New and Diverse tactics of Internet Criminals

Link to us: http://sn.im/v1vwq

Will you help your friends when they are in need and ask you for helps? I guess most of us would help them whenever we can and will try our very best to help them as they are our friends. It is a very common characteristic and value which most of the human has. Sadly, those Internet criminals out there see it as a weakness of human being and start to take advantage of it to swindle others’ money. Previously in our posts, we were talking about how scammers or criminals approach you with an identity of a stranger who you are not close to. However, the ways they approach their ‘preys’ is no longer the same.

On the 16th March 2010, CNN releases Internet fraud-related news in CNNMoney.com talking about the increasing of the Internet fraud cases and some new tactics used by criminals in committing Internet frauds. Nowadays, scammers become more and more savvy and cunning as they come out with new ways to commit crimes through Internet.

"We're seeing that the criminals are using new and diverse tactics to reach out to people," Kane said. "They'll take over your account and then use your identity to ask money from friends for an emergency. Instead of coming from a stranger, it's coming from someone who is supposedly your friend." said John Kane, manager of research for the Internal Crime Complaint Center.

Now, as you can see, even the criminals are reaching out to you through the social networking sites! Perhaps it is Facebook? Twitter? Flikr or Friendster? What is more scary is that they hack into your account and use your identity to pretend as you to cheat money from your friends in your friend list without you knowledge. In the same way, they can also hack into your friend’s account and pretend as your friend to ask for financial assistance.
Imagine this, if one day, your friend in facebook who claims that he or she is having an emergency which need RM5000. You are the ONLY person that she/he trusts, so in this critical time she can’t believe anyone but YOU to help her. What will you do? Will you help her? Sometimes, in this situation, we can’t think rationally, hence, the tendency of us helping our ‘friend’ is high.

Therefore, no matter how; the first thing you should do is to calm down and think what to do next after you receive such a message from your friend who asking for money. Then, call your friend to confirm that the message is sent by your friend. If your friend insisted that do not contact her through phone, then you should be skeptical. Anyway, you must get your friends clarify everything by themselves.
Besides, to avoid your account from being hacked and taken over, create a stronger password using alpha-numerical characters. Once you get to know that your account is being hacked, you should report the case to the social networking site host and then inform all your friends that your account is being hacked so that they will not be the victims of the hacker.

References: Aaron Smith, Nigerian prince still wants your money, CNNMoney.com [Online], Retrieved on 24th March 2010, URL: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/news/economy/internet_fraud_fbi/index.htm

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