Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

[fightbackninja]

A Case of Seller Beware


We all know the saying “buyer beware,” but sometimes it’s also “seller beware”.

Drew Silvers, sold a Ford Explorer on Craigslist only to end up in court over it. He did win but it’s an odd story.

The Sale

The Explorer was ten years old and had 90,000 miles on the clock. It had no problems until about a month before posting it on Craigslist when the “check engine” light popped up due to a misfire. Turned out to be the DPFE (emissions device) and it was replaced. I drove the car every day for about a month without problems until someone finally emailed me about it.

The guy offered less than the selling price but I needed to sell the car so I accepted. During this time, I had my paperwork laid out on my coffee table, which included a receipt from the recent DPFE repair, the title to the vehicle, and two copies of an “as-is” bill of sale for us each to sign and keep. My friend counted the buyer’s $3,300 cash, the buyer and I each signed both copies of the bill of sale, and the title. He went on his way for me to never see him again… Or so I thought…

An Unhappy Customer

A couple of days later, I received a long, irritated ramble about how he was driving “my” car and it started skipping, choking, shaking, and running extremely rough. I sent him an email back and said it didn’t make any sense to me because I had been driving it just fine for about a month before hand.

Emails and constant phone calls continued and he told me to do the “right thing” and take the car back or reimburse him for the money he had spent on it so far, but I didn’t respond to him.

About three months later a letter came in the mail from the magistrate court in my county. He was suing me over the Explorer.

My witness and I headed to magistrate court. The guy made the mistake of changing his case from claiming damages to fraud. That meant the magistrate couldn’t hear the case and she had it transferred to the Supreme Court much to the surprise of the buyer. I assumed the problem was over.

About a month later I received a trial notice in the mail from Clerk of the Superior Court in Atlanta. The buyer had followed through and still had no attorney as his listing was filed under “pro-se”. The date was subsequently changed and the final trial date was set for about a year after selling him the Explorer.

I went to court with my witness. The trial started and went exactly as I had thought and the buyer blamed me for selling him what he called a “fraudulent vehicle”, he called his girlfriend to the witness stand who really had nothing to say. The buyer had taken the Explorer to a Ford dealership and had them itemize everything which was not in new condition on the car and the “repair” total to bring it back to showroom condition was a hair over $10,000, which is the amount he was trying to push on me on top of the criminal charge. When it was my turn I did put the buyer on the witness stand and asked him about the “as-is” bill of sale he had signed, which he denied and said he wouldn’t ever put his name on such a thing. Then I took my copy of the bill of sale as well as the return receipt that he had signed when I changed the court date a few months before. I handed both of those documents to the judge so he could compare and he became even more angry and said “I’m no handwriting expert, but…please step down from the stand and take your seat.”

The judge told the buyer that he had no case, was well aware that the “as-is” bill of sale was legitimate, and it wouldn’t matter anyway because the state of Georgia falls under the “buyer beware” rule. We were then angrily asked to leave the court room as the judge’s face turned a nice red hue…

Be careful when buying or selling and always keep the correct documentation.

[fightbackninja]

The Trust Alliance

https://otalliance.org

The Trust Alliance was formed in 2005 and today(now called OTA) has the mission to enhance online trust and empower users, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet. OTA is global organization supported by over 100 organizations and has offices in Washington DC.

The goals of OTA are:-

• Help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users’ security, privacy and identity.
• Supports collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.
• Promote data sharing and collaboration through working groups, training and committees.

Sponsors include individuals, technology leaders, social networks, ecommerce, financial institutions, service providers, government agencies and industry organizations.

Why Was OTA Stated?

Faced with increasing levels of spam and deceptive email, in early 2004, a group of business, industry and marketing leaders led by Epsilon Interactive, Email Senders and Provider Coalition, The Direct Marketing Association, Microsoft, Symantec and Sendmail began meeting to pursue solutions to authenticate email and improve user confidence and in July 2005, the first Email Authentication Summit was hosted in New York City and there have been further successful summits.

So, OTA work at the strategic level to improve Internet security. They are currently working on how to make email trusted. We all know the problems of emails that appear to be from one person but are in fact faked (this is called spoofing) and the design of email makes this possible and difficult to stop. But there are technologies that can improve this situation and ensure email is from who it says it’s from.

OTA are also investigating online advertising. There are major concerns about lack of privacy and security, click bait, fake news, sponsored content, and more. Online advertising is fast evolving so OTA will have to move quickly to keep pace.

