@gmail.com) all have in common? They are all part of a new wave of SEO backlink panhandlers, contacting websites, flattering them with such praise as "It has been a sincere pleasure to read your great content", and then begging a link back to an article that "we just posted on our own blog" or site. They seem sincere and innocent, until you start getting hit from all sides with nearly identical requests, and it becomes clear that they are somehow related, and part of some secret SEO backlink group. VIPSafeToday.com is an outfit that claims to want to give you a loan - or even a payday loan - and they are letting people know by spamming their cell phones with a text message that reads "You qualify to get up to 1200 DOLLARS instantly at WWW.VIPSAFETODAY.COM - It takes only mins for approval. 'NO' to unsubscribe" This message is dastardly for several reasons - read on for the full information, and don't text them "no" (or anything else) to 'unsubscribe'! If you get an email asking you to "certify" with SafetyAlliance.net or Craigsguard.org, don't fall for it! This is a site that is trying to collect your cell phone number. Ok, first, a disclaimer: we are 98% sure that this is a scam, but it is so new that we haven't been able to fully prove it yet. But read on and you'll understand why you too should be wary of it. "TWITTER: Someone has a crush on you!" the subject of the email says as it announces that someone has a Tweetcrush on you. "You have been sent a Twitter Crush," it goes on to say. Bologna. It's a phishing scam, pure and simple. But, it's a pretty compelling one, given how 'authentic' the site, which is hosted at ktwitteri.com, looks, where they steal your Twitter username and password. If you get an email telling you that "your Facebook account has been disabled by an administrator", don't fall for it! It's a scam, and the link in the email goes not to Facebook, but to yet another Canadian pharmacy site selling male enhancement drugs. A whole lot of people are getting the latest spam scam that supposedly is sent from the "AOL Administration Center" (there is no such thing, folks). Coming from the spoofed email address "AOLCenter@message.aol.com", the email tells you that "you have 1 notification", and includes a link to click to see the "notification". In fact, this is a classic example of Canadian pharmacy spam. Earlier this year we wrote and warned you about the ConsumerWarningsReport360.com scam, which is run, among other places, on Craigslist. This is a "make money fast" type scam, and they lure victims in with fake Craigslist 'for sale' postings, then tell you the item is already sold, and they feel so badly, they are going to share this great "make money" scheme with you. Since we exposed the scam, someone has caused people to post comments to the article extolling the virtues of ConsumerWarningsReport360.com - clearly these people are paid, and it is part of the scam. Just this afternoon a rash of fake Paypal emails was let loose on the internet, coming "from" notice@ppal.com, and claiming that "You have changed your PayPal email address", and going on to say that you have added some random email address (most seem to list andrew1987@btconnect.com as the supposedly-added address). The email advised you to send back the attached form, "Personal Profile Form - PayPal-.htm", if you did not authorize the change. A flood of bogus emails supposedly "from" Western Union hit this week, telling their intended victims first that a "Western Union transfer is available for withdrawl" (sic), and then that the transfer was rejected. The 'from' addresses are mostly manager@westernunion.com, transfers@westernunion.com, and funds@westernunion.com. Most odd is that some of them contain info about the Federal Reserve Board with a link to the federalreserve.gov site (remember that the recent Oracle and Crazy Eddie scam came "from" noreply@federalreserve.gov). If you recently received a "payment request" out of the blue from Oracle Corporation, or Crazy Eddie, or any other place, and it left you scratching your head and wondering just why Crazy Eddie or whomever is asking you for money, well, you're not alone. Perhaps even more bizarre is the email addresses from which these requests for payment are allegedly coming - email addresses like "admin@treasury.gov" and "noreply@federalreserve.gov". This particular Craigslist housing scam offers a house for a rent that is so low that it is too good to be true - you just have to first fill out a request for a "free credit report" at cbireport.com. The response to inquiries is canned and, in fact, has been around for a while - in our region the scam was listed under the heading "$850 / 3br - Beautiful 3 Bed, 2 Bath House". Our sample came from "gipepazalih@hotmail.com", but it has come from other email addresses too. A new batch of scam emails purporting to confirm your order with Yes Asia (YesAsia.com) and Play.com went out this week. The scam relies on your freaking out when you see confirmation for an order you did not place, so that you will click the link to see "the order", but of course, the link really goes somewhere else - in this case to some bad stuff being hosted on the iafrica.com website (in the case of our sample, it goes to "http://newsletters.iafrica.com/servlet/link/33/1082/140693/41003"). Countless people have opened their email this week to be told that "The person described above is charged as follows" in what claims to be a traffic ticket with the "violation" of "Speed Over 55 Zone" Examples we've seen have supposedly come from the New York State Polic (such as from automailer.