Internet Scams - Internet Security

(Picture of counterfeit financial instruments recently intercepted in the mail by an International law enforcement task force) In the past several days, I've noticed a surge in counterfeit check alerts from the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). From December 19th to the 21st, the FDIC issued 26 alerts from various financial institutions throughout the United States reporting counterfeit activity using their information. These checks are used in all the different varieties of overpayment scams. The basic MO (method of operation) in these scams is to trick someone into negotiating a bogus financial instrument and sending the money back to the person behind the scam. ... Read Full Story

Counterfeit financial instruments are circulated in a variety of Internet scams. The ploy is always to get someone to cash them and then wire the money back to the person behind the scam. In the past couple of weeks, readers and other sources have brought to my attention that counterfeit Visa Travelers Cheques are circulating. Visa has provided resources to identify these instruments. You can call them at 1-800-227-6811 to verify an item. This can also be done on-line, here .Visa also has a good interactive tool to identify the security features of the Visa Travelers Cheque, here . The trick is to ALWAYS ... Read Full Story

A joint operation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission , United States Postal Inspection Service and the United Kingdom Serious Organized Crimes Agency has substantiated that there are a lot of counterfeit checks being shipped via mail out of Nigeria. From This Day courtesy of AllAfrica.com: A statement by Osita Nwajah Head, Media & Publicity of EFCC said the exercise is the first multi-national interdiction operation of outward bound packages in the country. It saw agents of the three law enforcement agencies poring through tones of outward bound packages in the pre-exporting mail processing centres of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) and private ... Read Full Story

Scam (too good to be true) lure courtesy of miriyaparino at Flickr. Counterfeit checks like all the ones recently discovered by an International law enforcement team being sent from Nigeria aren't the only bogus financial instruments being sent all over the world. In this recent effort against this activity, over 15,000 counterfeit instruments were discovered in a months time. These bogus financial instruments were destined to be sent to a lot of different countries. In the past couple of weeks, a lot of counterfeit American Express gift cheques are being reported in blog comments and e-mails, I receive from victims. Please note that besides ... Read Full Story

It should be no surprise that scam artists, fraudsters and other internet misfits are trying to cash in on the economic stimulus package being proposed by the powers that be in Washington. The odd thing is the come-on, a tax rebate, hasn't even been approved yet. The most accurate information I could find on this latest trend was from the IRS, who is being impersonated once again. They've gained considerable experience with this type of scam recently with their name being used (frequently) as a fake "badge of authority" (lure) to trick people into becoming an identity theft statistic. From the IRS site (published ... Read Full Story