Better Business Bureau Tool to Track, Report and Educate the Common Person on Scams

The BBB Scam Tracker is a robust interactive tool to track fraudulent activity in throughout North America. The data I viewed from Mexico seems to be minimal at this point, although this might be because Mexico was added after the United States and Canada.

The site collects data from users, who were the victims of a scam, or from smart people who figured out someone was trying to scam them.

The tool enables the user to search potential fraudulent activity by keyword, type of scam, location, and time frame. Please note that scams are most successful when they hit a new geographical area because the "word is not out yet." Because of this, scammers frequently travel and even rotate the particular scam in order to catch innocent people/businesses off guard. Just because the particular scam is not showing up in your geographical area doesn't mean that it won't knock on your doorstep tomorrow.

The scam activities tracked include home repair, tree trimming, tax, advance fee, job, lottery, collection, counterfeit checks, bogus credit cards, vishing, phishing, and identity theft. There is even an "other" category to cover anything that is a previously unknown activity. New scams are hatched all the time. The main thing all scams have in common is that they are "too good to be true."

The data collected is provided to the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, who in turns shares it with law enforcement, 

Here is a link to the BBB Scam Tracker. Scammers count on people not taking the time to report their activity (assuming they do not fall for it). Reporting it is a good deed because it protects other people.

The BBB also has a video on YouTube on this tool, if you would like to watch it.

Are Lyft's Earning Claims for Drivers Deceptive?

With all the bad publicity Uber has received recently, Lyft is trying to position themselves with the public as a better option and a good citizen in the techie community. They claim all over the internet that a driver can make up to $35 an hour/$1500 a week, which sounds great, but is this claim too good to be true? I decided to find out!

To begin my adventure, I signed up and ultimately chose to use their new "Express Drive program." where a rental car is provided for a fee. To calculate what the costs would be if I used my own vehicle, I employed a tool called MileIQ to track the amount of mileage incurred and estimate what the wear and tear on a personal vehicle would be.

I then carefully read all their tutorials on how to maximize the amount of money I would make and made an appointment to pick up the vehicle via the Lyft App from Hertz at a local Pep Boys. Please note, I tried to call this car rental center over 10 times to clarify some items and no one ever answered the telephone. After making the appointment, I received daily text messages and emails reminding me to pick up the vehicle on the time/date specified.

Upon my arrival, a male wearing gym shorts and a tee shirt gruffly informed me that it was his lunch time and I would have to wait for an hour for him to return. When I told him, I had an appointment, he said the computer made a mistake and that wasn't his problem. He then got into an SUV with Lyft decals on the side and left with a male and a female. I later discovered the other two people were the Hertz employees dedicated to the Lyft Express Drive Program.

During the hour-plus he was gone, numerous drivers showed up trying to find someone because they were having issues and couldn't get anyone to answer the phone. Several of them also told me that they had made numerous calls and never got an answer.

When they returned, the male in the tee shirt and shorts (who I later identified as a contract employee for Lyft) had me watch a video and directed me to the Hertz employees. One of them took me to a Mazda with approximately 75,000 miles on it to do an inspection. The car was filthy inside and out, had cigarette ashes everywhere, and had dings all around the exterior. Having just read the paperwork threatening me with a "large fine" if I smoked in the car, I voiced concern and was told that this was being documented and not to worry about it. I was then told I would be given a self-service car wash coupon to clean the car.

I have rented cars many times for a week that were much newer and "clean" for about the same price when traveling on business or having service performed on one of my personal vehicles. My guess is the cars Lyft provides are originally regular Hertz rentals that did not sell on their used car lots.

Lyft does claim to eat the approximately $180 plus taxes a week fee if you give 85 (partial) or 105 rides (total) in a week -- but based on my overall experience and speaking to drivers -- this is unrealistic unless you work an excessive amount of hours. Please note that you also have to maintain a 90 percent acceptance rate to get this benefit, which is explained below.

We then returned to the Hertz counter and computer issues ensued causing further delay. After about three hours, I was ready to begin my "Lyft Adventure" with a filthy, smelly car and headed to the car wash. After cleaning the car myself and going home to take a shower, I was finally ready to start making money.