-093@nyc.gov), but it doesn't matter where it comes from, it's not real, and the included file is not your ticket - it's a virus. Don't open it! The only way that you could have missed the "1 trick of a tiny belly" or "One tip to a tiny belly" ads that have been everywhere - absolutely everywhere - on the Internet would be if you hadn't been on the Internet yourself. Well it turns out that those "1 tip" ads, some of which tout "Cut down a bit of your belly everyday by following this 1 weird old tip", are part of a massive network of scams which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has uncovered. Twitter has been the vector for a flood of work-from-home scam spams this week, as followers of hacked accounts found dozens of copies of the "I snagged $217 in just a few hours online. learned how to do it from {link to scam}" type of spam coming at them via direct message. The link goes to a faked NBC article that touts "How did this stay at home mom make $13900+/Month.. We Investigate.." and that cleverly makes note of the geographic location (geolocation) of your IP address and customizes the article to make it seem as if the single mom is from your own town. Recently a scam spam has surfaced that claims that your YouTube inbox is full, and that you have to go clear it out (another version of the same scam says that "You have 2 unread personal message"). The email, claiming to be from "service@youtube.com", has a subject of "Warning: Your inbox is full, message not accepted" (or, again, the "You have X unread personal message"), and advises you that "You can reply to this message by visiting your inbox." The link to your "inbox" of course, which looks like "http://www.youtube.com/inbox?feature=mhsn", actually goes to a malicious site - so far we've seen it go to http://lliamamor.com/breakfaster.html, http://motolover.50webs.com/sykes.html, http://mizban-ins.com/calculative.html, and http://217.172.226.2/~mmaja180/groundwork.html. Here's a scam going around Craigslist that is fooling people because it seems so darned believable at first. You reply to a "for sale" or "for free" ad, so far they seem to be for couches and entertainment centers, and the person writes back saying something like " I already had promised this to the first person who emailed me but she didn't get back to my email. Are you still interested?" Then when you say you are, they reply saying "the other person replied back again, and it seems her first reply went to my spam folder and I missed it. I feel terrible :(" In fact, they feel so badly that they tell you a way to make $1600 from home, at http://www.consumerwarningsreport360.com/. Don't fall for it! If a link to "activate dislike button" shows up on your Facebook page - do not, Do Not, DO NOT click that link! The scam link, spreading like wildfire, appears as a post on your wall that says "Facebook just added the dislike button! Click on 'Activate Dislike Button' below to enable it on your account!" Of course, the FB dislike button is another Facebook scam, carrying with it a Facebook virus and a bonus of malware that it downloads to your computer in the background. A brand new scam, trying to get you to download malware, has just hit the Internet. "The ACH transaction recently sent from your checking account (by you or any other person), was canceled by the Electronic Payments Association" says the spam in which it is contained. There is a link to a file that you are supposed to download to "see the details of the report". Don't download that file! The file name format is "report_FakeTransaction#.pdf.exe" so, for example, report_33047451352379.pdf.exe. So far the scam mail has pretended to come from NACHA.org, although they are actually coming through an ISP in the Ukraine (ukrtel.net). ACH, by the way, stands for Automated Clearing House, which is a system that processes electronic banking transactions. From our "Why online scams work" department, a woman (if she is indeed a woman) who was in an online relationship with an Illinois man for over two years has managed to scam at least $200,000 from the man. The scam came to light when the 48-year-old man from Naperville, Illinois contacted police because his 'girlfriend' had disappeared right after he wired her the last of the $200,000, and he feared she had been kidnapped. The Tree Octopus has been given a new lease on life, thanks to a study in which 25 Connecticut 7th-graders participated. A new version of the years-old 'attempted abduction and rape in Target parking lot' scam is making the rounds. "NEW RAPE SCAM! PLEASE READ!" the headline screams, going on to exhort the readers to "Please pass on to all your girlfriends, wives, etc. Just to be on the safe side. Please be aware and pass it on to anyone you think this will help.". This newest version even says that the info checks out on mythbusting website Snopes where, in fact, it absolutely doesn't check out. Hot off the email scam presses comes this newest scam, which claims that "Your Federal Tax Payment ID: 010373 has been rejected." The "ID number" in the subject line may change, but other than that the variationis will be very similar. This sample comes 'from' "CandiceOdell15573@gmail.com", with a reply-to address of "abrown@mediaeng.com", but these addresses also may change. In our sample, the link they are trying to get you to click claims to be "http://eftps.gov/R21", but it really goes to http://eftpsID3422.com/contacts/s3. {Ed. note: The scammers are now following up the initial mailings with follow-up mailings that say "SECOND NOTICE: Your Federal Tax Payment has been failed." They're an organized bunch!