Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud( 419 Fraud)

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Advance fee fraud is commonly known as where an investor is asked to pay money in advance before receiving any stocks, goods or warrants in order for the deal to go through. The fee can be on many forms either by commission, regulatory fee, or even tax. Advance fee scheme normally target investors who have already purchased their goods on unsecure web sites, or through a ‘Middle Man’ website that will collect information’s about your purchasing and requires you to pay an advance fee.

The most commonly advance fee fraud is the ‘Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud’. In this scheme there will be someone pretending to be a Nigerian officer, a civil servant or a business person who will email you informing individuals to help transfer money to a Nigerian Bank account reason being to help individuals and companies to earn mutual benefits, help move millions of dollars out from the country in exchange of a higher commission and profits. They will ask about your companies letter head, address, telephone number and will also strictly inform you not to inform any officials claiming its private and confidential between both parties. If you are not careful and respond to these scheme and blindly send them your companies’ letter head, bank account number they are able to rob the victim’s bank by taking money, swamping visas or even sell to other similar criminals.

This scheme has rise tremendously therefore the US government of The U.S Secret Service have came up with laws to combat these fraud by setting up a special task force dedicating to only Nigerian Advance Fee Frauds.

Therefore be careful while opening and responding to an email. Read the content of the email properly before signing up and agreeing to something. Of you are not too sure about the content and hesitating about the truthfulness of the content don’t ignore the email by not responding or simply by deleting it. Go with your instincts.

References: U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, “Advance Fee Fraud” Schemes, Modified on January 29, 2008.

URL: http://www.sec.gov/answers/nigeria.htm

References: United States Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law and Enforcement Affairs, Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud,

URL: http://www.state.gov/www/regions/africa/naffpub.pdf

Phishing? Fishing?

Link to us: http://snipr.com/unhmq

Phishing? Do you mean ‘fishing’? Undeniable, both of the terms have the same pronunciation but meanings. Most of the people do not know what phishing is and some might heard about phishing but do not know how it works. Hence, the objective of this post is to tell more and let the readers learn more about phishing. Generally, phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. (Reference: Webopedia, Definition of Phishing [Online], Retrieved on 3rd March 2010, URL: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html) Why is it called phishing? The term phishing is given as Internet scammers are using e-mail lures or as a bait to ‘fish’ for passwords, financial and personal data from the ‘sea’ of the Internet users.

How does phishing works?

Typically, it is considered as phishing when an email from a legitimate organization is directed to the user and gives a link to request the user to visit a website where they are asked to update their personal information such as passwords, bank account numbers, social security and credit card details. However, the website is a just a bogus website that is set up only to steal the users’ information.

Ways to protect yourself from being phished

1. Don’t give out information the company should have
Companies will never simply ask for sensitive information through Internet which they already have such as usernames, credit card numbers and passwords but phishers will. So, do not simply fill in forms that ask for sensitive information.

2. Keep Your Email and Instant Message Addresses Private
To keep yourself safe from the phishers, you have to first prevent them from landing in your email inbox. Make yourself different email addresses for your trusted friends, and family, one for financial institution and one for general use. Many of the email providers will allow users to redirect emails from each of these different addresses to one account to minimize the inconvenience of checking each account.

3. If you are in doubt:

i) Immediately Report Suspected Phishing Contacts
If you suspect that the email which you receive is a phishing scam, report the case immediately by forwarding the email to reportphishing@antiphsihing.org or spam@uce.gov. Besides, almost every bank or credit card lender has their own website where allows customers to report suspicious emails and instant messages.

ii) Call the company directly
You can also call the company’s customer service phone number straight away to confirm if the email is from the company itself.

(Reference: cnet.reviews official website, How to avoid phishing scams [Online], Retrieved on 3rd Macrch 2010 URL: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3000_7-6459186-1.html)

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PayPal Scams

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Online shopping have became a trend these days from buying clothes, accessories, toys, to antic things etc. online business are blooming like mushroom these days, creating blogs and website to promote their business and some are very successful. Purchasing via online is easy, convenient and flexible however there are its disadvantages-internet scams!