The first thing I noticed was the substandard navigation on Lyft Driver App (run by GoogleMaps). Frequently, it would tell me to turn at a street/exit, I had already passed. Throughout the week, I noticed it sending me in crazy loops that made no sense considering the location of the customer. In many areas, it got street names wrong, and on more than one occasion it sent me several miles out of the way before telling me to turn around and go back to where I came from. Since the customer sees the driver going all over the place on their Lyft Customer App, this causes some frustration on their part, and they blame the driver.

The next thing I noticed is how the rides are accepted. When Lyft sends you a ride request, the phone lights up and prompts you to accept it. To accept the ride, you tap on your phone and the navigation takes over. The customers are all supposed to have pictures, but many do not. Lyft's instruction is to follow their navigation and you have no idea what the ultimate destination is going to be until you are about ready to arrive. I found that sometimes, the destinations were in high crime areas, which might be a safety concern for some drivers.

Another thing I noticed is that the app literally hijacks your phone and it is very difficult to use other apps after opening it up. The main screen displays the Lyft purple ball after logging on -- and on several occasions -- it logged me on again after logging out and it accepted rides. Once, this happened when the phone was being charged in another room.

It also opened my contacts and pinned them to the main screen. I later discovered (hidden in the fine print) that I had agreed to give them access to my contacts, which they claim is to spread "Lyft Love" to everyone listed in there. Please note that a lot of malicious code does the same thing when trying to compromise a system.

You are rated based on your acceptance rate and when the phone lights up there is no sound prompt. This means you have to constantly keep an eye on the phone, which is a driving distraction and could be dangerous. It also doesn't help when the app accepts rides after you think you have logged out.

Failure to maintain a 90 percent acceptance rate also prevents you from hitting any offered bonuses, and can even get you deactivated (geek for getting fired).  Based on the chatter on numerous internet forums, few if any people, ever hit the parameters to achieve a bonus.

The next interesting thing is their rating system. At the end of each ride, both the rider and driver rate each other from 5 to 1 (5 being the best). If a driver falls below a 4.8, they start getting messages that they are at risk of being deactivated. In the week, I drove I picked up some pretty interesting people. Many were intoxicated and some were downright scary. Some of them spilled items in the car and or left their trash in it.  Often I would arrive to pick one person up and four or five people would pile in the car. Frequently these groups were intoxicated and so rowdy that it was difficult to hear the navigation. I did meet many very nice people, but you literally have no choice who you pick up if you want to maintain an acceptable rating.

I even got a homeless person and a woman, who blatantly told me she was an escort using Lyft to drive her to a client. One or two 4 ratings will knock your overall rating down and if an intoxicated person gives you a 1, it will be pretty hard to recover. In my humble opinion, this rating system is a tool used to intimidate the drivers into not saying anything to a customer when they are clearly acting in an unacceptable manner. Of course, drivers are expendable and easily replaced with fresh people responding to the "up to $35 an hour/$1500 a week come-ons."

I ended the week with a 4.7 rating, which in any other arena would be "darned good," especially considering the challenging aspects faced when providing this service. Despite this, 4.7 is considered as a "needs improvement" by Lyft.

On my third day, I got a "snippy e-mail" telling me I got a complaint that the car smelled of smoke. The customer related they had asthma, which made the ride difficult. Considering the condition of the car when I got it, I guess the smoke smell lingered on after I cleaned it inside and out. I promptly cleaned and washed the car again, purchasing a fairly expensive product to remove the smoke smell. I then emailed Lyft about this because I felt bad about what the customer had experienced. Prior to this, they had always answered right away, but this time they did not and despite daily follow-ups, they never did.


Lyft does show power zones on the navigation map, which light up in shades of red. They recommend that you go to these zones to maximize your earnings. These zones are where they claim they need drivers and are charging them higher fares (referred to as prime time). My experience with the power zones was that I would drive towards them, and they would disappear right before I got there. I also noticed that they tended to light up when I was headed home, which seemed to be a strange coincidence. On the few times, I made it to the red zone in time, I either got no business or a $3 to $6 dollar fare. The end result was a lot more gas and carbon gasses expended with no return on investment.