} There is a horrific scam going around that uses just about every trick in the book - and effectively at that - to get you to send the scammers some money. It uses social engineering, urgency, Facebook hacking, and email hacking, and looks so genuine that we have no doubt that many have fallen for it. It comes from your friend's actual account, and starts out by saying "This message may be coming to you as a surprise.." It then goes on to say that "we were mugged" and that the muggers stole "all our cash, credit cards and cellphone but thank God we still have our lives", and then begs "I need you to help me out with a loan to settle our bills here..." It sounds so real - and after all it comes right from your friend's account - how can you refuse? But refuse you must, because it is a scam. Nigerian scammers have taken Internet scams to a new high (or low): selling your house, without your knowledge, and having the proceeds go to them. All done remotely, primarily via the Internet, with a little fax and phone thrown in. Of course, now that Nigerian scammers have pulled this off successfully (yes, successfully - just ask Roger Mildenhall about the Perth, Australia house that used to be his), we're sure that other scammers around the world will be trying it. If you got a confirmation of resetting your password from Facebook today, but you don't remember asking to reset your password, there's a reason. It's a scam. And it's a particularly tricky scam, because it plays on your fear that someone else is scamming you by trying to guess your password. But the reality is that whomever sent you your version of the scam is the one trying to scam you. The versions we've seen claim to come from either Chasity Stahr, letnesa@facebook.com, or Mara Krafft jwaterhouse@facebook.com. If you get a call from Mary with Financial Freedom (or anybody else with Financial Freedom), telling you to call her at 888-489-2305 because you've been approved to consolidate your credit card debt at the amazing low rate of just 1%, and if you're thinking that it's too good to be true, well, you're right. It's a scam. "Mary" calls from a telephone number in the San Francisco Bay area: (415) 363-5608, but the call could come from anywhere. So I got this telephone call today - maybe it's like one that you got too. It came from the phone number 917-793-5694, and it purported to be from Southeast Trust, phone number 800-706-6208, and they claimed to be responding to my online inquiry to consolidate my credit card debt. Only problem is, I don't have any credit card debt, let alone did I make an inquiry online. But you can be sure that someone who does have credit card debt, and who got this call, might be hooked and reeled in. We've had a lot of visitors recently looking for information about the purported Coca Cola International Mobile Draw 2010, sometimes touted as being "in conjunction with the British American Tobacco Worldwide Promotion". These people have received either the text message shown below, or the full email below, and are wondering if there is any chance that it is legitimate. It isn't. Some of the sending addresses include cocacolalotteryhouse@yahoo.co.uk, and numerous live.com addresses, such as cokeclaim09@live.com and cocaa31@live.com. Regardless of who the sender is, if you receive any version of the below, ignore it, it's a scam. One of the newest online rages is "cyber begging" or "cyberbegging" (or heck, even "cyber-begging", for those who are sticklers for proper hyphenation). Whatever you call it, it boils down to cyber panhandling - Internet begging. The way it works is that, instead of standing on a street corner, down and out people do their panhandling online, through a site such as CyberBeg.com. Unfortunately, for those who really are in need, Internet panhandling is more likely to lead them to lose what little they have, and to be scammed for their trouble. A new phishing scam going around sends you email claiming that you have deactivated your Facebook account. Don't fall for it. The links in it don't really go to Facebook at all, although they look as though they do. They actually go to http://kilinclar.nl/discussions.html, http://madmu.50webs.com/subsequent.html, and http://alphabasicz.com. There is a series of SMS text message spams going around right now, from TM-GODSGIFT, that has people wondering. The messages from TM GodsGift say that you have won money - usually in the Coca Cola lottery or the Exxon Mobile draw. It's all spam - it's all a scam. You can ignore it - or you can report it. But whatever you do, don't respond to a message from TM GodsGift. This is very interesting - an advance fee fraud scam aimed specifically at lawyers. In this twist on the classic Nigerian 