Sunday, June 05, 2005

Auction Fraud Update

Recently, a news report out of Louisiana announced that Subway was planning to discontinue it's current 6 inch sandwich promotion. The reason for it was counterfeit coupons being circulated on the internet via auctions. It's amazing that in the world today, a major marketing promotion is being shut-down, essentially through fraud and the internet. Here is the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ibsys/20050604/lo_wdsu/2755184

Although from a magazine for Corporate Security Types, this article demonstrates the growing market in gift cards being sold on the internet. Fraud on E-Bay is considered to be growing. Besides fraudulent (hot) merchandise/financial instruments being sold, the latest trends are phishing and pharming identities off of look a like websites that appear to be E-Bay, or their sister organization PayPal. Please note that E-Bay and PayPal are not the only sites being duplicated in these scams.
http://www.losspreventionmagazine.com/archives_view.html?id=73

Craig's List is a less commercial site (most of it free), where people sell items. Recently, there has been large increase in Counterfeit Cashier Check/Counterfeit Money Order/Wire Transfer Scams. These scams trick people into negotiating counterfeit financial instruments and then wiring a portion of the money overseas, only to be held responsible for the fraudulent instrument when it returns. Craig himself put together a very useful guide:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

Please note that these scams could be found on all sites where auctions/selling occur.

It's an amazing cycle and everyone is being victimized from major corporations to the poor soul, who has their identity stolen and must bear the burden of restoring their very being. The only way to protect yourself is through awareness and supporting laws to protect us all from this growing menace.

If you want to research these subjects further, use the search box at the top of the page.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Tax Fraud Proceeds Intended for Overthrow of Government

In my mind, there is no doubt that the proceeds from financial crimes tie into funding terrorism. In Long Beach, a California based organization called the Cambodian Freedom Fighters was formed to seize control of the Cambodian Government. Their leader (Yasith Chun) has been arrested and is being charged with attempting to overthrow the government of Cambodia by military force. Apparently, he was funding this endeavor by running a fraudulent tax business using Southeast Asian immigrants to file fraudulent tax returns by claiming to have done menial labor and then putting in for the earned income credit exemption. This would net several thousand dollars a return. Yasith Chuth is also being charged with tax fraud. More information on this can be had by (clicking) on the title.

Fraudulent tax refund schemes appear to be on the rise and are another symptom of the identity theft crisis looming over all of us. In a previous story, I spoke of a scam uncovered where prisoners were doing this very same activity right under the noses of their guards and administrators. Here is a link to that post:

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/05/fraud-in-prison.html

This activity is a clear example of where our financial resources are being bilked not only by criminals from within, but in fact we are being targeted from abroad. Illegal immigration is literally breaking the backs of our social programs (which we pay for by taxes). Not only is it costing us all in benefits, but it also is a magnet for a wide range of other criminal activity. Some of the biggest victims are the illegal immigrants themselves, who are abused by the groups bringing them in the country. This is a clear problem and it is imperative in the post-911 era that we find viable and workable solutions to it.

In some respects, with the number of them (illegal immigrants) in country doing menial jobs, it might be deducted that businesses turns a blind eye to keep their labor costs low and that the average citizen is footing the bill for all of this when they pay their taxes.

Here are some earlier posts that relate to this:

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/05/how-deep-does-identity-theft-go.html

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/05/id-laws-and-increased-border-control.html