Please note that the reason for this could be that so many drivers are on the road trying to make $35 an hour, it has caused the market to become over saturated. There is very little doubt that they are engaged in a price war with Uber in an attempt to gain market share and that this is cutting into the amount being made by the drivers.

So far as making money, there were a few times I got busy, but there were also times where I would drive for up to two hours with no business. There were also many times when all I would get were $3 to $8 dollar rides at the rate of about one an hour (despite following all the revenue-enhancing tips provided by Lyft). Please note that these fares are the amount before Lyft took their 25 percent cut.

When in "driver mode," the app shows your earnings and details them by the ride. The earnings being displayed are before Lyft takes their cut. This tends to make the driver think they are making more money than they actually are.

Lyft advertises that they let the driver keep the tips, but few customers actually tip. I averaged about 7 percent in tips for the week.

Lyft does provide insurance while you are logged into the app, but it has a $2500 deductible. Your primary insurance will probably have to take over if an accident occurs and it is possible you will be dropped by your insurance carrier if they discover you were driving for Lyft. Consumer Affairs published a telling article detailing this risk and potential liability.

Towards the end of the week, I started getting hit with numerous messages via text and email to renew my rental. These messages confused me as to what day it was due back and I reached out to Lyft Support for a clarification. Here again, despite several follow-ups, they never answered me until a day after the vehicle had already been returned. When returning the car, I asked the Lyft employees if there was a number I could call and they told me that one does not exist.

Now for the money, I was able to make. Listed below is the summary provided by Lyft. The rental was prorated (normal cost is $180 a week) because I picked up the car a day into the pay cycle. It doesn't include gas cost, car washes, or my time cleaning the car because of the condition it was in. Also not included is the three hours to pick up the car, or the hour it took to return it.

54 Rides and logged into the Driver App for 45h 16m 57s

Ride Payments: $510.57

Tips: $35

Lyft Fees: -$127.72

Rental Fees: -$154.28

Rental Tax: -$12.86

Total Earnings: $250.72

I made $250.71, and after taking the $132 in gas/miscellaneous expenses out, I netted a whopping $118 for 45 hours work. This equates to $2.62 without taking into account overtime and would have been close to the minimum wage in the '70s. On the other hand, Lyft made $127.72 plus whatever they and Hertz made on the rental.

I calculated the miles, which if recorded could be written off in taxes on a personal vehicle, but also represent wear and tear. There are tales in the forums of drivers wearing out vehicles before they were paid off. I drove 917 miles for the week, which at the federal mileage rate of 53.5 cents a mile equates to  $490.60 (rounded up). Please note the federal mileage rate is an official calculation of what wear and tear represents.

This amounts to 50,440 miles driven a year if the driver (who gets no vacation time) drives every week.  If you subtract the $490.60 from what I made, I would have been operating at a net loss. Of course, these are all estimates, but estimates based on factual data.

I wonder how many financial losses are incurred by the auto industry when a car wears out and the person can no longer afford to make the payments?

Lyft advertises all over the Internet that a driver can make up to $35 an hour/$1500 a week. While this sounds like a great opportunity, the truth is a far different story, and Lyft is laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of their easily replaced drivers.

The drivers receive no benefits, and many of them are making a lot less than minimum wage when all things are considered. I discovered by speaking to several drivers that some of them work up to 14 hours a day/7 days a week) trying to make ends meet. I was told several times that if I wanted to make money, I would have to drive to San Francisco (4 hour round trip) and put in some long shifts.

Lyft does regulate the number of hours a driver can be on the road and there are differences in some jurisdictions, but for the most part, they allow 14 hours a day with at least a 6-hour break. There does not appear to be any limit on how many days a driver can work in a row. Of course, they are not paying overtime since the drivers are considered to be self-contractors, either.

One could make a pervasive argument that Lyft is creating a potentially dangerous situation for everyone on the road, and creating a lot of unnecessary carbon gasses in their quest for easy money and market domination.

There have been recent legal efforts to have rideshare drivers classified as employees. This would go a long way to creating a level playing field for the competition that is being run out of business by outfits like Lyft and Uber. It would also go a long way towards preventing these outfits from creating an abusive atmosphere for their drivers.

