With the tornadoes, wildfires and floods that have hit various parts of the U.S., the FBI notes an increase in charity related scams.
The bureau has issued tips on how to avoid being taken.
A fraudulent letter supposedly from the Department of Homeland Security is being mailed to some bank customers to try to persuade them to cough up financial information in order to access a large sum of money transferred to their bank accounts.
Don’t fall for it. Here are the details.
Counterfeit cashier’s checks drawn on Baker Boyer National Bank in Walla Walla, Wash. are being issued in connection with an Internet-based lottery scam.
Details of the ruse are here.
Putting a new twist on an old scam, con artists are posing as government officials when they tell consumers they have won a sweepstakes prize. Crooks also take advantage of Internet technology, which can make it appear that they are calling from Washington, DC, or the consumer’s hometown while they tell consumers they represent the Federal Trade Commission or some other government agency.
To learn more about how to avoid this type of scam, click here..
It’s fairly amateurish, but still might be enough to fool some.
Arriving in my e-mail box this morning was a message from KCSB and the subject was “Alert.”
The message said this:
“This is not a promotional e-mail. Please call us immediately at (800) 507-9348 regarding recent activity on your account. We’re available 24/7 to take your call.
Please disregard this e-mail if you’ve already call us since the date this e-mail was sent.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.
Thank you
KCSB in association with National ID Recovery
Copyright ©2008 Kalamazoo County State Bank”
Since I’ve never had any dealings with KCSB, I gave the 800-number a call, which connected me to a computer-generated voice welcoming me to the “Card Activation Center.” The voice advised me that they would never seek personal financial information such as account or Social Security numbers, then it advised me to enter my credit card number, expiration date and PIN number. I entered some bogus numbers and the voice told me to please enter it again because it didn’t match.
My guess is that the scammer simply is capturing account numbers so they can rip off unsuspecting card holders. The scam probably plays better in the Kalamazoo area.
But if you visit the legit KCSB Web site, you’ll find this warning:
“Phishing” and “spoofing” may not appear in your dictionary yet, but these terms refer to ID-theft scams being used to target bank customers. You should never provide any personal financial information, including your Social Security number, bank account numbers or passwords, over the phone or the Internet if you did not initiate the contact.”
Sound financial advice.
The Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to at least 23 firms it says are marketing fake cancer cures.
For details and a list of the firms targeted, click here.
Consumers are being warned that the recent spate of tornadoes and floods in the Midwest is spawning a spate of bogus charity scams.
Here are some tips to avoid being taken.
The Federal Trade Commission has caught up with a Canadian firm that billed small businesses for non-existent Internet listings.
Details are here.
Counterfeit checks drawn on two more banks are being used to promote various mystery shopper scams that can leave the victims on the hook to reimburse the banks where they cash the bogus checks.
One scam uses the name of “Shopper’s Confidential Inc.” and a check drawn on Borrega Springs Bank of La Mesa, Calif.
Another uses the name “Top Shop Inc.” and a bogus check drawn on First National Bank of Buffalo, Wyoming.
Another mystery shopper scam using bogus letters and counterfeit cashier’s checks drawn on the First National Bank of Talledega, Ala. is being sent through the mails.
Details of fraud may be found here.
There have been numerous incidents involving such letters and checks being sent to unsuspecting recipients. Sometimes the recipients cash the bogus checks, keep part of the money for themselves and follow instructions to wire the rest to a third party. Later it’s learned the check was bogus and the recipient is faced with reimbursing the bank where they cashed the check.
Bogus e-mails are being circulated that claim to offer refunds to victims of Internet fraud.
Don’t fall for them, says the FBI, which issued a special alert about the scams.
The subject of the e-mail is “Account Locked!”
The object of the e-mail is to gather personal financial information from unsuspecting victims.
The e-mail that appears to be from Bank of America notifies customers that their account has been logged due to a number of incorrect logins. To unlock it, the recipient must fill out all sorts of detailed financial information.
Disregard this message if it turns up in your e-mail box.
More counterfeit checks are circulating in connection with mystery shopper scams. Checks being used now bear the names of Golden Bank of Houston, Texas and Comanche National Bank of Comanche, Texas.
Scam checks are becoming almost epidemic as economic conditions in the nation continue to worsen. An article in today’s Monroe Evening News discusses one of the latest scams.
A “secret shopper” scam letter has surfaced in the Monroe area that tries to entice the recipient into cashing a bogus check for $3,990 in order to test the MoneyGram services offered through Wal-Mart stores.
Thomas Harmon of Monroe got one of the letters advising him that his application as a customer service representative for Universal Research Inc. had been approved.
Trouble is, Mr. Harmon never had applied for such a position and never heard of Universal Research.
The letter instructed him to cash the JP Morgan Chase bank check, keep $400 for himself, and wire the rest to a third location that would be revealed if he called a phone number to validate the payment.
Included with the letter and check was a “Customer Satisfaction Evaluation Tool” to rate the service received at the Wal-Mart service desk.
The Harmons didn’t fall for the ruse and noticed that the postmark on the letter was from Canada, a common source of telemarketing and postal scams.
“With the economy the way it is, a lot of people might fall for this,” Mr. Harmon said.
Felicia George, an inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Detroit, said it appears to be another version of a common check scam.
“Its sounds like it’s a little bit of a twist on some of the counterfeit money order scams we’ve been looking at,” Ms. George said.
Scams attempting to trick consumers into cashing the bogus check and forwarding money to a third party have been common around the country over the past few years with several variations involving MoneyGram and Wal-Mart. If the checks are cashed by financial institutions – and they often are – the individuals who cash them are responsible for the lost funds.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center says the secret shopper and counterfeit check scams are numerous and often invoke the names of reputable banks or corporations. Victims receive bad checks, are instructed to deposit them, and then are asked to wire a percentage of the money to a third party, while using the rest of the money to complete their assignments. The scam succeeds when the fraudster is able to convert the victim’s wire transfer into cash before the bank realizes that the initial payment is counterfeit.
The housing market might be lethargic, but mortgage fraud is vigorous.
The FBI has just released a major report on mortgage fraud in the U.S., chock with tables, statistics and information on how mortgage fraud is perpetrated.
The bad news is that in 2007 Michigan ranked third among all states for incidence of mortgage fraud, which was particularly prevalent in the Detroit area. The good news is that Michigan ranked third in the 2006 too, but the bad news is that mortgage fraud was more common in Michigan and nationwide last year.
The FBI report can be found by clicking here.