PI Newswire

It’s that time of year—you know, not the time for holiday cheer but for people to try to scam you out of your hard-earned money. One of the latest tricks, according to CBS Chicago, is a text message claiming your debit card is locked and you need to call a specific number to unlock it. Hint: don’t do it.
The text message looks something like this:

FW:|Fifth Third B. Message. Your card has been locked. Call 519-555-9910 to unlock it.

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In the event you get one of these messages, it’s best to call your bank and confirm there’s nothing wrong. My bank sends me lock notices like this via email and I have the option of receiving them via text, so it’s best not to ignore it if you think there may actually be a problem. Just don’t call the number in the message. Instead, call the number on the back of your debit card and ask to be connected to fraud prevention services (or whatever your bank calls that department) and make sure everything is alright. And while you’re on hold, brush up on these debit card and ATM security tips.

An excellent way to improve one’s level of security intelligence is to follow the writings of Robert X. Cringley, one of my favorite technology know-it-alls.

Anyway, Cringley’s credit card was recently hacked. And if his card can be hacked, anyone’s can. Like many cardholders, Cringley received a notification from his credit card company’s fraud department, informing him that his card data was being used overseas, on an online dating website.

A scammer used Cringley’s credit card number to create a fake profile, posing as a woman named Katya to lure desperate, unsuspecting men into dating scams.

Cringley determined that the IP address associated with the fraud was anonymized, going through numerous channels to disguise its origin. A Russia-based email address may mean Russian criminals are involved in the hack.

Cringley’s card was used to purchase Badoo credits, which are used to unlock certain features of the dating website, such as chatting with another user or requesting photos. The scammer used Cringley’s card to buy Badoo credits in numerous countries, making her profile internationally accessible.

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Westchester County Police along with the U.S. Secret Service have arrested a Bronx man and charged him with stealing credit card information and then using it to buy more than $100,000 worth of consumer electronics.

Officials say 31 year old James Davis of Decatur Avenue used a skimming device to steal credit card information while he was working as a waiter at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in White Plains in late 2008.

Davis was charged with 11 counts of 4th Degree Grand Larceny, 11 counts of 3rd Degree

Unlawful Possession of Personal Identification Information, all felonies, as well as one count of Scheme to Defraud, a misdemeanor.

Police say Davis was found in possession of several small bags of cocaine when he was arrested. An addition charge of 5th Degree Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance, a felony, is pending.

Authorities say the investigation into Davis’ alleged activities began in January 2009, when the U.S. Secret Service contacted County Police about suspicious transactions involving credit card information that was stolen in Westchester. The credit card information was used to make unauthorized online purchases from Best Buy and AT&T.

Westchester County Police determined that the Westchester identity theft victims had all dined at the same restaurant in White Plains–the Cheesecake Factory.

Davis, who was a waiter at the restaurant, was identified early on as a suspect in the thefts, but resigned before the investigation was complete. Cops have been searching for him since early 2009.

Police ultimately took Davis into custody Thursday morning at a home on East 161st. Street in the Bronx.

Officials believe davis did not make the unauthorized purchases himself, but sold the information to other parties who used the numbers to buy merchandise.

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The U.S. is a technology laggard when it comes to credit cards, and experts say international fraud rings are starting to notice.

Much of the rest of the developed world is shifting toward more secure bank cards that contain an extra layer of protection against fraud artists.

Some U.S. banks are quietly studying a move to the new technology, but some are daunted by the potential costs involved in revamping the millions of point-of-sale terminals built to accept the magnetic-stripe cards that have been in use in this country for decades.

Much of Europe, Latin America, Canada and parts of Asia have made the shift to safer cards or plan to. As the world shifts toward the new cards, security experts say fraud rings are recognizing that the U.S. is among the most vulnerable markets and are moving in to take advantage.

“The U.S. is becoming the most favored nation for credit card fraud,” said Wes Wilhelm, a senior analyst with the Aite Group.

Wilhelm estimates that credit card fraud is creating between $8 billion and $10 billion in losses in the U.S., which he said is considerably more than a decade ago.

Some big credit card security breaches have become public.