419 advanced free scam, instead of the scammer being the "widow of a deposed dictator", the supposed damsel in distress is a woman whose "divorce was finalized here in Japan", and she "wants to retain your professional service." There is a new Western Union money transfer scam spam making the rounds. It thanks you for "using Western Union Money Transfer", and gives you a fake confirmation receipt transaction number ("control number") - in our case the Mone Transfer Control number used was 1629752260. The spam includes an attachment that is an HTML file named something like "WU account.html" - don't open it! You can do a local job search just by searching for "jobs in my area", or search for jobs such as for all USA jobs or even international job opportunities by using one of the job search engines such as "Monster Jobs", or by frequenting job websites or job posting boards. You can use a country-specific job finder, such as Canada's HRDC Job Bank (it should really be HRSDC, as it stand for "Human Resources and Skills Development Canada"), or a system-specific job site, such as www.usajobs.gov, which lists all U.S. Federal jobs. You can even just search "I need a job" followed by your location, and come up with a job listing of job openings, complete with job descriptions, in your area. The problem is that job search websites and job listings that list jobs online can't always distinguish a great job opportunity from a scam. There are many job scams on Internet job boards, such as the Yahoo job scam and the Craigslist job scam, and specific job scams such as the home job placement scam (while it's possible to find a legitimate no fee work at home job, and other paid internet jobs, it's very hard to tell the legitimate work at home jobs from the scams). Then there are the not-quite-scam jobs, such as the so-called "Primerica job scams". So, how to tell if a job is a scam? Here's how. More than four years ago, we wrote an article about the Nigerian 419 scam and what the scammers think of their victims, in which we concluded that "just in case you weren’t sure about the seriousness of 419 scams …just in case you think that it’s just a few people, and they are going to go away, think again. These scammers are here to stay, they are serious, and their target is…you." Well, it sure hasn't gotten any better since then. And here to prove it, from his own lips, a former Nigerian 419 scammer tells all. If you have been contacted by either of London McFee Investments or Equity Transfer Management and are wondering whether it's too good to be true, or even a scam, well, read on. It may be that they were offering you a 'deal' to sell shares of stock such as General Components, or it may be that they were interested in a stock that you hold other than General Components. But in all cases, in the end, they tell you that you will need to put cash up front - usually called an "equity transfer charge" or "equity transfer fee" owing to U.S. or other stock regulations. Other players in this scam space include Asia Pacific Group and Falcon Group. Online scams are nothing new, and Craigslist (named after founder Craig Newmark, hence Craig's list) has always had its fair share. Perhaps the most insidious of the Craigslist scams are those which appear to be legitimate replies to Craigs list postings - after all, while many consumers are wary of what they read online, most can't imagine that a scammer would take the time to personally reply to them! In this particular scam, the email comes from twanachausse16@aim.com on behalf of TLP Research. There is a lot of chatter on the Internet today about the search term "Exercise Bike Clearance" and how Target has been gaming Google search results so that no matter what you search for (such as, for instance, "Exercise Bike Clearance") you will find a link to a Target page in the top of the search results, even though Target doesn't have the item for which you are searching. In fact, that's even more the rub - because these Google listings pointing and linking to Target.com are a result from Target telling you that "We could not find matches for {your search term}. Please try your search again." It's one of the newest spam tactics - spam vacation messages. Here's how it works: spammers sign up for mailing lists, never intending to read them. Instead they put themselves on permanent vacation status, create one of those infernal "I'm on vacation" messages full of their spam message, and let the vacation program do their spamming for them. If they're lucky, the mailing list is one where the vacation message goes back to the entire mailing list. So far we've seen spam vacation messages hawking mydosell.com, wholesaler-electronic.com, qigefa.com, and easevshop.com. You may be surprised - and you will certainly be relieved - to hear that the criminals behind the scam warranty phone calls - or so-called "robocalls" or "robodialing" - have actually been caught, and are being prosecuted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It turns out that a huge number of the calls were made by Christopher Cowart and his Transcontinental Warranty company, calling names and numbers supplied by a company called Voice Touch that is owned by James Dunne and Maureen Geisen Dunne, and using Caller I.D. spoofing technology developed by Damian Kohlfeld. A