Greed is a character defect to which most of us would rather not admit, but it is a part of human nature. Hence we are all potential con victims. We all have heard the quote, if it sounds too good to be true, it is, but I would add to that sage advice. If it activates your greed button, hit delete and do not look back. Whatever you do, never hit on the link.
The FBI has
stated that identify theft and other related scams are the fastest
growing crimes nationally and are expected to advance along with our
highly wired economy. Hence, it is important to understand that most
identity and other internet thefts are preventable with simple
precautions and a concerted effort to at least not aid the scammer.
According to the site www.consumerfraudreporting.org,
the greatest per capita concentration of internet scammers originates
from our capitol, Washington, D.C., followed by Nevada, California, New
York and Florida. The target populations generating the most victim
complaints are California (13%), Texas (7.2%), Florida (7.1%), New York
(5.5%), Pennsylvania (3.9%) and New Jersey (3.8%). As these
percentages indicate, the problem is national. Successful fraud is
everywhere.
The largest monetary loss suffered by individual
fraud victims is a result of what is called the 'Nigerian Letter
Fraud'. If you have not received at least one of these letters in your
lifetime, you truly need to get out more. In the Nigerian letter fraud
you are baited with the lure of millions of (US) dollars or (British)
pounds. The first Nigerian letter I ever received was by fax about 20
years ago and used a bait amount of US$1.5 million. The last one I got
in my email a few weeks ago through Gather.com and had US$31 million as
the 'pot of gold' number.
Of course for many of us it could seem like a dream come true. Life is hard and with all the blood on the stock market floor, others may need a big Lotto win just to make it through year-end. When that email does arrive, it seems so simple. All we have to do is pay for transfer fees or some other nominal amount (via cashier's check) to the magnanimous sender. Hey, we all want to be rescued.
Why ruin our high by telling our lawyer, family or even our friends? They are so negative and such downers anyway, right? So we ignore that voice that keeps whispering 'sucker', because... because we... well, we just want that darn money.
After we fall for it - whether it is by clicking a link and letting the scammers' phishing software loot our home computer for social security numbers, account identification numbers or birthdates or something more active - the scammers employ sophisticated methods that include counterfeit bank checks, cashier's checks, money orders and even US Postal money orders.
To anyone but an expert or an extremely
alert banker, these instruments will often look authentic down to the
scan and routing numbers. If they are deposited through an ATM
machine, they may even make it through a routing or two before the scam
is discovered. A good victim won't want to think she has been conned
or is about to be, so she rushes through the process of getting it into
the bank anyway.
A new twist on this particular scam, by the
way, is to hire a person to work from home. Times are tough, so I
expect to see this one used more frequently. Isn't that what we all
really want, a job we can do in our pajamas, slurping our mocha or
taking care of our new baby that pays us 1.5 times what we made before we got laid off?
Anyway,
the employment ads may be on-line through a free site or emailed or
advertised. The interview is all done by email and the person is
miraculously 'hired' for $10 more an hour than she made at her last
job. The 'independent contractor' offer may be made or they may ask
for a W-9 (the withholding form used by employers to document Social
Security numbers) and send a bunch of other official looking documents.
The new 'employee' is given lots of work to do and told not to forget
to submit his expenses. Of course, he will be reimbursed for any
expenses like phone, computer paper or postage along with his
paycheck. After a few weeks, when that first payday hits, the
'employer' sends an email profusely apologizing about the difficulty of
getting funds out of his home country.
Claiming to understand, of
course, that the new employee deserves to be paid - insert all those
wonderful strokes here about what a great job the employee has been
doing - the employer offers to give the employee an interim option
until he can straighten out the banking issue. Yeah, here we go
again. This scammer explains they will redirect a money order to the
employee that was paid by a client but hasn't left the country yet.
All the employee has to do is deposit it to his own account and forward
only the funds that are owed to the employer. Sound familiar?
The money order amount is not for the $3,000 owed to the employee,
however, but for $10,000. The naive may even marvel that someone could
be so trusting as to send such a large sum of money without any
guarantee of getting the other $7,000 back. He is the 'best' victim,
as he will be so concerned about demonstrating his own honesty, he will
overnight the $7,000 to the scammer.