If you are an online shopper and uses Pay Pal be careful. There are tons of scammers targeting PayPal users by sending users an official looking email asking them to verify their account and personal information. The whole email looks as if its real by including its logo, graphics, and page format. These scammers will send emails saying that PayPal is trying to detect unused accounts and email addresses and Pay Pal has been encountering problems with their software and therefore files have been lost, whatever way the content of the page is written the main motif of these scammers are asking users to update or verify their personal and credit card information. There are times where forms provided for this purpose right in the email; other times there is a link directing the recipient of the email to another site where they are to enter their information.

The sole purpose of all this is to get a users details and cheat them out of money. Once these scammers get hold of this information these users will be the next victim of identity thief.
References: PayPal Scams, Scam Laws [Online], Retrieved on 1st March 2010, URL: http://www.spamlaws.com/paypal-scam.html

Here are few guidelines that users can follow to prevent from being a victim:-

1. Log in safely
Open a new window browser and type in PayPal’s URL

2. Check email greetings
PayPal always address their users by their first and last name or the business associated with your PayPal account. However a PayPal scam email will address by using ‘Dear PayPal user’ or ‘Dear PayPal member.

3. Don’t download and share personal information by email
PayPal will never send you attachments to download and will also never ask for passwords and financial information through an email.

4. Password safety
Keep your password private and confidential don’t share it with others if you doubt anyone knows change it immediately. Try using a more secure password by choosing a more unique password for example a combination of alphabets, numbers and symbols. Don’t use the same password for PayPal and other online services like, Yahoo, MSN, etc, as using the same password will increase the likelihood that someone could learn your password and gain access to your account.

References: PayPal, Security Tips and Fraud Prevention
URL: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fraud-prevention-outside

Identity Theft

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Image taken from: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/identity-theft_03.jpg

Day by day, from newspaper, radio station, news in the television and sometimes even magazine do often reminds their audience to be more careful and conscious about the fraud problems happening around. Therefore there are often that we could hear and see people talking about identity theft but how many people knows that it is a term used that is to refer to fraud? Seldom people take caution of this word but I would like to say that this word is even more obvious and more frequent shown in all those media lately as when economy is bad people then to use more such ways to swindle people to gain more money and however those people that got con is those people that somehow too greedy as they expect better and higher return after contributing or given a certain payment. Identity theft is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personal information, such as Social Security or driver's license numbers, in order to impersonate someone else.
(URL: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci801871,00.html 2009)

The information can be used to get goods, credit, and services in the name of the victim, or to offer the thief with false identification. Moreover to running up debt, an imposter might give fake identification to police to create a criminal record or as well leave an outstanding arrest warrants for someone whose identity has been stolen. According to the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center and other related sources, identity theft can be sub-divided into many different categories for example like business/commercial identity theft which is using another's business name to obtain credit, where else criminal identity theft is by posing as another when apprehended for a crime, financial identity theft in using another identity to obtain goods and services, identity cloning In using another's information to assume his or her identity in daily life and last but not lease the medical identity theft in using another's information to obtain medical care or drugs.

Below are the example cases that happen and is the true story.

Business/commercial identity theft

The California Department of Justice recently announced the arrest of Orange County travel agent Ralph Rendon. “The suspect allegedly ripped off dozens of senior citizens who wanted to travel to Cuba for religious and cultural purposes,” says California Attorney General Jerry Brown. The scam targeted Jewish and Greek Orthodox seniors trying to congregate with people of their own faith on the Caribbean island. After the 34 victims forked out five-figure deposits, Rendon announced their trips were being blocked by the Treasury Department and refused to refund their money. According to investigators, he used the money to lease a brand new Mercedes, pay his rent and hire a divorce attorney.