new scam going around the internet, originating from "security@paypalfraudcheck.com", tells Paypal users that their account has been limited, and to remove the limit, they must scan and email a copy of their passport or driver's license, a copy of their Paypal credit or debit card, and a copy of a recent utility bill. A new email scam floating around the Internet includes a picture of what appears to be a genuine passport in the name of the sender. The sample we have appears to be a real Algerian passport in the name of Morsli Boubakeur, which is who our email - coming from mauvai98@yahoo.fr - is allegedly from. But it's still a scam - don't be taken in. "You have received a postcard from a family member!", says the subject of one of the latest spam scams. If you receive a death threat email, you're in good company. The so-called "Hitman email" scam has made a comeback. Around since at least 2006, the content of the death threat email has evolved some, but the general gist of it remainds the same: the Hitman email claims that someone wants you dead, that the Hitman email sender has been hired to kill you, and that if you come up with a sufficient amount of money, they will spare your life. We'll bet that when you are looking for discount travel - especially discount air travel, and cheap air fares and cheap flights - that you turn to discount travel sites, such as Expedia .com, right? But while the Expedia travel site purports to offer cheap air flights - and sucks people in with the promise of cheap air plane tickets - Expedia airfare isn't always the cheapest - people just assume that Expedia flights are less expensive! Worse, Expedia flights are sometimes not authorized at all, meaning that Expedia com does not have a relationship with - let alone permission from - the airline to offer those cheap airfare tickets! Your effort to get cheap air fare could backfire, and you'll have paid more than if you'd just gone directly to the airline! Bottom line? For cheap airline flights, instead of relying solely on discount travel sites (cheap plane flights are one of the primary things for which people use sites such as Expedia travel), go directly to the airlines and ask them about their cheap flights! Service by email of a subpena does not constitute legal service, yet thousands of CEOs and upper-level executives across the United States have recently been taken in by an unwelcome email in their inbox. The email, claiming to be a Federal subpoena (or, if you're from California, "subpena") from "subpoena@uscourts.com," bears the seal of the U.S. District Court, and demands the recipient present themselves at a grand jury hearing in San Diego on May 7th. In addition the email contains a link and the instruction that the linked document should be downloaded and printed. In addition to the breed of filth known as "typo squatters" (people who register domains which are common misspellings of popular domains, and then put ads on them), and "drop squatters" (people who grab established domains the moment that the domain's registration lapses (i.e. is "dropped") - and set up shop on the domain - again, nothing but ads - to take advantage of the traffic that comes to the domain), we want to bring to your attention a particularly slimy breed that we call the "Doppelganger Squatter". If you've ever gotten an email from someone offering to pay you to put a link on your site - or even if you've just ever stumbled across a link from one site to another that is completely out of context - you've probably stumbled across one of the newer grey areas on the Internet: paying someone who couldn't care less about the quality of the content of your website to go find and spam other websites who won't care about the quality of the content of your website and convince them to link to your site. Well now, here is a new twist on the age-old scam. No deposed, dead Nigerian potentate here. Instead, a broken-Englished girl named Kim, whose father Henry died tragically and left his estate to his daughter but she can only get it when she marries. So perhaps you, dear target, are the lucky man. Email addresses implicated in this scam, so far, include liiluv2000@yahoo.com and kimluv_account@mail2world.com. People across the country are reporting telephone calls coming from the numbers (623) 238-6228 and (408) 587-2116. These calls claim that your car warranty is expiring, but they are really scam artists trying to steal your personal information and identity. So if the number appearing on your cellphone screen is either (623) 238-6228 or (408) 587-2116, don't answer it! Other numbers generating these spam identity theft calls include (202) 552-1332, (702) 520-1105, (609) 948-0971 and (562) 289-8136. The FBI is warning of an increase in what have come to be known as "vishing attacks" - where scammers call someone on the telephone, but make the call using VoIP, which not only is much more difficult to trace, but allows the scammer to spoof the phone number from which they are calling (making the number which shows up on the caller I.D. appear to be from someone else). A Gmail confirmation scam email is going around, asking you to verify your Gmail account. "Dear Account User," the request starts out - and goes on to say that you need to confirm your Gmail account, or it will be closed