The truth is their drivers provide all the fixed costs (vehicles, gas, cell phone, time etc.) and Lyft collects 25 percent of the earnings with a computer application that maintains command and control of the driver. Because they pass on their costs of doing business and are paying no benefits, it is no wonder that they have run the competition out of business. With no benefits being paid, the taxpaying public is also probably picking up the costs of providing them to their drivers.

It is also no secret that both Lyft and Uber and pursuing the driverless car option. Will this lead to them replacing their drivers, in the same manner, they have replaced traditional transportation outfits? The sad thing is that the drivers are providing all the fixed costs of pursuing this goal and will eventually be replaced by a machine.

If most businesses were able to operate in this manner, they would probably be shut down by the government for gross violations of labor laws and essential human rights.

On a closing note, here is a list of political donations given by Lyft employees. I was shocked to discover that most of the recipients claim to be social justice warriors. Recipients include Bernie Sanders, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and Jill Stein, They also gave a $1,000,000 donation to the ACLU to fight President Trump's immigration ban. This ban essentially blocked people from countries with no functioning government from entering the country. The Obama administration was the one who designated these countries as dangerous because of a lack of effective government and ties to terrorism.

Doesn't the first initial of the ACLU stand for American? Perhaps they and Lyft should revamp their efforts to prevent abuse to human beings in this country instead of pursuing an agenda that could be dangerous to our citizens.

Are Anti-Aging Products Containing Resveratrol Scamming Innocent People?

Getting old happens to the best of us – and ever since Juan Ponce de Leon went to Florida in 1512 on a quest to find the fountain of youth – many have searched for a miracle that would stop, slow or reverse the aging process.

The marketing of Resveratrol is the latest chapter in this saga and has inspired some greedy and not very honest entities to hawk Resveratrol products over the Internet they claim are "guaranteed." The only guarantee with some of these products is that the person buying them might end up spending a lot of money for nothing.

The sad truth is that there are companies selling Resveratrol supplements that appear to be using deceptive marketing practices. If you see a come-on for Resveratrol, I would carefully consider, whether or not, it appears a little too be too good to be true and follow the principle of "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Of course, it always pays to read the “fine print” (as you will see below), also.

Please note, I'm not here to dispute the possible health benefits of Resvervatrol or recommend if people should use it. The research on it is pretty exciting and I truly hope the results are positive.

There is research showing that Resveratrol has the ability to cure diseases caused by aging and increase life spans. 60 Minutes, Oprah and many other media sources have done stories on it – but although it is being studied seriously – it still hasn’t been approved by the FDA.

Unfortunately, seeming credible evidence is often twisted by greedy people with the intent of making a quick buck, who make it appear they are legitimate when they are not.

Horror stories are starting to pop in Internet forums from ordinary people – who buy Resveratrol and end up paying a lot more than they should have. Even worse, they might end up buying something that isn’t really Resveratrol. A lot of supplements are hawked via spam advertising, where the source might be slightly questionable. The latest estimates are that over 90 percent of all e-mail is spam. Spam is known to contain a lot of deceptive and outright criminal come-ons.

Of course, spam advertising isn't the only venue where Resveratrol is being marketed. Dr. Oz has talked about Resveratrol on Oprah and the article on this from Oprah.com has put in a disclaimer that Harpo productions is pursuing companies that are claiming an affiliation with Dr. Oz or Oprah. I even found an ad page from a "Dr. Os" (note the spelling difference), which is hawking Resveratrol. The page has a YouTube video with the real Dr. Oz talking about Resveratrol. Didn't go so far as to confirm it, but I would be careful about buying anything on this site, which offers up to two free bottles of Resveratrol.

Sadly enough the Oprah.com article – with the disclaimer – is buried by all the other sites using Dr. Oz and other assorted mainstream media stories about Resveratrol. If you want to see what I am talking about, a simple search for "Resveratrol" pulls up an amazing amount of Internet marketing selling Resveratrol. Some of the advertising has "warnings" that Resveratrol products might be harmful to someone's health or a scam. Most of these ads lead to the product the advertiser putting out the warning is selling.

The sheer volume of advertising on Resveratrol makes it hard for the average person to determine what is legitimate and what is not.

