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Scams, whose fault?

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This is bit different. Someone scamming the scammer. Also giving the public an insight into how the scam industry works.

Very instructive . Well worth the 10 minutes.

 
The above story highlighted the role of money mules in effecting scams. That was an interesting insight for me.
There is a new story on the ABC website of a very sophisticated scam that netted $300k and used money mules to get the money away.

Well worth checking out and recognising the way the person was conned.

Money mules are involved in the majority of scam reports, ACCC says​

7.30
/
By national consumer affairs reporter Michael Atkin and the Specialist Reporting Team's Loretta Florance
Posted 5h ago5 hours ago, updated 1h ago1 hours ago

The scammers called Jenny on her unlisted landline.(ABC News: Loretta Florance)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article

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Jenny was home alone in her kitchen preparing spaghetti bolognese when she received a phone call that has haunted her for the past two years.

Key points:​

  • Jenny lost almost $300,000 to an elaborate scam
  • Police say 11 'money mules' were involved in shifting her money offshore
  • Often recruited through job ads, money mules have become a big part of the scamming economy

"The landline rang — we have an unlisted number — he said he was from the Commonwealth Bank and he wanted to tell me that our accounts were not secure and our Visa card had suspicious transactions on it," she said.

She immediately went to the study and logged on to her internet banking.

"I saw that was right — there were five transactions in one day and three of them were to a business in Shanghai," she said.
"I was thankful that someone had rung and told me."

But what happened next would come to cost Jenny dearly.
"He said there was someone trying to also hack into our accounts. Then he said, 'I will need to check the security on your computer' and asked me to download TeamViewer," she said.

'Money mules' are working in teams and make up the majority of scams reported in Australia

Over a four-hour phone call, scammers gained access to Jenny's computer and transferred $300,000 out of her account. By the time she alerted the bank, it was too late.
www.abc.net.au
 
Bank scams.

Be aware. If a scammer has gained some access to your account then it is possible for them to gain total access and control of your account by simply getting you to repeat a code number.

This has just happened to a close family friend in Canada. Account and unused credit line drained. Friend frozen out of account.

He spent two hours of frantic calls trying to get through to the bank to report the fraud. Endless waiting on queue.

I also phoned the bank (Royal Bank Canada) from Australia to attempt to make contact and also leave a record of our attempts to stop the fraud. Naturally they couldn't do anything because we weren't the person being defrauded.

What I did demand and get however was a direct line to the Fraud department for RBC. This number is not on the public website. So if you are trying to report a RBC fraud you have to spend inordinate amounts of time in the normal telephone queue and then get moved to the fraud line.

I was able to ring my friend and give them the number.

He rang immediately. They confirmed the accounts were drained and frozen .The conversation was that if he hadn't done anything wrong they would refund the money. Lets hope this plays out ok. Otherwise it will be shattering.

Lessons.

1) Bank scams are dangerously easy to execute. Once scammers have access it takes only a minute or so to empty the account and in this case freeze it. (It is still unclear how much control they had )

2) Banks say call immediately. Yet in this case and I suspect many others the line that goes directly to the fraud section is internal. It is not on the banks public list.

3) It seems from this example that access to your account can be gained with one just reading a series of numbers.

The RBC website list the current scam alerts which target their clients they are aware of. Worth a check.

View Scam Alerts

Protect yourself against cyber criminals by being aware of the latest cyber scam alerts for RBC clients.
www.rbc.com
 
I think banks regularly monitor accounts for unusual transactions. I've had some questions from them on some dubious transactions.
 
SirRumpole said:
I think banks regularly monitor accounts for unusual transactions. I've had some questions from them on some dubious transactions.
Click to expand...
In this case all funds were cleared within a minute. Certainly shocks me at how deadly they were.
 
Update.

The funds did not leave the account

It was a clever scam and they did get into the account. They were attempting to drain all the funds. My friend was watching this happen in real time.

However the RBC bank has systems which do notice such sweeping irregular activities and were able to immediately stop the actual transfer of funds. I suspect the information he got yesterday evening about the funds having gone reflected the bank immediately quarantining all deposits.

All good. Nonetheless a big warning sign about the dangers of scammers. The lucky part I suppose about this one was the inexperience and greed of perps in attempting such sweeping transactions. It's possible of course that they might have got away with it in earlier times or with another bank.