One of them was a breach at a processing company, New Jersey-based Heartland Payment Systems Inc., that exposed information on more than 
100 million credit card accounts.

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LIV TYLER, CHER and JENNIFER ANISTON have been caught up in a beauty salon boss’ get-rich-quick credit card scheme, according to new reports.

The trio, as well as stars like Anne Hathaway and Melanie Griffith, have been named in an affidavit obtained by TMZ.com following an investigation by U.S. Secret Service officials.

The lawmakers accuse Maria Gabriella Perez, the owner of Beverly Hills salon Chez Gabriela Studio, of overcharging her famous clients and then stealing their credit card information.

According the the documents, the accused swindled $214,000 (£142,600) from Tyler alone.

Perez was arrested on federal fraud charges on Wednesday (18Aug10).

According to TMZ.com, Cher insists she was not a victim in the alleged scheme, and does not know why she was named in the affidavit.

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A founder of one of the world’s most sophisticated Internet sites for trafficking stolen credit card information has been arrested by French police based on a U.S. criminal indictment unsealed Wednesday, the U.S. Secret Service and Justice Department announced.

Vladislav Anatolieviech Horohorin, 27, was seized at the Nice airport Saturday en route from the Mediterranean principality of Monaco to Moscow, where he resides, authorities said. Horohorin, a citizen of Israel and Ukraine, where he was born, was indicted in November by a federal grand jury in the District on charges of credit card fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The Secret Service called Horohorin, known online as “BadB,” one of its five most wanted cyber-criminals in the world. He is part of a “network that has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported” to international authorities, said Michael Merritt, the Secret Service’s assistant director for investigations.

Horohorin allegedly used online criminal forums such as CarderPlanet, carder.su, and badb.biz to sell stolen credit card data, known as “dumps,” and helped create the first and only fully automated site available to buyers worldwide, according to court documents.

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An underground credit card clearing house has itself been hacked, an investigation by Trend Micro has confirmed.

The operation – a holding firm for anonymous payment service Fethard – processes credit card payments for a rogue’s gallery of fake anti-virus (scareware) suppliers, spam-promoted unlicensed pharmaceutical and extreme pornography sites.

Hackers claimed to have breached a server behind its website on 23 July, publishing information online including employee emails and recorded phone calls, one discussing techniques to defraud credit card firms. The perpetrators of the hack and their motive remain unidentified, but it is potentially an assault from cybercrime rivals.

Trend said the information on the unnamed credit card processor, registered in the Netherlands but actually run from Russia and Latvia, checks out. The firm has legitimate customers in Russia as well as rather more unscrupulous clients, reportedly taken on to keep the business afloat after it became the victim of cybercrime itself a few years ago.

“In 2007, a large sum of money was stolen from Fethard’s funds. This has undoubtedly created problems for Fethard and has possibly pulled the mother company deeper into the cybercrime business,” Trend Micro researcher Feike Hacquebord explains.

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METRO VANCOUVER — Abbotsford Police suspect a fraud ring is operating in the Fraser Valley city, after collecting 20,000 credit cards and card-making equipment in three separate incidents in the past three weeks.

One arrest has already made and police are investigating to determine whether the incidents are linked.

“From our small town, indications are we have at least one group actively working here,” Const. Ian MacDonald said. “At least 20,000 credit cards have been compromised. The manufacturer and head of operations has to be somewhere in our city.”

MacDonald said police were first alerted to the potential fraud ring on July 22 when a security guard found a flash drive — a memory storage device — at an Abbotsford business.

The security guard inserted the drive into the computer, hoping to determine who owned it. Instead, the drive contained credit card information, which police later determined could load 6,000 credit cards.

MacDonald said thieves will transfer the stolen data onto blank credit cards and gift cards.

“The only limits they’re going to face are the limits on your credit card, your bank account and your alertness on noticing [strange transactions],” he said. “That clone card is equivalent to the card in your pocket. If I can get information from your card, you’re helpless.”