Besides the disclaimer being made by Oprah, there is some interesting buzz on her forums about a product called "Resveratrol Ultra.". Many of the people leaving comments on these forums have had their credit cards repetitively charged after signing up for a free trial of this particular product. The true cost is $87.13 for the free trial (if you don’t immediately return it) and they keep shipping you their product and charging you this amount, monthly.

I went to the Resveratrol Ultra site and it has a YouTube clip of the 60 minutes story. One thing I noticed is there is a disclaimer on the site, which states:

The 15 day Free Trial offer is designed to display the quality and effectiveness of Resveratrol Ultra. This gives you the opportunity to try this remarkable program for FREE (just pay shipping and handling) so you can come to a decision for yourself if this is the right product for you.

We want you to be pleased with our products. If it is not all you expected it to be, or you're unsatisfied in any way just return the unused portion 15 days from the date that the product was originally shipped to you for a refund. We are committed to providing superior products and service to our customers. If you are not completely satisfied, contact us and we will make it right for you. Guaranteed!

If you read the complaints this seems to allow them to start charging you $87.13 a month starting with the free offer unless you return the product in 15 days. Based on the comments in Oprah's forum and on a personal conversation I had with a victim -- good luck getting any cooperation from Resveratrol Ultra in getting a refund once this happens. Other complaints state it is even hard to get them to stop billing you $87.13 a month.

Of course, Oprah.com isn't the only place where the public is crying foul about a company selling a Resveratrol product. Complaintboard.com is warning people about Resveratrol complaints and there are also YouTube videos about the subject.

I did a search on mainstream drug store sites and found Resveratrol for about $7 to $12 a bottle. This seems to be a more sensible way to go than paying almost $100 a bottle if you choose to try Resveratrol before the FDA approves it. These places won’t keep charging your credit card, over and over again, either.

If anyone reading this has a complaint, the best place to report it would be the Federal Trade Commission. You can do so right on their site. I ran a search on the FTC site and so far there is nothing about Resveratrol companies, but if enough people complain to them, perhaps there will be.

Posting complaints in Internet forums is an honorable thing to do – but my guess is that if the FTC gets enough complaints they will look into it and go after the people doing it – a lot more, effectively!

To close this post, I would like to reach out to all the mainstream sources which have covered Resveratrol. Their stories are being used to market these products. It sure would be nice if they took the time to cover this aspect of the story more effectively. The few warnings out there about this are easily buried by all the people selling Resveratrol!

My inspiration to write this post came from a Nurse Carol, who spent a career working in Public Health and holds a Master's Degree. She fell for the free trial part of this and has gone through hours of pain and suffering trying to get her money back. Despite cancelling the product after realizing what it was all about, her credit card is still be billed by Resveratrol Ultra as I write this. Although Nurse Carol isn’t a celebrity like Doctor Oz, I can guarantee she recommends that anyone considering using Resveratrol exercise caution before handing over a method of payment.

Increase in Scams Attributed to Economy

I just finished reading an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal by M. P. McQueen, which suggests that the bear market is creating a bull market for fraudsters. According to the numerous experts cited in the article, the reason for this is economic gloom and doom with a healthy dose of anxiety.

This shouldn't be surprising because gloom, doom, and anxiety make effective social engineering tools that can be used to part people and businesses from their money.

The article references phishing expeditions that lead to fake Web sites — which often spoof a financial institution or government entity — and entice people into giving up enough of their personal details to drain their financial resources. It also mentions that some of these sites leave behind malicious software on a person's machine, which steal all these details automatically.
Also mentioned is the use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), caller-ID spoofing and cell phone technology to mount texting and vishing attacks. Vishing is merely another method of tricking people to give up personal and financial information via the telephone. In these attacks, the caller ID is spoofed to make it appear as if it is coming from a legitimate institution.

Apparently telephone technology is being used to commit other types of crimes, too. Many of our 911 centers cannot identify spoofed calls coming from computers using VoIP technology. This has led to S.W.A.T. teams being tricked into deploying in full battle gear to residential neighborhoods when no emergency existed. Of course, businesses use the same technology to trick people who have caller ID into picking up their telephones. You can even buy a card to do this at will from any telephone right over the Web.

