30,000 Addresses Identified in Unemployment Fraud Ring
Unemployment fraud is still running red hot in California. And there may be no end in sight. This week, CBS13 out of Sacramento, received and analyzed data that appears to show just how widespread the fraud might be. There analysis concluded that more than 30,000 addresses that appear to have been used to apply for […]
Prominent Hawaiian CEO Caught for PPP Fraud
Hawaii is a beautiful place, and not where you would ever consider ground zero for one of the largest SBA loan frauds this year. But today, prominent CEO Martin Kao of Navatek was arrested and charged with fraud on millions in PPP loans. In total, Kao received approximately $12.8 million in PPP funds, over $2 […]
Chase Rolls Out Fraud Service for Small Businesses
The country’s largest lender and bank is rolling out services to help small businesses prevent fraud. And it can’t come a minute to soon. 81% of small businesses were victims of payments fraud last year, and COVID 19 is making the problem even worse in 2020. The FBI reported 24,000 BEC scams in 2019 with […]
Software Glitch Resulted In $500 Million in Missed Fraud
Washington State has been the target of fraudsters since March of 2020. Since then, 86,000 fraudulent claims have been made and experts estimate the state has lost over $1 billion in state funds. This week, sources revealed that a software flaw could have resulted in many of the fraudulent claims being paid. Benefit Checks Were […]
Beverly Hills Nabs 44 Unemployment Fraudsters
Since September 3rd, 2020, the Beverly Hills Police Department (BHPD) has arrested 44 individuals within the City of Beverly Hills responsible for EDD fraud and identity theft. Apparently the city is a hotbed of shopping on those stolen unemployment funds which can be loaded onto Debit Cards. A total of 129 fraudulent EDD credit cards […]
9 Charged in Elaborate Auto Loan Fraud Scheme
Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal today announced that nine individuals have been charged with conspiring to use stolen identities to obtain New Jersey digital driver’s licenses which they used to fraudulently purchase and finance motor vehicles and watercrafts worth more than $1.3 million at dealerships in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. They […]
SAR Filings for Business Loan Fraud Spike Upward
It’s commonly known that Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan fraud is a serious issue here in the United States. And new figures released by FinCEN seem to back that up. Banks filed 1,044 new SARS for “Business Loan Fraud” in July of 2020. That is about 8 times higher the average number of monthly reports […]
Name Match Fraud Check Trips Up Legit Payments
Last year, banks announced a new initiative to cut push payment fraud by re-validating the name on the account customers are transferring to before the transaction is completed. In June, the program officially rolled out under the name Confirmation of Payee (CoP). The new fraud control would allow customers to check that the name of […]
House Committee Finds $4 Billion in Suspect PPP Fraud
Where were the simple fraud checks on PPP Loans? Even members of Congress using simple queries on publically available data sets have been able to find billions in loans that were granted when they probably should not have been. Democrats of the Select Subcommittee on The Coronavirus Crisis released a report today that flags over […]
Synthetic ID’s and Shell Companies Used in PPP Fraud
I am calling PPP Loan Fraud, the loan fraud of the century. It continues to astound me the level of audacity that fraudsters used to extract billions from the program in the blink of an eye. This week, the DOJ announced yet another massive PPP fraud scheme. But this time with a twist. Federal prosecutors […]
PPP Fraud Arrest Just The Tiniest Tip of The Iceberg
“The smallest and tiniest tip of the iceberg.” That is how Hannibal Ware, the Inspector General of the SBA, described the 41 criminal complaints involving $62 Million in fraudulent Paycheck Protection Loans. And if you do the math, and look at the numbers you will realize just how right he is. The sheer size of […]
ID Theft Complaints Soar 2,000% in Illinois
The Illinois Department of Employment Security is reporting some astounding numbers related to unemployment fraud. In a recent article, investigators at the department are reviewing more than 14,000 identity theft claims in the last five months. Last year, during the same time period there were only 651 total claims. That’s a more than 2,000% increase […]
How To Strike a Balance with A Fraud Operations Scorecard
Striking a balance between fraud prevention and customer impact is the hardest part of every fraud managers job. The focus shifts so much it’s like riding a see-saw, and so often organizations fail to strike the optimal balance between impact on fraud and impact on the customer. One day your executives tell you to turn […]
A Wave of Jailed Inmate Unemployment Fraud Hits
They are calling it a fraud at an unprecedented level. Inmates are applying for and then collecting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) while sitting in their jail cells. PUA is a part of the CARES Act, and is a federal program designed to provide assistance to those unemployed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Federal and state […]
Did The Unemployment Rate in Arizona Jump to 82%?
The number of unemployment claims in Arizona has reached 2.8 million now. This is the total number of people in the state that have reportedly filed for unemployment benefits. There is just one small problem. The state only has about 3.4 million workers in total. That would make the unemployment rate for the state over […]
Stunned Woman Gets 70 Fraud Letters For Unemployment
A woman in Kansas City was surprised to see a letter in her mailbox from the Unemployment Office sent to her address but to a name she did not recognize. Then, she got another letter, and another letter, and another and another, and another. By the end of the week she had received 70 different […]
Microsoft and Capital One Collab on Fraud Detection
It isn’t often that you see card issuers and merchants collaborating around data sharing but a new initiative launched by Capital One and Microsoft just may change all of that. Last month, during Microsoft’s quarterly earnings report CEO Satya Nadella, advised that the company was working directly with Capital One to share transactional data to […]
Inmate Unemployment Fraud Ring Found in California
It’s one thing for someone to file for unemployment when they are living in freedom, but it takes it to a whole new level when people in jail claim they deserve unemployment. In fact, filing for unemployment while you are incarcerated is a crime in California. But that just happened last week. 21 people in […]
Indian Student Masterminds International Fraud Scheme
An Indian national has been sentenced to over a year in prison for his role in defrauding about 200 Americans of at least $150,000 with his conspirators in India. Anikkhan Pathan, a student on a F1 Visa, “participated in an international fraud scheme that victimized 200 hard-working Americans.” according to an affidavit that was filed […]
New York Stopped $1 Billion in Unemployment Fraud
The New York State Department of Labor advised that they prevented a whopping $1 billion in fraudulent claims from being paid out since the Pandemic began. And it gets worse. According to the department, they’ve sent more fraud cases to federal prosecutors in the past 5 months than they have in the last 10 years. […]
Mom and Son Convicted in Elaborate $13M Internal Fraud
A Houston mother and her son were convicted this week in an elaborate fraud scheme which involved them working together to steal over $6 million in fraudulent loans from a California bank. It was the largest fraud scheme in the banks 113-year history. A federal jury convicted Carlos Wydler (the son), and Leyla Wydler his […]