Tag: phishing

What Do You Know About Wire Fraud?

What Do You Know About Wire Fraud?

What Do You Know About Wire Fraud?What is wire fraud?

Wire fraud is an act of fraud that uses electronic communications, such as making false representations on the telephone or via email, to obtain money.

How does wire fraud work?

Wire fraud occurs when a fraudster obtains money based on false representation or promises.

For example, you may receive wire instructions which appear to be from the settlement agent or attorney, when in fact they are from a fraudster.

Recommended precautions to protect yourself from WIRE/ACH Fraud:

⇒  Do not share your online banking logon credentials (user ID and password) with anyone.

⇒  Do not share your account number with anyone who does not need it.

⇒  Never access your bank account using a public computer (e.g., at the library or a hotel business office)

⇒  Monitor your accounts regularly for unauthorized transactions.  Report any unauthorized transactions to your bank immediately.

⇒  Be suspicious of emails from free, public email account domains as they are often a source of risk.

⇒  Watch out for phishing emails with embedded links, even when they appear to come from a trusted source.

⇒  Install a firewall on your computer to prevent unauthorized access.

⇒  Be skeptical of any change in wiring instructions.

⇒  Confirm wire and other disbursement instructions received by email via confirmed telephone at a known or independently-confirmed number, not the telephone number at the bottom of the email.

Authorities Need Help Finding Identity Thief!

wisconsin+crime+alert+2

LAKE DELTON, Wis.—The Lake Delton Police Department needs the community’s help to identify two men who are pictured in surveillance photos.

According to an alert from the Wisconsin Crime Alert Network, the two suspects are involved in an identity theft investigation from September 2015.

Police said the white suspect vehicle was operated by one of the suspects.

It’s believed that the two men have ties to the Waukesha County area.

Please contact the Lake Delton Police Department at (608) 254-7571 if you have any information about these men or the vehicle.

SCAM OF THE WEEK: Brace yourself for IRS frauds!

By Ellen Marks / Assistant Business Editor/Albuquerque Journal
PUBLISHED: Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 12:02 am

It seems as though the annual ritual of figuring out your taxes, filing a flutter of paperwork and trying not to get crosswise with the IRS would be difficult enough, but no. We also must deal with a sharp rise in scams this time of year that prey upon already-taxed taxpayers.

The state Attorney General’s Office has seen “a tremendous increase in the number of IRS scams being reported,” says Rebecca Branch, deputy director of the Consumer Protection Division.

“I anticipate that these will continue in full force until April,” she says.

Among the most common is the one in which a caller tells you he is from the IRS and that you owe money. If you don’t send payment immediately, you are threatened with dire consequences – anything from police arrest to license revocation to deportation.

Or callers might tell you that you are due a refund and try to trick you into sharing private information. “These con artists can sound convincing when they call,” an IRS news release says. “They may know a lot about you.”

They often alter caller ID numbers to make it look like the IRS is calling, and they might use fake names and bogus IRS badge numbers. They often leave “urgent” callback requests.

In fact, these types of calls are such a “persistent and pervasive problem” that they top the IRS’ 2015 “Dirty Dozen” list, which details the most-common scams hitting taxpayers.

“If someone calls unexpectedly claiming to be from the IRS with aggressive threats if you don’t pay immediately, it’s a scam artist calling,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “The first IRS contact with taxpayers is usually through the mail.”

New Mexicans have been bilked out of a total of $26,000 since October 2013, due to this type of scam. Nationwide, about 290,000 such calls have been made during that period, tricking 3,000 victims out of more than $14 million, federal officials say.

The scammers’ prime goal – besides getting your money, of course – is to frighten you so that you will become their next target.

For example, one Albuquerque woman said the man who contacted her used a “threatening tone,” while another local resident said he was told the supposed IRS call represented his “final notice.”

The IRS says there are five classic scam elements that will tip you off because the IRS never:
•Uses email, text messages or any social media to discuss your personal tax issues involving bills or refund.
•Demands immediate payment, nor will the agency call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill.
•Demands that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount it says you owe.
•Requires that you use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card.
•Asks for credit- or debit-card numbers over the phone.
•Threatens to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

There are other tax-related cons for you to be aware of this time of year.

It’s especially important to guard your private information, so you don’t become a victim of identity theft. Once someone has stolen your name, your Social Security number or other personal details, they can fraudulently file a tax return in your name and claim the refund. If you believe your identity has been stolen, call the IRS at 800-908-4490 so the agency can secure your account.

Be aware that scam artists pose as tax preparers. They promise large federal tax refunds, promoting their claims with fliers, advertisements, storefronts or even word of mouth involving community groups or churches, according to the IRS. This type of fraud tends to prey on people who don’t earn enough income to file a return or who are non-English speakers.

They might dupe you into making claims for fictitious rebates, benefits or tax credits or divert your refund.

Use care when choosing a tax preparer because you will be the one who ends up penalized for filing false claims or receiving fraudulent refunds.

Honest people and companies generally: Ask for proof of income and eligibility for credits and deductions; sign returns as the preparer; enter their IRS Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) and provide the taxpayer a copy of the return.

