Phishing Statistics

"Phishing" (a form of on line fraud where identities are stolen) seems to be in the news a lot lately. Quoting a survey done by "Integrated Payment Systems", 43 percent of us have been the target of a "phishing" scam and 5 percent of us have given up information. This normally happens when a fraud e-mail is received that appears to be from your financial institution. The fraud e-mail directs you to a fraudulent site. Once you are on the site, they start asking for your personal information.

Also mentioned is "Pharming", where people are misdirected to fraudulent sites on line that are developed to look legitimate. This normally happens by fraudsters changing a web site address, ever so slightly.

No legitimate institution will ever ask you to verify personal information via an e-mail, however they do seem to ask a lot of personal information when you call them.

Estimates put this type of "internet fraud" costing consumers about 1.2 billion a year in 2003, but it also should be noted that many institutions don't seem to want to comment on exact figures.

Here is a site with relevant information to protect yourself:

Anti-Phishing Working Group: http://www.antiphishing.org

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Mastercard has shut down 1400 phishing sites in the past eleven months. As a result of this, law enforcement was able to make 27 arrests. This is good news, but the "APWG" states that in March of this year, there were 2870 active "phishing" sites.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=news.view&news=4730

In the end, a lot of this "on line" fraud comes from nations that don't enforce this type of crime. The best way to protect ourselves from this activity is communicaton and education.

Education goes a long way to resolving most issues!

Internet Hoaxes

While not necessarily on line fraud (unless money is exchanged), internet hoaxes can clog up e-mail systems, waste payroll and spread political agendas. They might also be used to spread viruses, worms, or trojans in order to "Phish". "Phishing" is a form of internet fraud where a victim is enticed, either through a fraud e-mail, or by going to a fraudulent site to give up their personal information. The information is normally used to steal their identity.

Here is a site dedicated to exposing "hoaxes" and some of them are pretty amusing.

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/

ID Laws and Increased Border Control

Congress has approved an additional 82 Billion for the war in Iraq. Attached to this are measures to hire additional border security agents, toughen asylum laws, build fences at both borders and requires the states to begin issuing more uniform driver's licenses. It also requires them to verify the people getting them more carefully.

Besides protecting ourselves from terrorists, identity theft has doubled recently. A lot of this can be attributed to internet fraud.

As I stated in a earlier post, this will (and has) raised privacy issues.

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/05/counterfeit-identification.html

In the end, it will be interesting to see if any of this stems the flow of fraud and what the criminals will do to go around the enhanced measures. Interestingly enough, we have enhanced the security features around our currency and we still have a lot of counterfeit money going around. Here is a story on some of the latest counterfeit money going around.



http://www.wndu.com/news/052005/news_42110.php.

Five Dollar Bills are bleached and then a hundred dollar bill is photocopied on top of it. These are showing up all over and the best way for a lay person to identify them is by holding them up to the light. On the counterfeit items, the watermark on the right side is Abraham Lincoln versus Benjamin Franklin. These items defeat the counterfeit pens routinely used by businesses to identify counterfeit currency.

In the technologically advanced world of today, there is a counter measure developed for every measure put out there. In the end, education and communication are probably the best way to defeat what ails us.

More on Postal Money Order Scam

This article from the Herald Tribune states that the origin of most of the counterfeit money orders is Nigeria, however they are also coming from Ghana and Eastern Europe. Many of the victims are being initially contacted by fraud e-mail, or in chat rooms and being duped into internet schemes, involving on line fraud.

Because the people cashing these items are generally regarded as victims and the criminals are overseas, it makes prosecution of these crimes difficult. Lately, I've suspected that everyone involved in this isn't as innocent as they let on. It is now being proven that people are knowingly cashing these items and thus far, 160 arrests have been made since October by the Postal Inspection Service. The key to arresting these people is proving that they knew what they were doing in order to establish intentional wrongdoing.

This might not be hard to prove in some instances. In a lot of cases noted, the dollar amount paid far exceeds the worth of the product being purchased.

If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Quite simply, the government seems to be getting aggressive in going after this. These schemes rely on greed and getting involved in them could have consequences.

Link, here.

Please note that the newest form of check fraud is coming from Qchex.

Link, here.

Counterfeit items originating from this company are showing up in a lot of internet scams.