It sometimes amazes me how much irresponsible technology there is out there, which is being sold legally. There are even Web sites, with disclaimers, that specialize in making this technology available to the general public. Of course, there are also complete DIY (do-it-yourself) phishing kits being sold over the Internet. Some of these even come with tech support. The phishing kits are illegal, but can be found for sale in chat rooms if you know where to look for them. Sadly, the truth is that these chat rooms aren't very hard to find. The fine line between legitimate enterprise and scams is often a little blurry.

The WSJ article quotes a lot of experts, including Gartner, the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, who all seem to agree that scams are on the rise. An interesting phenomenon called out were small fraud charges being found on accounts. I guess taking small amounts, which might be mistaken for bank fees, is a good way to stay under the radar. A lot of people don't realize how many small fees are being charged to their account and it can be quite confusing at times. I guess the crooks are trying to make themselves look like bankers (speculation) and it's probably a good time for all of us to review our statements, carefully.

Speaking of fees, which are used as revenue streams by a lot of businesses, the WSJ put out another article this entitled, "In the Fight Against Bill Creep, Every Extra Fee Is the Enemy." Besides being on the look out for cyber scammers, this article points out other reasons it is smart to review our financial statements with a keen eye these days.

Another notable trend in the past 12 months is executives being targeted. In this trend, specific people within organizations are being targeted and tricked into downloading malicious software on machines. In one of these scams last April, the targets were led to believe they were being subpoenaed to testify in federal court.

Last, but not least, the article points out that job scams are on the rise. It's a well established fact that job sites from Monster to Craigslist have scammers operating on them to recruit people to launder money, cash bogus financial instruments or give up all their personal and financial information. Adding fuel to this fire, it was disclosed recently that Monster.com had been hacked.

Capping off this interesting article — which is a pretty good recap of recent scam activity — is Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum pointing out that scammers have learned how to use "spell check." In the past, one of the best ways to identify a scam was it's lack of proper spelling and grammar. While the scammers might have have learned to use spell check, it might also point out that there are more and more people out of work (with better grammar skills), who are becoming scammers.

The WSJ quoted a lot of experts that agree with them that scam activity is on the rise. Another interesting read supporting this (not mentioned in their article) is the recent report that was commissioned by McAfee. This report points to all the unsecured data out there that is fueling the rise in cyber crime. They estimate, at this point, that the financial implications have reached $1 trillion. They also have some interesting information about social engineering and how it is being currently used to commit scams in the current economic environment in another set of articles on their main site.

In my opinion, it makes sense that scams of all kinds are on the rise. There is a lot of confusion going on and people are getting desperate. It might be desperation that is causing more people to get involved in scams on both sides of the fence. For the majority of us, who just want to ride these times out and survive the mayhem, the best thing to probably do is be extra diligent in our financial matters and use a little good old fashioned common sense.

Having dealt with a few scammers in my life, I've found that most of them aren't the most intelligent people around. The best thing to do is to think carefully before jumping in anything of a financial nature these days.

How to Legally Buy Hot Merchandise

(Courtesy of PropertyRoom.com)

Auction sites like eBay and Craigslist are frequently criticized for the amount of stolen and counterfeit items being sold on their sites. Even worse, stories about their customers being scammed have become Internet folklore.

Now there is a site that openly advertises that it is selling stolen merchandise. Even better, when you buy hot merchandise off this site, you need not worry about the authorities showing up at your door in the wee hours of the morning with a search warrant. The reason for this is that the site is stocked by over 1500 Police Departments and is run by former law enforcement types.

The site, PropertyRoom.com is an e-version of the more traditional auctions held by Police departments to get rid of unclaimed stolen property. "With distribution and service centers nationwide, PropertyRoom.com specializes in the auction of stolen, seized, found and surplus goods and vehicles. Serving over 1,100 law enforcement agencies nationwide, we offer a fraud-free marketplace with superior customer support." according to the "about us" page on the site.

