Consumer alert!

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.

Two people who operated from Canada and duped American businesses into paying billions for listings in phony business and industry directories have been ordered to pay millions by a federal judge, acting in response to Federal Trade Commission complaints.
Details of the case can be found here.

Counterfeit money orders issued in the name of KeyBank are being used nationwide as part of an up-front fee that’s part of a variety of Internet scams.
Details are here.

In the last couple of days, bogus e-mails invoking the names of various financial institutions have been circulating in an effort to extract personal financial information from customers.
The messages aren’t necessarily specifically targeted at customers of the financial organizations, but are meant to saturate the Web with bogus messages in hopes that some legitimate customers will respond with their personal data.
In all cases, the financial firms do not gather such personal data through e-mail.
If you receive messages from the following financial institutions with the following subject headings, just delete them:
Comerica — “Your account need attention.”
Bank of America — “Restore your account has been blocked.”
RBS — “Reactivate your Digital Banking.”
PayPal — “Security Notice — We have limited access to your PayPal account.”

The Federal Trade Commission is warning consumers to be wary of bogus fundraising efforts in the wake of the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar.
Such appeals for money often pop up following major disasters and some already have surfaced appealing for funds to help cyclone victims.
The federal agency’s alert and tips for screening such charitable appeals may be found here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission won a court order freezing the assets of a Swartz Creek, Mich. company that it says duped investors worldwide out of more than $72 million.
Less than half the money was invested and lost substantial value. The rest was parceled out to family members.
The company marketed itself on the Internet globally and had investors in all 50 states.
Details can be found here.

An e-mail being sent to companies masquerading as a customer complaint to the Better Business Bureau can compromise the security of your computer and allow authorized remote access to the machine.
The data security firm F-Secure has details of what it looks like and how it works. Check it out here.

The FBI is warning of still another e-mail scam that tries to extract personal info from the recipients by claiming they need to fill out forms to assure they get that government economic stimulus tax check.
Check it out here.

A California firm that offered “free trials” of its herbal products, including smoking cessation patches, now will get a free trial compliments of federal prosecutors.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, NextClick Media operated several Web sites that offered “free” 10- day trials for products, including herbal stop-smoking patches called “Nicocure,” “Stop Smoking 180,” and “Zero Nicotine.” They advertised that consumers would pay only for shipping and handling. Consumers who wanted to try the “free trial” provided a credit or debit card to pay for the shipping charge. But, the FTC alleges, the trials weren’t free. Consumers weren’t sent a 10-day trial size package. They were sent a 30-day supply and had to pay for all 30 days of product if they chose to keep it. Consumers who chose to return the unused product paid postage and were assessed a $7.95 restocking fee, neither of which were disclosed adequately by the sites.

The agency also alleged that the operators failed to disclose adequately that consumers who signed up for the free trial were agreeing to be enrolled in a program that would automatically bill them monthly charges of up to $99.95 until they cancelled.

More details may be found here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained a court order to stop a $27 million Ponzi scheme involving investors in the United States, Canada, and other countries.

The SEC charged Las Vegas-based Gold-Quest International and its three principals for the alleged misuse of investor funds in a scheme that promised incentives to investors who recruited “friends and family” into the system. The SEC alleges that Gold-Quest and its owners promised that investor funds would be pooled and invested in foreign currency exchange trading and would generate annual profits of 87.5 percent. No investor money was actually invested in foreign currency exchange trading, the SEC said.

More information may be found by clicking here.