5 Unexpected Benefits of Fighting Fraud From Home
I’m home. I’m working. I’m working at home. Such is our new way of life fraud fighters. And there are few if any exceptions. Much of the world is on lockdown as we humans collectively fight off this virus together. And we can fight fraud together too. We know that fraudsters love chaos and they […]
Western Union Refunds $143 Million to Fraud Victims
It’s payback time! Western Union set up a fund to pay back victims of wire fraud that used their service to pay scammers. 109,000 wire fraud victims were collectively paid $143 Million dollars yesterday. That’s an average check size of $1,311 which is a pretty nice size. According to the US Department of Justice, victims […]
Man Defrauds Poor Girl Scout Selling Cookies
Every year, tens and thousands of young girls go out and learn about the value of hard work by selling girl scout cookies to raise funds for their troop. But this year, one girl learned a completely different lesson while selling cookies – you can’t always trust someone – even when they are paying cash. […]
The Worst Fraud Project I Had In The History of Ever
In 2007, I was assigned to a 1 week project in Southern California. I was hired to help perform due diligence for a mortgage investor to identify if there were any fraud in loan files that they were about to purchase. I was a little apprehensive at first, because I had never looked in a […]
Hackers Are Using Fraud Scores to Sell Your Data
Your yahoo account credentials from 1999 may sell for 10 cents on the dark web, but your Netflix username and password could fetch $2 or more. Access to your router, however, could run as high as $15 if it’s considered low risk by hackers. It’s all because hackers are using the same types of fraud […]
Got Fraud? The Thief Could Be Someone You Know
For many years I was a fraud investigator, researching cases of fraud after the fact. My job was to find out who committed the fraud so we could report them to the police, or try to get the money back for the bank. It was an interesting job. And it opened my eyes. I spoke […]
Mortgage Fraud Risk Falls to Historic Low
First American today released the First American Loan Application Defect Index for January 2020, which estimates the frequency of defects, fraudulence and misrepresentation in the information submitted in mortgage loan applications. The index, which is released each quarter, shows that mortgage fraud risk has dropped to its lowest level in the last 9 years in large part […]
$7 Million Fraud Involved 31,000 Cars, 31 Car Dealers
Curbstoning is the act of selling used vehicles under the false pretense of being the car’s owner in order to evade city or state regulations imposed on authorized automotive dealers. But it can also involve individuals that try to skirt state dealer licensing laws by “borrowing” legitimate dealers licenses to sell cars. It’s big business and […]
Synthetic Identity Contagion Spreads to Apartment Rentals
Don wasn’t a very good credit risk. In fact, he defaulted on just about every credit card and loan he ever had. He had been evicted from just about every apartment he had ever rented, couldn’t hold down a job and spent his day partying and causing havoc. He was about as lousy as paying […]
Online Fraud Will Cause $200 Billion in Losses in 4 Years
Juniper Research found that businesses in eCommerce, airline ticketing, money transfer, and banking services, will cumulatively lose over $200 billion to online payment fraud between 2020 and 2024, driven by the increased sophistication of fraud attempts and the rising number of fraud types. In research published this week, Juniper advises that the payments industry is […]
The $3 Billion Fraud Ghost Account Nightmare Ends
It looks like Wells Fargo may finally be closing the chapter on some of the darkest days in their long history. The fraud began over 18 years ago, and yesterday Wells began to close the chapter by admitting their wrongdoing and agreeing to pay a massive fine. Yesterday the DOJ announced that Wells agreed to […]
Fifth Third Bank Gets Hit By Internal Employee Fraud Ring
It appears that Fifth Third Bank has been stung by an employee fraud ring that stole customer information. Fifth Third reported that customer information was stolen by a group of employees who sold the information to people outside of the company. Thos people than used the stolen customer information to set up fraudulent credit accounts […]
FBI Reports Internet Fraud Climbs 32% in 2019
The internet is connecting everyone in the world together and drawing us closer together. And while that is a good thing in many cases, it also is providing a ripe hunting ground from fraudsters and scammers that are trying to steal your money. This week the FBI, reports that fraud on the internet rose to […]
Fannie Mae Warns Lenders of Fake Employers Used in Fraud
Fannie Mae has a program to alert lenders to employers that Mortgage Brokers use to facilitate their fraud schemes. In 2018, they reported a list of over 30 employers that were involved in known fraud schemes and warned lenders to watch out for these employers on incoming applications. Fannie Mae warned that if one of […]
How Long Will It Take To Hack Your Password?
As an authentication method, passwords obviously suck. But we’re stuck with them and have to make the most of them. The reason passwords suck is because data breaches have rendered them nearly useless. Over 5 billion records were breached last year and many of those records contained your passwords and sign-on credentials to sites you […]
Using CPN’s Are Landing People in Jail
A recent expose on CPN use by NBC’s Scott Friedman shows how the seedy element of the credit repair business is landing some consumers of their services in jail. The investigation focuses on one consumer – Swatisha Keith. All that she wanted was a better life with better credit to help buy things she needed […]
Check Fraud Climbs to $15.8 Billion as Check Use Declines
If you think the only people that write checks are kindly old ladies at the supermarket checkout line, think again. Fraudsters and scammers are writing more bad checks than ever. So why is check fraud in the US is spiking to historical highs, even as check use has declined to it’s lowest levels? Attempted Check […]
Confession of A Nespresso Fraud Money Mule
Here is a fascinating video where Nina Kollars inadvertently found herself dealing with a complex scheme involving Nespresso Coffee Pods. In Nina’s own words – In 2018 I somewhat innocently bought very expensive coffee (Nespresso capsules) online from Ebay. What followed was a series of unexpected additional packages from the manufacturer Nespresso and a lurking […]
Get Ready for Gas Station Fraud Armageddon in 2020
Gas stations around the US are rushing to upgrade their fuel pumps in order to accept Chip Cards by the October 2020 deadline. Even though they were given extraordinary leeway and an extra 3 years to upgrade their pumps, many chose to wait until the last minute to comply. A new report by Conexxus, a […]
Personal Data Can Prevent Fraud – Here’s How.
Millions of Californians now have more rights than ever before when it comes to their personal online data. That includes the right to find out what’s been collected and ensure it is not sold. That new legislation is called California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and many other states are following suit. Most consumers think that […]
Loan Fraud is Shooting Up and Up and Up in India
Not a day goes by that I don’t read an article about the problem of loan fraud in India. It started a couple of years ago with the massive $1.8 Billion Dollar loan fraud at Punjab National Bank and it has only gotten worse. That case which involved 3 bank insiders working with billionaire Nirav […]