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We all fear discovering an unfamiliar perfume lingering on our man’s collar or a smudge of lipstick that isn’t our shade, but sometimes his cheating isn’t with another woman … it’s with his wallet. Maybe you found a statement for a credit card you never knew existed, or suspect he’s been blowing the cash you thought he was saving for retirement. When your faith in your partner’s honesty and financial fidelity is shaken, how do you keep it from tearing your relationship apart? Manisha Thakor, The Frisky’s personal finance expert for women, offers the following advice for coping after he’s been fiscally unfaithful.

Ask whether it’s really cheating. Even if you’re in a committed relationship, you can’t hold your partner accountable for money rules he doesn’t know you’ve set. You may be diligently saving part of your paycheck for a house to live happily ever after in, but you can’t assume he’s put aside his plans to purchase a boat unless you’ve talked about it. “One person may feel there has been financial infidelity while the other one may not,” cautions Thakor. However, if you’re living with a guy who claims to be debt-free, you’re right to be suspicious of signs he may be lying. “A classic sign there’s a problem is avoiding phone calls – it could be his mom checking in again to see how his day’s going … but it could also be the bill collectors.”

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The scammer posed as both a local and federal police officer.

The incidents began last Friday when a man called several restaurants along the Carlisle Pike in Hampden Township. In one instance, he said his name was Officer Miller and that he was doing a fraud investigation.

For the investigation, he needed all of the credit card information from cards used that day.

At least two restaurant employees bought the scam.

So far, police have identified at least 80 compromised accounts, including five that were used to make illegal purchases in New Jersey.

Police are warning people to check their account statements to make sure there haven’t been any unauthorized purchases.

Sergeant Steve Shissler, Hampden Township Police Department, said, “The second part that we’re trying to

Police would not say which restaurants fell for the scam or whether the people who gave out the information were disciplined.

Put out there is to local businesses. If somebody calls and identifies themselves as a police officer, you don’t necessarily want to believe that information just because he says he’s a police officer over the phone.”

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VICTORIA — The British Columbia government’s online gambling site was shutdown because of a privacy breach, B.C. Lottery Corp. officials confirmed in a news release Tuesday.

Company officials said that when PlayNow.com was relaunched last Thursday as the first government-sanctioned online casino in North America, 134 accounts were left exposed and open to any other player to access.

Twelve of the accounts had “a measure of sensitive personal information viewed by another player,” officials added, giving no further details.

All players who were affected by the breach have been contacted, officials said.

The announcement comes after extensive criticism from the New Democratic Party.

Shane Simpson, NDP critic for housing and social development, said the government should have been open from the start about the privacy breach.

“They’re expecting people to put significant personal information and credit card information on there,” said Simpson. “The government simply has to be more transparent if they want people to have confidence in their site.”

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Imagine applying for that first job, that first exciting credit card, that freshman-year college loan. Now, don’t.

For more young adults, plans and hopes are being dashed because they are unwitting victims of identity theft at the hands of someone they know, usually their parents.

It often happens when victims are too young to do anything about it, so it’s a crime that can go undetected for years.

A parent or other relative uses a child’s personal information, including Social Security number, to get a credit card, loan or other account with a clean credit record. That’s identity fraud in Georgia.

When the child enters the business and financial world as an adult, he encounters debt he knows nothing about

“They won’t be able to get a credit card. Or if the debt owed is disproportionate to their earnings, then they can’t get loans. It’s difficult to get a car,” said Michelle Jones, senior vice president of counseling for CredAbility. The Atlanta-based nonprofit, provides credit counseling and education across the Southeast.

“And when you are applying for car insurance or applying for a job, people look at your credit score. The worst case scenario … you have a young adult who is facing filing for bankruptcy on a debt that they never personally incurred,” Jones said.

The Federal Trade Commission’s figures on identity theft show Georgia ranking seventh nationwide for the highest number of complaints over the last three years. FTC breakdowns by age show about a quarter of the complaints come from 20- to 29-year-olds. But there’s no way to say how many are from parent identity theft.

Georgia Office of Consumer Affairs spokesman Bill Cloud believes cases of child identity theft have multiplied substantially in the last few years. Identity theft is a felony in Georgia.

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