down. Of course, the language is wrong, and it wasn't even necessarily sent to your Gmail account, but still, people will be taken in by this scam, which asks for your account username and password, your date of birth, and your country of residence. Here's the scam reproduced in full - if you get this, don't reply! The FBI is warning of a jury duty scam, and the warning is being emailed around the United States, as the fraud continues. As the housing market worsens, foreclosures are on the rise. So it's only natural that scams promising to stop foreclosure, avoid foreclosure, or prevent foreclosure would also be on the rise. But those offers promising to stop mortgage foreclosure of your home are almost always scams. The only way to stop foreclosure sale of your home is to reach an agreement with the bank - it makes sense, because short of a court order, the only one that can stop bank foreclosure is the bank itself. If you need foreclosure assistance - if you need some stop foreclosure help - don't respond to the Internet foreclosure scams - instead, contact your lender! So you got email saying that you won a Toyota? You and thousands of others, in the latest round of the Toyota lottery scam! Here's the basic text of this spam scam - don't be taken in! By now you should now that you should never open a file which comes through in email, particularly if you are not expecting it, even if you know the sender. This certainly applies to the new rash of MP3 spam that is going around, which is actually audio stock spam for the pump and dump spammer scammers, who are pushing the publicly traded Text4Cars.com by Exit Only. A new version of the old 419 advance fee fraud scam has surfaced, this time claiming that you stand to receive a "long overdue inheritance / contract payment". There are a few feactures Of Federal government taxation in Nigeria, along with an overburdened and at times lax penal system, which collude to make Nigeria one of the ideal places to run an advanced-fee scam. In fact, the common name for these scams - 419 scams - comes directly from the Nigerian Penal Code - section 419. Documents produced by Whole Foods Market in response to a lawsuit filed by the FTC have revealed that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey routinely posted anonymously to Internet stock boards, bashing competitor and acquisition target Wild Oats by name and stock symbol. The Whole Foods FTC lawsuit was filed in an effort to stop the takeover, asserting that it would be a violation of antitrust laws. A scam hoax on Craigslist has led to a Tacoma woman, Laurie Raye, having everything stripped - even the fixtures - from one of her houses. It all started with a seemingly genuine post on the popular Craig's list site. Domain tasting may sound like a funny term, but it's no laughing matter. But exactly what is domain tasting? Sometimes called "Domain Kiting", domain tasting is when someone registers a domain name for the express purpose of testing it out during the five-day grace period to see whether it will receive enough traffic to pay for itself, usually with just the clickthrough advertising on the site itself. "Greetings from Iraq," the subject line says. Who wouldn't at least give that a glance the first time they see that in their inbox? And that's exactly what scammer "Merrill Melvin Hansley", a supposed security manager of STE,CCPLUS STORAGE SARL storage company in Iraq, is counting on. In case you are still wondering whether people actually fall for the old Nigerian 419 scam - or are wondering just who would fall for the old Nigerian 419 scam - wonder no more, and instead learn from the story of Thomas Katona, of Harrisville, Michigan. That would be Thomas Katona, the county treasurer for Alcona County, Michigan. We keep telling you that Nigerian 419 and British Lottery scams work because people actually send these scammers money. In case you didn't believe us, police in Holland have arrested a Nigerian man over the holidays who is being charged with being involved with a 419 scam, and he had cash amounting to $4,599,577 in his pocket! "Coca-Cola End Of Year Bonanza," the email subject screams. It then goes on to tell you that you have won a prize - this is the official prize notification - for the year end bonanza held by Coca-Cola in conjunction with the Netherlands American Tobacco company. In case you're in any doubt, this is a scam. During a discussion at Stanford University a few months ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt indicated that he thinks that the "perfect economic solution" to click fraud is "to let it happen." Richard Kudlik, who went by the AOL name "Off2Hunt", got a lot of mileage out of being a Federal marshal. It impressed the women no end, as evidenced by the several who dated him. Only problem is, Richard Kudlik wasn't a Federal marshal, nor was he single. Now Off2Hunt, who also used the names "DHSFireRescue", "USMarshal152" and "USMarshal67600" is more likely Off2Jail. Is it a scam? Is it spam? Is it phishing? Is it legal? Someone calling themselves Garren Fitzenreiter, using the email address admin@keithware.com, is sending people Paypal invoices out of the blue, with the subject "help me pay for my inspection sticker ticket and ill love you forever. thanks" 419 scammers are serious about their work, and