References: Travel scams to avoid (Seniors, Beware), New Straits Times Press Malaysia, [Online], Retrieved on 27 January 2010
URL: http://travel.nst.com.my/Current_News/TravelTimes/article/TravelTips/20080922175726/Article/index_html

Criminal identity theft
A case on points is the case of Edward Enderton an American Ivy League graduate who was sentence to a 4 years jail term for stealing identities and living in a lavish live at other people's expense, of course.

Reference: Ivy League Graduate Sentenced to 4 years in prison for elaborate ID theft scheme, associated press [Online], Retrieved on 27 January 2010.
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,451944,00.html

Financial identity theft

I was a victim of such identity theft recently when my identity card and credit cards were exchanged with someone-else into my wallet to delay the detection of theft. I only realized the theft when I was contacted by the bank after having earlier approved three suspicious transactions involving large amounts. I wonder what the point of such verification when it should was had been carried out much earlier before allowing those transactions to be approved. As expected the bank insisted that I to be held responsible for the fraudulent transactions and demanded me to settle the outstanding balances.

Reference: Engkhim, Fraudulent Credit Card Transaction, Star Publication (M) Bhd [Online], Retrieved on 27 January 2010
URL: http://blog.thestar.com.my/default.asp?page=88&cat=6

Identity cloning

DANNY Jeynes has always wanted a BMW. Two months ago, he bought one. It should have been a happy time for 26-year-old Danny. Instead, he found himself caught up in a nightmare with police accusations of dangerous driving hanging over him. In fact, he was the victim of identity theft. But it was not his credit card that the thief had cloned. It was his car number plate.

Reference: Helen, The new car-cloning ID Fraud, This is money is part of Daily mail, The mail on sunday& Metro Media Group Associated Newspaper Limited 2010
URL: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/credit-and-loans/id-fraud/article.html?in_article_id=410004&in_page_id=159

Medical identity theft

Brandon Reagin didn't realize someone had snatched his medical identity until his mother called to tell him he was the lead suspect in a car theft in South Carolina in 2005. The 22-year-old marine had lost his wallet more than a year earlier while celebrating with friends after completing boot camp at Parris Island, near Beaufort, S.C. After his training, he was posted to California. But in South Carolina, Reagin lived on, as an impostor used his military ID and driver's license to not only test-drive new cars and then steal them but also visit hospitals on several occasions to treat kidney stones and an injured hand, running up nearly $20,000 in medical charges. Reagin found out about the unpaid hospital bills when he asked for a credit report following the car theft. "It was horrible," he says. "And what made it worse is that no one really knew what to do when it first started happening."

Reference: Michelle Andrews, Medical Identity Theft Turns Patients Into Victims, U.S News & World Report, Retrieved on 27 January 2010.
URL: http://www.usnews.com/health/family-health/articles/2008/02/29/medical-identity-theft-turns-patients-into-victims.html

Therefore as the conclusion is it advisable that we should be more caution about the news around us as this is a way to prevent the bad incident repeat again. At least we are able to avoid the same method of identity theft that hits on us. Besides that many companies themselves are doing many prevention and protection for their customer to provide best services.

For example,

The Credit Monitoring Services (CMS) system monitors key changes in banking and business information, trade credit information as well as credit ratings of SMEs. These changes in data are then sent out as email alerts to SMEs who subscribe to the service. By alerting them, Lim says the CMS can prevent fraud and identity theft as well as any discrepancies or changes to their credit information. Identity theft occurs, for example, if an SME’s identity is used illegally to apply for credit, and changes to credit information occur when there is new loan applications, inquiries by financial institutions, and other credit guarantors and utilities related updates.

Reference: Daljit Dhesi, SME Credit Bureau to launcg country's first Credit Monitoring Services for SMEs, The Star Publication (M) Bhd, Retrieved on 27 January 2010
URL: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/16/business/5473636&sec=business

Due to the reason above is it better we do our own prevention than to wait others people to prevent it for us. At least we ourselves should do some effort to be more caution in any transactions.

Chiw