Stay safe

_________________________________

I was also inaccurate about how the scammers got into the account. After further conversations this morning I realised my friend had been tricked into logging on to fake bank website. I was very disturbed with my first impressions. Glad I was wrong.
 

Any idea how the scammers managed to get into the account ?
 
This story is being run across the ABC. Apparently a rapidly rising scam having your phone identity ported to another phone . The scammers can then access bank accounts and they are off to the races.
Scary and effective .

'Invisible robbers' stealing millions in phone porting scam labelled as 'terrifying'​

ABC Central Victoria
/ By Shannon Schubert
Posted 2h ago2 hours ago, updated 57m ago57 minutes ago

Claire Harrison says it's taken months to get her life back to normal after her identity was stolen.(ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)
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In regional Victoria, it's not uncommon to lose phone reception.

Amid the chaos of school pick-up in Bridgewater in Central Victoria, this is what Claire Harrison thought was happening when her phone showed "SOS" instead of a signal on a Friday afternoon in May.

She didn't realise it was the first sign she'd been hacked.

"We did nothing wrong. We didn't click on a link, we didn't give our information to anyone, we just got everything stolen from us," she said. "It's like someone just walked into your house and took everything you own, like an invisible robber."

Mobile porting fraud is where scammers — often criminal syndicates — gain control of a person's identity by having their mobile number ported to another device.

This gives criminals access to the person's personal information and finances.

'Terrifying' phone porting scam stealing millions but cybersecurity experts say it's unavoidable

Claire Harrison says she's still recovering from losing her identity and tens of thousands of dollars by mobile porting fraud, where scammers port your mobile number to another device.
www.abc.net.au
 
An update.

'Terrifying' phone porting scam stealing millions but cybersecurity experts say it's unavoidable

Claire Harrison says she's still recovering from losing her identity and tens of thousands of dollars by mobile porting fraud, where scammers port your mobile number to another device.
www.abc.net.au
 
I thought this piece of reality satire deserved a place in this thread. Those of you have been dealt with by Ticket master would appreciate it fully the

Ticketmaster Introduces New ‘Fee Handling Fee’ to Cover Cost of Adding Up All the Bucking Fees​



Tickets purchased through Ticketmaster will now incur an additional $18.95 ‘fee handling fee’, which will be paid on top of the existing processing fee ($6.95), handling fee ($11.50), seat allocation fee ($7.95), because-we-tucking-can fee ($18.20), cost-of-listing-all-the-fees fee ($8.45), doing-our-rucking-job fee ($10.50), print-the-ticket-on-your-own-printer fee ($14.25) and executive-end-of-year-vacation-fee ($29.95).
Ticketmaster defended the new fee decision, saying $126.70 was a reasonable price to pay for a service which costs essentially nothing to deliver. “It’s true, the cost of generating a ticket is basically zero – it’s just a piece of code on a website. But remember, we have to employ an entire team of people to calculate, administer and continuously update our fee structure. That doesn’t just pay for itself,” a spokesperson said.

He said the Ticketmaster website also had associated costs. “A lot of people don’t realise how much goes into developing a website that crashes every time there’s an entirely predictable surge in demand. We have to release a statement every time an international artist or football final goes on sale saying there’s no way we could have known it would increase website traffic. That in itself costs money. We don’t charge a fee for that, but we probably should”.

He rejected claims that the company’s sole responsibility was to enable the sale of tickets. “No, that’s a common misconception. It’s collecting fees”.
In response to the new Ticketmaster fees, competitor Ticketek will also introduce a similar ‘fee management fee’, as well as a ‘we’re-a-duopoly-so-you’re-cucked-either-way’ fee.

Ticketmaster Introduces New ‘Fee Handling Fee’ to Cover Cost of Adding Up All the Fucking Fees — The Shovel

The new fee will on top of the existing processing fee ($6.95), handling fee ($2.50), seat allocation fee ($7.95), because-we-*******-can fee ($2.20), cost-of-listing-all-the-fees fee ($2.00), doing-our-*******-job fee ($10.50), print-the-ticket-on-your-own-printer fee ($4.00) and...
theshovel.com.au
 
The Federal Government (well done) has launched a specific investment scam taskforce.

How effective will it be ? We'll. I hope for a start they bring on board some white hat hackers. People who seriously understand how to get into computers and use their skills to
1) Devise ways to help protect computer systems from scams.
2) Take pro active steps to chase some of the largest scam artists.