they think their targets are deserving. Their theme song, "I Go Chop Your Dollars" by Osofia, says it all: "White men, I will eat your dollars." The Spanish lottery scam, also known as the "Spanish Sweepstate Lottery", "Spanish International Lottery", and even "Spanish International Program" has hit the net. Whether it's from Blanco Lopez, or someone else, it's still a scam. Chinese Troops Have Invaded Okinawa, said the headlines on the Yahoo site. Only, it wasn't really a Yahoo site, and it wasn't true. The DMA has announced that they are requiring all of their members to adopt an email authentication mechanism. According to them, "there are several interoperable, inexpensive and easy to implement solutions available on the market today." This stock chart offers stock analysis of the stock which comes recommended in spam. Are those hot stock tips really worth anything? The British Lottery International scam is one of the latest Internet scams. As the Katrina scams wind down, the British International Lottery scam is again picking up steam. If you get this email scam from British Lottery International, don't be taken in - just delete it! The Russian dating scam works like this: a Russian woman, or someone in Russia claiming to be a woman, contacts a man on one of the online dating sites, draws him into an online relationship, and then hits him up for money "for a plane ticket to come be with you." W32.Sinnaka.a is the hook which phishers are using to scare people into buying Spy Trooper, World AntiSpy, PS Guard and Raze Spyware, some of which are merely repackaged versions of other rogue spyware programs, such as SpyDemolisher, SpySheriff, and SpywareNo. They are doing it with fake Windows Security Center sites and bogus W32.Sinnaka.a virus alerts. Don't let it fool you. There are more Hurricane Katrina scam sites than legitimate Hurricane Katrina relief sites, warned the FBI today. With nearly 4,000 Hurricane Katrina relief sites online, estimates the FBI, at least sixty-percent (that's 60%, folks) of the sites are actually controlled by people ... Hurricane Katrina email hoaxes are already starting to fly, to add insult to the horrible injury already suffered by the thousands of people in Katrina's path. This first Hurricane Katrina email hoax claims that the Red Cross will donate money for each email sent. Your online resume may be ripe for a new scam by identity thieves in which they simply lift all of your personal information from your resume and assume your identity. Scammers have a new scam in which they call you up and tell you that you've missed jury duty, and boy are they ticked. You'd better verify who you are by giving them lots of personal information, because there's a warrant out for your arrest! Don't fall for it! This is pretty interesting stuff. According to Iraq Museum International, it has detected a pattern of what it calls "eBay sniping", in which bids are intentionally and artificially inflated to ensure that a legitimate bidder pays top dollar, and has managed to ... The implications are staggering. Internet security software company Sunbelt Software was investigating CoolWebSearch, a spyware package, when they noticed that stowing away in the CoolWebSearch download were two trojans, a spam zombie engine, and a keystroke logging program. It was the ... If you get email claiming to be from the Regulatory Compliance Commission, the International Compliance Commission, the International Regulatory Commission, the International Exchange Regulatory Commission, the International Shareholder Protection Division, or some similar sounding agency, offering you an investment opportunity, the best investment ... Nigeria really seems to be doing all the right things to bring under some semblence of control the flood of financial scams which originate within its borders, including the infamous "419 spam scam". Earlier this month the Nigerian courts sentenced a ... Aunty has told you about the evils of click fraud. And how Google was sued over click fraud just last month. Now comes this company, which offers to track all of the pay-per-clicks on your site, giving you a full report ... Every once in a while you have to just laugh at the 419 scammers who abound on the Internet. Scam baiting - the act of leading scammers on a wild goose chase - has been raised to a new art form with the advent of the Internet, and Internet scammers. And none more so (or more deservingly) than the so-called 419 ... Of course we all know to avoid mortage spam. But just because an Internet-based mortgage service hasn't spammed you doesn't mean that they are your best option, as the National Mortgage Complaint Center explains: (PRWEB) July 25, 2005 -- According to a just ... In what is being hailed as one of the largest spam&scam busts of the decade, and the biggest 419 bust in history, the FBI and Spanish police have collaborated to arrest three hundred and ten (that's right, 310) people in Spain, all of ... We've all seen variations on the theme. "I am Mariam Abacha, widow of the late Nigerian head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha. After the death of my husband who died mysteriously..." They always end with a plea for you to help them ... In case you had any doubts about the global nature - the complex world-wide intricacies - of phishing