I decided to surf the site and it contains a wide array of goodies at cheaper prices than what I've seen being fenced (speculative) on other Internet auction sites. For instance, desktop computers being auctioned were being bid at well under $100, laptops were showing bids of $100 to $400 and iPods were being bid anywhere from about $16 to $150. Of course computers aren't the only items available on the site, which hawks all kinds of electronics, watches, jewelry, tools, cameras, cars and a host of other high theft items.

It is well known that criminals like to steal high value items that are easy to transport. They also tend to go after items that are popular and easy to sell (fence). If you are looking for popular items, this site is a good place to buy them at an almost too good to be true price, legally.

PropertyRoom.com also is in the fund raising business and will help charitable organizations raise money. All the costs of putting on the event are covered by PropertyRoom.com. I should also mention that some of the proceeds of the sales on the site help fund law enforcement agencies, who like the rest of us, are dealing with ever-dwindling financial resources.

They also maintain the only nationwide registry available to the general public for recovering lost or stolen goods. This service is completely free. You can register items that were stolen already, or your high value items that might be stolen at a later date. If they receive an item that matches what you have registered — your property will be returned to you. Try doing this at any of the other auction sites!

The Internet has opened new avenues for criminals to fence stolen merchandise. This has made it easier to sell stolen merchandise and there are many who believe that it contributes to the problem. The most recent survey by the National Retail Federation estimates that Organized

Retail Crime is a $30 billion a year issue. Their most most recent Organized Crime Survey showed that e-fencing on traditional auction sites has grown by six percent. In response to this, they are even pushing bills in Congress to force the auction sites to allow more access to law enforcement and retailers, who are attempting to shut down this activity.

Even the government has found some of their stolen merchandise available for sale on eBay and Craigslist.

Please remember this doesn't even take into account the billions of dollars of property stolen from ordinary people. It also doesn't take into account the ordinary people who are scammed on auction sites, either. I wouldn't worry about getting scammed on PropertyRoom.com — I'm pretty sure they cooperate with law enforcement to the fullest extent.

We all know money is tight this Christmas season and there are a lot of people trying to stretch their limited resources. PropertyRoom.com is a place where you can do it and be certain that you are not contributing to a growing problem.

Home Equity ID Theft Ring Points to a Bigger Problem

On Monday, Federal authorities informed the public of a series of arrests where identity theft was used to steal the equity out of homes. I guess we've already lost so much money in the mortgage crisis, the identity thieves figured it wouldn't matter?

The four arrested on Monday were Derek Polk, Oluda Akinmola, Oluwajide Ogunbiyi, and Oladeji Craig. The four appeared in federal court in Los Angeles, Newark, Buffalo, and Springfield. Also arrested for home equity schemes between August and October were Daniel Yumi (Brooklyn), Yomu and Olokodana Jagunna (Queens), and Abayomi Lawal (Brooklyn).

Strangely enough — although no one in the mainstream media is saying — most of these names sound slightly foreign. Judging by the surnames my best guess is that they are originally from West Africa, probably Nigeria. Stories of Nigerian fraud are extremely popular in the media so I'm surprised no one took this opportunity to put that twist to this story.

In all fairness, in previous posts, I've lamented that fraudsters often pose as Nigerians or the media incorrectly pegs fraud as coming from Nigeria when it doesn't. There is no doubt Nigeria is known for a lot of fraud, but they didn't invent it and are not the only players in the game.

It should also be noted (out of fairness) that court documents reflect the federal authorities stating that this is the result of an investigation into a multi-national identity theft ring. There are a lot of fraud groups out there, both foreign and domestic, and many of the experts have concluded they are working together when it suits them.

The proceeds of these home equity scams were wired all over the world, including South Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Canada, and the United Kingdom. According to news accounts about $2.5 million was wired and the total take in the scheme was about $10 million.

Sadly — although this has been called out as a problem frequently — a lot of fodder (information) used in the scams was obtained by none other than public record searches. The public records used even contained credit applications, credit reports, and the victims' signatures, according to the FBI. BJ Ostegren — who was kind enough to give me a personal demonstration a while back — is the champion of exposing just how much of this information is out there for anyone to grab. If you want to see exactly how much information is available, her website is a good place to start.

Also mentioned in the criminal complaint was that fee-based Internet services were used to obtain some of the information. This is a huge business, which nets billions of dollars a year for the people selling it. I did notice that no one is saying which one of the services were used.