I hope they are well resourced , bold and proactive in their approach.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Years ago there was a scam called People in Profit (PIPs) . It came to my attention when a number of friends who weren't usually flaky started to become very earnest about this philantropic wonderful new investment opportunity and threw in thousands of dollars. I checked it out and sure enough it was classic Ponzi investment scam.

However it was exceptionally authentic . It named all the organisers, had a wonderful inspiring website and managed to stay exceptionally long lived and profitable. It was brilliant.

I ended up researching this group and pulled together a substantial amount of information from other scam busters that was easily sufficient to close it down. I forwarded the file to ASIC, noted just how effective and dangerous the scheme was and "begged"them to take action. I then followed up with a phone call.

Upshot ? Because I hadn't lost any money my submission was not relevant. They did nothing. A few months later a number of private people had pulled together the information charge the principals and as a result various Consumer Affairs type organizations also banned PIPs . I note this because , in my view, I believe an agency investigating potential scams should be proactive in checking the credentials and financials of suspect organisations rather than just waiting for scores of official complaints.

PIPs PureInvestor Scam - Fraud Guides

PIPs PureInvestor claims that investors can make 2% a day on their investment but it's nothing but a classic Ponzi Scheme. That's right, PIPs is a scam.
www.fraudguides.com

Taskforce to target fake investment schemes amid 'scamdemic' costing Australia billions

The federal government says Australians are facing a "scamdemic", with investment scams costing us over $1billion per year.
www.abc.net.au
 
Another very big story on the ABC regarding a Melbourne family struggling to deal with an identity theft scam that has cost them $370k and counting.

I was listening to the program this morning and the challenges they faced attempting to just speak to banks about the thefts was horrific. The ABC switch board lit up like a Christmas tree with similar stories. Well worth checking out the story and listening to the interview.

John had embarked on a family trip of a lifetime. By the time he got home, criminals had stolen his identity

A Melbourne couple had $370,000 stolen from bank accounts in a "horrific" case of identity theft. It has prompted calls for banks to sharpen up against scammers and fraudsters.
www.abc.net.au
 

I was aware of the potential for porting of a mobile number. As another layer (of futility?) I did put a PIN on the telco's actual account.
 
spots change? Naw

Mayfair promoter James Mawhinney emerges to run anti-scam service​


James Mawhinney, the investment fund promoter whose Mayfair 101 business was found to have misled potential customers, is behind a new service which says it helps Australians avoid investment scams by providing free verifications that the product provider is legitimate.

The website, investing.com.au, claims to be “Australia’s home of investing” and says it offers a free service to check if a provider is operating a scam.

The operator of investing.com.au is the Australian Investment Group, a company in which Mr Mawhinney is the director and secretary. He has been embroiled in disputes with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and liquidators of entities he operated and is not currently permitted to raise money from the public.

But he appears to be actively soliciting information from prospective investors in other financial products. A form on the website asks users to fill out contact details and additional information such as the provider they wish to verify and how much they intend to invest.

Underneath an image of a middle-aged couple sitting on a verandah, the website offers a downloadable guide of 15 ways to identify investment scams, and says it can undertake “proprietary identity checks on companies and their executives registered with our service"
 
Not for me looks and sounds like a scammer
 
Got a ripper of a scam on my I-phone last night. It was from Linkt advising me that I owe $5.83 in toll fees.
Hit the web address supplied to make the payment.
Great since we don't have toll roads here WA, I think they need to up their game(scam) somewhat.
 

This is not a silly scam farmerge. They don't necessarily know your address. It is just a general spam scam.

However if someone does pay the $5.83 the connection between their bank account and the scammers can be exploited. Bang.
 
basilio said:
This is not a silly scam farmerge. They don't necessarily know your address. It is just a general spam scam.

However if someone does pay the $5.83 the connection between their bank account and the scammers can be exploited. Bang.
Click to expand...
Got another one today from something to do with Bitcoin, saying they are holding funds of mine because the crowd involved were shonkey and have been closed down.
To access the funds ...... you guessed it, click on the link etc etc
Straight into the junk bin.
 
Getting more plausible and clever aren't they. I'm a bit surprised your provider is allowing these to come through. They do/should have a filtering system that picks up and blocks scammy looking posts. May be worth asking them what is their practice.
 
Thanks for that basillio I will definitely follow it up to find out more.
 
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