Of course, there
may be a victim who is beginning to suspect something fishy, but he is
now in a quandary. He told his wife and parents what a great new job
he has, so even he brings the phony instrument to his bank and deposits
it as instructed. Why? Because now he needs the money, the rent is due
and he is out three weeks of hard work. Not only does this victim not
alert the teller - because he needs it to clear - but deposits the
entire amount to his account. This victim will often think it was good
if the teller didn't catch it. We all want to believe, so he holds his
breath.
If he sends a cashier's check for the difference back to
the scammer, even with reservations, it may be because he desperately
needs a real job. A few days or even a week may go by before the
victim confirms he has been had when his own checks start to bounce.
These so-called Nigerian scammers send letters from many different
countries but the originators are almost always Nigerians, hence the
name. Only about 1.7% of total monetary losses are a result of the
Nigerian letter fraud, but the individual median cost for each is the
highest of all scams, or about US$5100.
So who else is
getting raked? Over 61% of fraud victims are getting ripped off
through phony auctions (33% at a median loss of $602.50) and
non-delivery of merchandise or payment (28.1% at a median loss of
$585). So, if you have become addicted to sites like eBay and
Craigslist, use intelligent precautions. Check fraud is about 11.1% of
the total dollar losses reported along with 4% for investment fraud and
4.5% for confidence fraud.
I will share one check fraud story
with you, as I still find it rather appalling. One of my clients was
in a terrible car accident but luckily a passerby pulled off the road
to help her and saved her life. Claiming his batter was dead, he used
her cell phone to call 911 and told her not to worry. He stayed there
holding her hand and calming her until the ambulance arrived. As the
paramedics strapped her to the guerney, he rushed over and handed them
her purse. Of course she was grateful. He even told her he had put
his business card in her purse and to call him if she needed anything.
When she recovered from her injuries a few weeks later and went home,
she fully intended to send him a thank you note. As she pulled the
messages off her answer machine, there were several calls from her
bank. It appeared that the checks at the back of her check book had
been removed. Her Good Samaritan had overdrawn her account,
successfully forging her signature based on the duplicate check
copies. The business card? It belonged to some poor computer salesman
who was promptly arrested and only released after she said it wasn't
the scammer.
Although certainly not of the same magnitude, this also reminds me of the time I dropped my cell phone, only to receive a call from the man who found it. "Meet me in the Walgreen's parking lot, bring $50 cash and I'll give it back to you," he said. Of course, I did meet him there and paid the money, but it did seem cheesy on the guy's part. I recently learned that I could have called the cops and they would have met me there and arrested the guy for extortion related to lost or stolen property.
Okay, so in Mexico City I also paid a
parking lot attendant $40 not to arrest me for parking on the street in
a no-parking zone, but he had a uniform and I was accustomed to
American cops being armed. Of course, I should have figured out that
'policia' wasn't on his uniform, but I was there for a Berlitz class as
I didn't speak Spanish yet. Still pisses me off when I think about it,
as I was eight months pregnant at the time. (What a rotten cad he must
have been to pick on an emotional, pregnant foreigner in the first
place.)
Of course, luck does exist and I can attest that people
do win things legitimately. In my life I have won a turkey, a pizza,
two bottles of wine, several gift baskets, assorted dinners for two and
a free bus ticket to New York from Boston. (Obviously I plan to work
the rest of my life as I cannot count on my luck with regard to much
more than food or drink items.)
A recent scam in the Northwest is
not new but they have upped the profile by posing as representatives
for Publisher's Clearing House. They show up with balloons and cameras
and videotape the 'winner's' reaction, all holding a giant cardboard
check made payable to the victim. Then they try to collect the 'income
taxes' due on the winnings and settle for some portion before handing
over the phony check. To me, they are the lowest of the low.
I mean, why put on make-up every morning if I can't at least look
forward to winning PCH's million dollar sweepstakes? One has to have hope.
Anyway, if you think you are smarter than the rest of us and cannot be
had? Take this 'phishing' test that was developed by an excellent
firewall company, Sonicwall.com, and let me know how you do. As
sophisticated as I think I am, I only got 80% correct.
http://www.sonicwall.com/phishing/index.html
Oh, and if you are still thinking about a great Christmas or Hannukah
gift for that family member you adore? A cheap cross-shredder will
protect them almost as much as your love and affection.