It should also be noted that information like this is bartered in forums on the Internet. Symantec just released a report showing how cheaply some of this information can be obtained. This type of activity is fairly well known and the FBI recently cracked one of the forums (Dark Market). This group allegedly racked up about $70 million in fraud, worldwide.

The individuals arrested in this scheme also used a lot of known technological fraud crutches, such as caller ID spoofing, prepaid cellular, and forwarding calls without the owner's knowledge. Tricking a phone company into forwarding calls is no problem for most fraudsters as little to no due diligence is performed before it is done. You can have your carrier block this feature, or password protect it (recommended) — however doing this is left entirely up to you. So far as caller ID spoofing — it's essentially legal — and anyone can purchase the means to do it right over the Internet.

There probably won't be any effort to change call forwarding, or caller ID spoofing as it is a lucrative income stream for telecom businesses.

You would think as long as we are in a world-class financial crisis, we might begin to wake up and smell the coffee? Although, we can't blame fraud as the cause of the entire crisis, I often wonder how much of a contributing factor it is. We've made identity theft too easy to do and hard to control. The people who committed this latest form of identity theft probably aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. They are just taking advantage of other people making a lot of money by making too much information available and not protecting it.

If you look in the mirror you might get an idea who suffers from this seeming inability to fix a growing problem. Even if you aren't victimized, we all pay for it in the end — either in an organization's expense line or in the form of a government bail-out.

I'll close with a with an interesting satire written by Phillip Maddocks, which came out in the Norwich Bulletin entitled, "Credit card fraud gangs say they can fix economy but need government loan." This satire is about the heads of several credit card gangs who are seeking a government handout to keep credit card fraud alive because it is beneficial to the economy.

Although this is a satire — it has a ring of truth to it!

Unfortunately, we allow a lot of dumb things to continue because someone thinks it's beneficial to the economy.

Girl Scouts get scammed with fake $100 bill

(Courtesy of the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff's website)

If you are like me, you've already bought too many cookies from the Girl Scouts. Everywhere I go, there is a table selling them and it's hard for me to say no to them.

After all, supporting organizations like the Girl Scouts has long been considered an honorable endeavor.

It's sad to say that at least one scammer has ripped them off with a fake (counterfeit) $100.00 bill in front of a local Walmart in Texas.

Marianne Martinez Lewisville (CBS 11 News) reports:

The girls were selling cookies in front of the discount store on Wednesday evening when a man said he wanted to buy two boxes. He promptly gave a 100-dollar-bill to the mother of one of the children. After getting his $93 in change, the man left without getting his cookies.


Realizing the man had left his purchase the girls tried to find him, but were unable to. In the meantime, the mother realized the bill was fake but it was too late.


Police say the crook bleached a $5-bill and printed over it to make it look like a $100-bill. Officers say at first glance the bill looks real. "It's the real paper used by the Department of Treasury. Ya know, it has the appearance of a real bill," said Lewisville Police Department Captain Kevin Deaver.

This particular counterfeit $100.00 bill version has been making the rounds for the past few years. Although, it defeats some of the anti-counterfeiting detection devices out there -- largely because the paper is real -- it can be easily caught by the human eye.

These bills are actually $5 bills that have been washed and reproduced as $100 bills. Although at first glance they look and feel legitimate, the way to spot them is by their security features. On the washed (fake) bill the hologram on the right side -- seen by holding the bill up to light -- is Abraham Lincoln. On a real $100 bill, the image is Benjamin Franklin. Additionally, the embedded strips on either side of the bill will say they are $5 bills instead of $100 bills.

Criminals do this by bleaching the bills, then photocopying the $100 bill over it. Unfortunately, portable printing and photocopying technology has made it easy for all sorts of documents to be counterfeited.

For additional ways to determine real money from fake money, the United States Secret Service has an excellent page about it, here.

Another good resource is:

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/

Both of these sites offer training materials for businesses. Using them might be a good option for charitable organizations, also.

Although, no date is set yet, the government plans to issue redesigned $100 bill sometime in the near future. News reports indicate the reason for the redesign is directly related to how many of these washed bills have been seen in recent years.