networks, doubt no more. Case in point: Douglas Harvard and Lee Elwood were both sentenced in England this week to several years in jail ... You may recall that earlier this year Aunty lectured you about click fraud, and even mentioned that Google was suing an outfit over their alleged click fraud. In fact, last month Aunty showed you a news release from a company which tracks ... The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it has received a restraining order against and frozen the assets of TrustSoft and their SpyKiller program, a program which, the FTC says, was nothing more than a scam. According to the FTC, users who visited the ... Protecting yourself from credit card fraud and identity theft has become even more important with the unrelenting succession of security breaches, such as last week's theft of 40 million credit card numbers. Here are seven specific things you can do now to help ... Forget Qchex and other services which let anyone register your checking account and use it. Your monies in your checking account are at risk from a scam far less complicated than even that! That's right, and your old Aunty discovered it, quite by accident. Today Aunty ... LYNNFIELD, Mass., June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Sophos, a global leader in network security, has published a report revealing the top ten viruses and hoaxes causing problems for businesses around the world during the month of May 2005. This report, compiled by ... Do you know what a "demand draft" is? If you've ever received an electronically-generated check which had "Your depositor has authorized this payment to payee" on it, or "signature not required" in place of the signature, then you've received a demand draft, ... DALLAS, May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Online advertisers who are concerned about click fraud have a new online clearinghouse, http://www.lostclicks.com , where they can learn more about a pending class action lawsuit against the major search engines and Internet corporations, and about recent developments in what is now ... There has been a lot about "pharming", which is another term for DNS poisoning, also known as DNS cache poisoning, in the news lately. But what exactly is DNS poisoning? Put simply, DNS cache poisoning is when a DNS server is ... Whether it's the world's largest auction house, Paypal, or the world's most believed and mourned pontiff, Pope John Paul II, spammers and scammers are not above invoking their name in an effort to relieve you of your money. Even before Pope John Paul II's ... A fake Microsoft email urges users to install the latest Windows update, and even links and takes them to a site which sure seems to be a real Microsoft website. But it isn't. And the email actually leads to the installation ... A particularly effective phishing scam has targeted Yahoo Messenger this week. The reason it is so successful is because the phishing scam involves the Yahoo Messenger user being sent an IM message which appears to come from someone on the user's ... Have you heard about Adsense "click fraud"? It's one of the latest Internet scams. Click fraud has been in the news a lot lately, and with good reason. Click fraud accounts for 10-20% of all clicks on Internet ads such ... A group calling themselves "Artists Against 419" are asking Windows users to take part in their Mugu Marauder "art" project and take down the scam sites hosted by so-called "419 scammers". The "Mugu" in "Mugu Marauder" apparently is the term which the ... From Across the Pond, courtesy of Chris Hunter over at Spamfo: Christopher Pierson, the sick man who sent a hoax mail to tsunami victim's friends and relatives, has been sentenced today to 6 months in prison. Spamfo published the article previously entitled 'Man pleads guilty ... Some of you may recall that Aunty told you about Christopher Pierson, the British man who skulked about the tsunami disaster support boards, and wrote to those who were looking for loved ones feared lost in the disaster that, indeed, their loved ones ... The newest spam scam to hit eBay users is a spam which is infected with what is known as a "keylogger". When a user opens the infected email, which then has them log into their eBay account, it can record the keystrokes ... Some people are sick. Really sick. But Christopher Pierson, of London, England really takes the cake. Pierson, a 40-year-old father of two (oh my, his poor children), was arrested and arraigned yesterday for sending spam to those known to be looking for lost loved ones, in ... Lx_CATS is a Lexmark printer file, installed by Lexmark, which spies on your printer usage and reports back to the Lexmark mother ship. Sick of spam? Phed up with phishing? Nagged out by the Nigerians? Have I got a treat for you! If you haven't been over to the Ze Frank site before, or even if you have, and if you're ready for a ... Is there anyone here who hasn't been at least a little curious at one time or another - what would happen if someone actually responded to one of the Nigerian 419 scam emails - you know, the ones where the spammer contacts you ... |
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A Division of ISIPP Publishing Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. - Editor
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