40% of Consumers in the UK Were Victims of Card Fraud
The Financial Fraud Action Committee released a shocking statistic this week. Apparently over 5 million people in the UK were forced to close their card accounts after their accounts were compromised. The numbers indicate that 40% of all UK consumers fell victim to card fraud which is higher than the rates prior to the implementation […]
Half a Billion Records Hacked in Worst Breach in History
500 million records. That is 300 million more records than experts originally believed but Yahoo is reporting today that 500 million records were breached 2 years ago in what they believe was a state sponsored hack. A Russian hacker named ‘Peace” who was originally tied to the massive Linkedin Data Breach of 117 million records […]
US CNP Fraud Projected To Double With CHIP
Fraud is not static. You can’t put a fraud hurdle like CHIP cards in front of the fraudsters and not expect their behavior to change significantly to get around it. Industry experts are pointing to a growing type of fraud here in the US – Card Not Present – and advising that it is likely […]
Wells Fargo CEO Grilled Over Fraud And Gets Destroyed
I don’t think I have ever seen a congressional hearing that managed to so thoroughly destroy a CEO. There is a lot of frustration over the rampant fraud at Wells Fargo.
UK Fraud Rockets Up 53% in 2016
The Financial Fraud Action Committee has released their latest study on fraud in the UK and found that fraud attempts occur every 15 seconds. The study determined a huge increase in actual fraud attempts when comparing data from 2016 to 2015. A total of 1,007,094 cases of financial fraud (payment card, remote banking and cheque fraud) […]
How Rich Kids of Instagram Help Investigators
Yachts, champagne, cars, closets full of Gucci Bags and excessive glamour. If you haven’t checked out Rich Kids of Instagram you need to now. Rich Kids of Instagram might make your blood boil as you browse through picture after picture of entitled teens shamelessly sharing their excessive worth. They have more money than you will ever […]
Florida Dominates Mortgage Fraud Index
Core Logic, the mortgage analytics and research firm has published their latest updates on Mortgage Fraud in the US and Florida continues to be the epicenter of fraud. The CoreLogic Mortgage Fraud Index tracks application characteristics in their consortium, scores each application for risks of fraud and then aggregates those statistics to analyze the macro […]
Toxic Sales Culture Leads to Massive Firing at Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo just paid the largest penalty to the CFPB in history and it’s all because 5,300 employees setup close to half a billion phony credit card accounts and another 1.5 million banking accounts and services. You can download a copy of the complaint here and it is serious stuff – Wells Fargo Law-Suit Read […]
How Investor Uncovered Shady Loans at Lending Club
The devil is in the details. One savvy investor in the Lending Club discovered this when he began to do some due diligence on the innovative lending company earlier this year. He uncovered a systematic fraud attempt at the Lending Club by downloading loan details from their website and analyzing the approved loans for commonalities and inconsistencies. Those inconsistencies […]
Online Fraud Attempts Are Up Almost 400%
The Global Fraud Index published by Forter for Q3 2016 is out and it shows a massive uptick in the level of online fraud losses. From 2015 to 2016, fraudsters have been working overtime racking up more fraud attempts on a rate basis than we have seen for many years. The Global Fraud Index shows […]
In the Fight Against Fraud, Strong Leadership is Key
This article was printed in American Banker and expresses my views on the importance of strong fraud leadership – American Banker Article. With identity theft a top concern among American consumers and large-scale data breaches becoming unfortunately routine, banks must be more proactive than ever in the fight against fraud. One of the crucial steps […]
5 Red Flags That Could Have Stopped $7 Million Fraud
In March of 2016, Michael Birley of the FBI came down hard against perpetrators of of the largest cases of Auto Lending Fraud in many years. In the criminal complaint he outlines the whole sordid scheme which involved over 20 straw borrowers and a whole host of collusive players. – Auto Fraud Auto Lending Fraud Prevention for the […]
Don’t Look Now. Breaches are Down 35% for 2016.
There have been 622 total breaches reported by the Identity Theft resource center in 2016. You can read the entire report here which is quite informative – Identity Theft Resource Center. This was a surprise to me. It seems far less than I have read about in recent years. So I decided to look at […]
Account Takeover Fraud Attempts Are Up Big in 2016
In 2012, LinkedIn reported that about 7 million password credentials were hacked and breached. Well as it turns out, that number was grossly underestimated and was closer to 167 million according to recent reports. To remedy the situation, LinkedIn forced password resets on all affected accounts that they could locate. Problem solved right? Wrong. The […]
The Dark Web is A Garage Sale With Your Information
The Dark Web. You can’t see it. Maybe you have no way to even access it but it is there lurking and impacting you in ways that you don’t even realize. If you’re an average everyday consumer you probably won’t be able to access the Dark Web but you need to know that it’s a […]
Is It Still Too Early to Call Chip Card a Disaster?
I just got back from CVS. I used my credit card there. It was brutal. I have to tell you. It has never been more confusing, inconvenient and downright difficult to pay at the cashier these days. Truth. Using my credit used to be simple and fast. I would go the cashier. They would finish […]
Fraudsters Break EMV With Mag Strip Weakness
This just in. Fraudsters have broken the Chip Card. They have figured out a way to break the once though infallible technology with something remarkably simple. Instead of focusing on the Chip itself, fraudsters focus instead of the magnetic stripe. That’s right. To break the Chip, just change the magnetic stripe. Confused yet? Well I […]
Is LifeLock Really Worth the Price You Pay For It?
Is LifeLock Really Worth It? This is one of the questions I am most frequently asked by people when I tell them I am in Fraud Management. So, if you don’t want to read any further. Here is my short answer – Yes! But, not absolutely always. The real answer is, it depends. If you […]
5 Reasons Fraud is Worse Now Than Any Point in History
Fraud is an epidemic. It is a scourge of the information age. It is a cancer that spreads and then spreads more rapidly as it grows. I took a long hard look at fraud trends across the world, and I determined it isn’t very good. In fact it’s bad and only projected to get worse. Everyone, everywhere […]
Spoofing A Phone Number is So Easy for Fraudsters.
Matching ANI number (when the customer’s phone number they called in from matched the phone number they listed on their account) used to be the Holy Grail of customer authentication for banks. In retrospect that may sound a little naive but I mean if you called in from the same phone number that you opened […]
Wire Fraud is a $30 to $50 Billion Annual Fraud Problem
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t hear about wire fraud. Wire Fraud is the latest fraud trend that is impacting banks from across the world. But not only is it impacting banks, but small businesses and consumers as well. Wire Fraud is an epidemic that is reaching historic levels here in the […]