Damn those Scams

My sister is in Ghana for the summer educating the locals on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. She’s in a small village and recently just found a small local internet cafe shop in the village. Before, she had to trek 30 minutes by car into the city to have access but now its a small walk away. What’s surprising is what she told me while she was in the cafe:

all the locals here
are doing internet fraud
i see people here with notebooks of cc numbers buying crap online
it’s VERY SCARY
west africans since they have access to the internet
countries like uganda are too poor or war riddenn
here they are free and have time to do it they literally buy crap!

You’ve been warned.

There was a story this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America about scams. Here are the 5 but you’ll probably want to go and read the whole story to get an in depth view of what each entails.

5 Scams Consumers Need to Know About
No. 1: The Phony Job Scam.
No. 2: The Overpayment Scam.
No. 3: The Lottery Scam.
No. 4: Vishing.
No. 5: Called ID Spoofing.

They also have a “Savvy Consumer” site that has lots of information about not getting scammed. Probably a good idea to skim over the site.

A friend posted this last week and I got her permission to repost it here to alert everyone else:

Has anyone else been getting crank calls in Spanish asking you to call some 1-800 number back and when the man talks it sounds like he was cut off mid conversation when he leaves a msg? They keep calling a couple times a week on my cell phone. I have no idea how they got hold of my number. After talking to a few co-workers, they’ve also said they’ve gotten the same thing. Strange. What is that all about? Hmm.

And the Truth about Cell Phones and the Do Not Call Registry List from the Federal Trade Commission.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/01/dnccellphones.htm

Apparently, I have seen fake websites and mass e-mails passed around scamming people into putting their numbers into these fake cell phone registries. What happened was the opposite. Instead of getting your number blocked, you end up getting more calls. Only the FTC site and number are legitimate. Remember there is only ONE DNC Registry. There is no separate registry for cell phones.

EDIT- a few mins of googling brought me to:

Two pages that had the same exact complaint. File a report on them and DO NOT CALL the missed number or number left in the voicemail back. It’s a scam to get you to pay for the crook’s calls.
https://digitalstylz.wordpress.com/2006/03/28/786-879-6669/

http://www.clampants.com/archives/000232.html

And a page about all the different kinds of phone frauds and how to stop them. Wow! I didn’t know there were that many!

http://www.consumer-action.org/english/articles/264#Topic_02

Maybe I’ll disconnect my cell phone and go back to using pagers. This is ridiculous. Or better yet, just send me a good, old fashioned snail mail.

Worley scrolled through his in-box and opened an e-mail, addressed to “CEO/Owner.” The writer said that his name was Captain Joshua Mbote, and he offered an awkwardly phrased proposition: “With regards to your trustworthiness and reliability, I decided to seek your assistance in transferring some money out of South Africa into your country, for onward dispatch and investment.” Mbote explained that he had been chief of security for the Congolese President Laurent Kabila, who had secretly sent him to South Africa to buy weapons for a force of élite bodyguards. But Kabila had been assassinated before Mbote could complete the mission. “I quickly decided to stop all negotiations and divert the funds to my personal use, as it was a golden opportunity, and I could not return to my country due to my loyalty to the government of Laurent Kabila,” Mbote wrote. Now Mbote had fifty-five million American dollars, in cash, and he needed a discreet partner with an overseas bank account. That partner, of course, would be richly rewarded.

(click on title for full story)

[via digg]

I got another call from that damn number. I refuse to pick it up, because, well, I think its a waste of time to reason with these scammers. You think that if I ask them nicely with sugar on top that they’ll even give a moment’s thought about taking me off of some list, or that they’ll feel like its their moral obligation to not bother me? Hell no. They want to take my money, and if they can’t, they’ll hang up and pester me another time when they think I’ve forgotten. God I hate these telemarketers

Apparently there’s a family tiff going on where a renowned neuroscientist/psychiatrist lost up to 3 million US dollars in a nigerian scam. And now his son has filed a lawsuit to remove him as the administrator of the family’s multimillion dollar partnership. So now I know why scamming is the third largest industry in Nigeria, because even the best of us can be lured into a scam by greed and just not being aware of there are a lot of shady people out there in the world.

“While it seems unlikely, even ludicrous, that a highly educated doctor like (Gottschalk) would fall prey to such an obvious con, that is exactly what happened,” the son’s attorney wrote in court papers.

Read more about it here from CBS.

The Coshocton Tribune is reporting of a scam where emails are being sent that are supposedly from the “Social Security Administration” that alerts you that your identity has been stolen, and sends you to a phony “official SSA” website where they ask you to verify your social security number, bank info, etc.  You know the drill.  DON’T DO IT!

Once directed to the phony site the individual is asked to confirm their identity with “Social Security and bank information.” Specific information about the individual’s credit cad number, expiration date and PIN number is then requested.

Whether on the agency’s Web site or by phone, Social Security will never ask you for your credit card information or your PIN number.

I got this email forward from a family member, and after checking out snopes.com to see if it was as urban legend or not, turns out its not.  In fact snopes says: Real fraud, potential for financial harm unknown.  As always, never give out your social security number, nor any other relevant information to anyone unless you called them, or you know who you’re dealing with.

Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, but enough
people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam
has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS
news.

In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who
threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you
didn’t show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury
coordinator.

If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the
scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he
or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant.
Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this
information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma,
Illinois, and Colorado.

This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation
over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by
pretending they’re with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on
their websites, warning consumers about the fraud.

The Washington Post is running a nice article about how the current tax season in the US is increasing the number of “relevant” phishing emails everyone will be getting in hopes of scamming us out of our bank account numbers, social security numbers, or anything else a scammer can use to steal our money,credit and/or identity.

“Usually these things peak around the time taxes are due,” said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and research for the Internet Web security firm Websense. “Basically it’s another timely current event that’s on top of people’s lists and another lure to deceive people into giving away credentials in some way.”

And scammers are capitalizing on the fact that more than half of all tax returns are expected to be filed electronically this year. Consider this recent e-mail claiming to be from the IRS: “You filed your tax return and you’re expecting a refund. You have just one question and you want the answer now. Where’s My Refund? Access this secure Web site to find out . . .”

The Web site looked like the real IRS site. But it wasn’t.

NPR’s On The Media program has a pretty interesting story on the Nigerian scammers and why they’re never getting the justice for being such annoying scammers. Its a good listen, so take a listen and then take a look at their site to make a comment.

The Longest Con
It’s estimated to the third largest industry in Nigeria, grossing hundreds of millions a year, and it may be the most successful confidence game in the world. It’s the Nigerian e-mail scam. Victims are often left with no legal recourse, due to corruption in Nigeria and the high price of international investigations. And so they’ve banded together to take the law into their own hands. Legal Affairs contributor Josh Rosenblum explains to Bob how an online posse was formed.