Albuquerque police are warning of a different kind of scam, one in which the caller will tell you a family member has been kidnapped and that you must pay $3,000 for the person’s release.

He or she will start out asking “oblique, personal information questions …, under the auspices of a family member being involved in an automobile accident,” an APD news release says. “The caller then uses this information to make the threat more personal.”

Calls like these have been received in Albuquerque and in northern New Mexico and have come from the same number: 505-428-8866, which is a disposable cellphone purchased in Santa Fe, police say.

Ellen Marks is assistant business editor at the Albuquerque Journal. Contact her at emarks@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3842 if you are aware of what sounds like a scam. To report a scam to law enforcement, contact the New Mexico Consumer Protection Division toll-free at 1-800-678-1508.

It can happen to you. And what you can do about it…

March 6, 2014
By: Christopher Budd (Global Threat Communications)

We’ve heard the phrase “it can happen to anyone” many times in life in many different contexts. The point of the saying is to humble us and remind us that no matter how smart and careful we are, bad things can still happen to us. We’re not so smart and careful that we can control everything.
In the realm of security and privacy, it’s very easy for people to start thinking that they can prevent bad things from happening if they’re smart and careful enough. There’s a tendency to think “Oh, people get malware because they’re stupid or go to bad sites like porn” or “people’s credit cards get stolen because they used it on dangerous sites or got malware on their system.”
While I’ve never gone so far as to think these things, I certainly think of myself as a relatively savvy, sophisticated user. I’ve been in the security and privacy business for over fifteen years. I do all the best practices, I’m careful. I’ve never had malware on my system to date (touch wood). I’ve never had my credit card stolen.
That is, until a few weeks ago.
My charmed life came to an end via email from my credit card company one Friday evening. It asked, did I make a charge for $268 with an online vitamin seller in Florida? I knew I hadn’t made that charge. I checked with my wife and she hadn’t either. So that would be no, that’s not my charge.
Fortunately I was home when I got the message and so immediately logged into my online account.  I verified online the number for their anti-fraud division and called them while I was reviewing my pending charges. I saw the charge for dinner that I had just made, that was OK. I saw a couple of other charges of mine from the past day or two, those were OK. Then I saw a charge for $4.11 at a hotel in Naples, Florida. I’ve never been to Naples, Florida in my life, so I recognized that as a problem.
After a short wait, I was connected to an anti-fraud agent. I explained that the charge they asked about wasn’t mine. I also alerted them that the $4.11 charge was false (this was most likely a test charge to see if the card was still active). I told her that the other charges were valid. She denied the invalid charges, kept the valid ones and then we went through the process of cancelling that card and reissuing it.
Over the next couple of days I took time to do full security scans on all my systems that I use for online banking (they came up clean). I checked my other credit card statements for any unauthorized activity (no issues there). I’ve mentioned before that I have a real-time identity-theft and credit monitoring service: I was very happy to have that because that gave me confidence that nothing else had happened yet. I contacted my service and put a credit watch in place to thwart any possible future attempts to open unauthorized credit cards. I checked my
credit report to make sure nothing slipped through and was opened without my knowing (nothing was).
Once I was done with all of that I then moved out of alert mode into watch mode and have been watching my statements closely to see if there’s any other unauthorized activity. So far, though, there hasn’t. I’ll keep watching closely like this for a few weeks yet.
So there’s the obvious question: how did this happen? None of the obvious means of loss apply to me here. I’ve never lost possession of my card save for at restaurants when you have to give it for them to run the check. So how this card was stolen is a mystery. Most likely the data was lost or stolen through issues with a back-end processor or a retailer.
And that’s really the point of this article. In this era of Target-type data breaches, the simple fact is that now more than ever these things really can happen to anyone. You can do all the right things and still fall victim because someone else isn’t doing the right thing. And this means you have to be prepared for bad things to happen unexpectedly, despite your best efforts.
To help you in case something like this should happen to you, here are ten tips on what to do to better protect yourself in case something like this happens to you and help you recover as quickly as possible.
TOP 10 TIPS: WHAT TO DO BEFORE OR AFTER CREDIT FRAUD
Before an incident
1.Make sure all of your computers and mobile devices that you use for online banking and finance are fully up to date for security updates and signatures (and don’t use Windows XP after April 2014).
2.Make sure all of your systems that you use for online banking and finance run mature security packages when they can.
3.If your credit card company offers an alerting service for suspicious charges, sign up for it.
4.Consider enrolling in a real-time identity-theft and credit monitoring service.

If an incident occurs

1.If contacted by your credit card company about a suspicious charge, respond to it immediately. Make sure you verify the phone number they are calling from either on your card or on the card issuer’s website.
2.Work with your credit card company to review all charges and cancel and replace the card right away.
3.Do a full security scan of all systems you use for online banking and finance.
4.Consider putting a credit alert in place to help prevent new accounts being opened in your name.
5.Review your credit report.
6.Review all of your credit card statements. Consider doing so on a daily or near daily basis after the event. Also consider verifying by reviewing your paper statements (some malware can alter online statements to hide malicious activity).