OTA are also looking to the future at the Internet of Things and how this will affect privacy and security.

[fightbackninja]

The Trust Alliance


https://otalliance.org

The Trust Alliance was formed in 2005 and today(now called OTA) has the mission to enhance online trust and empower users, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet. OTA is global organization supported by over 100 organizations and has offices in Washington DC.

The goals of OTA are:-

• Help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users’ security, privacy and identity.
• Supports collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.
• Promote data sharing and collaboration through working groups, training and committees.

Sponsors include individuals, technology leaders, social networks, ecommerce, financial institutions, service providers, government agencies and industry organizations.

Why Was OTA Stated?

Faced with increasing levels of spam and deceptive email, in early 2004, a group of business, industry and marketing leaders led by Epsilon Interactive, Email Senders and Provider Coalition, The Direct Marketing Association, Microsoft, Symantec and Sendmail began meeting to pursue solutions to authenticate email and improve user confidence and in July 2005, the first Email Authentication Summit was hosted in New York City and there have been further successful summits.

So, OTA work at the strategic level to improve Internet security. They are currently working on how to make email trusted. We all know the problems of emails that appear to be from one person but are in fact faked (this is called spoofing) and the design of email makes this possible and difficult to stop. But there are technologies that can improve this situation and ensure email is from who it says it’s from.

OTA are also investigating online advertising. There are major concerns about lack of privacy and security, click bait, fake news, sponsored content, and more. Online advertising is fast evolving so OTA will have to move quickly to keep pace.

OTA are also looking to the future at the Internet of Things and how this will affect privacy and security.

[ostell]

The indian scammers are back. Just been dealing with someone that lost £7K yesterday.

Phone call is the same as usual, ie there is a problem with your computer and we can fix it. When pressed for an address they give BT's address in London.

They ask for remote access to your computer. I believe that they use this to install a key logger program so that they can remotely see where you are going. This particular one managed to gain access to bank account and withdrew money from each one they found, and made a couple of accounts go into overdraft. Bank have been told to get back the money fraudulently moved but the bank says wait for 30 days to see what happens. The accounts were frozen yesterday to prevent any further access.

This morning the scammer had the check to call back to ask for the account to be unfrozen so that he could return £7K as he felt guilty.

Both computers involved have been restored to a few weeks ago, passwords changed and antivirus updated to latest and scan started.

I had four phone calls from the USA yesterday purporting to be from BT and stating there was problems with the broadband account and I had to either press 1 for more information and 5 to talk to BT support. I suspect that dialling either number would have resulted in a very expensive chargeable call being made from my number.

[Amethyst]

Bloody hell. There's so much publicity around these kind of scams it amazes me people still allow this remote access to happen.

Presumably a report to Action Fraud has been made. What on earth is the bank waiting for ' to see what happens' ... just in case the scumbags decide to put the money back in ?

This morning the scammer had the check to call back to ask for the account to be unfrozen so that he could return £7K as he felt guilty.

haha as if. The victims bank should be straight on the the receiving bank to have the scammers account shut down before they could get the money withdrawn from them.

[ostell]

This person is normally above these scams, I don't know what happened this time. The unusual activity on one of the accounts alerted the bank and that transfer got blocked but they failed, so it seems, to take action on the other accounts despite being warned.

[jdo_ply]

It seems that there are SMS text messages doing the rounds at the moment threatening to remove funds from bank accounts. Some of them have also been chargeable! One message I received was "Your funds (7689.43 GBP) will be removed unless you access your account within 24 hours" along with some dodgy phishing site... I've had three of them in the last month! :O

[Phaeton]

Presumably a report to Action Fraud has been made. What on earth is the bank waiting for ' to see what happens' ... just in case the scumbags decide to put the money back in ? haha as if. The victims bank should be straight on the the receiving bank to have the scammers account shut down before they could get the money withdrawn from them.

I work in Telecom's & our company was contacted by a bank as the numbers that the scammers were using was within our ranges, although the calls were not being made on our network. The fraud guy from the bank I was talking to claimed it wasn't quite as easy as we think, they move the £7K (for instance) literally within seconds that has been broken down into 10x £700, which each go off to 10 different banks, which then all get broken down into 10x £70's so now 100 banks are involved, each of them get broken down even further, then there is literally somebody stood by a cash machine waiting to withdraw it.

I've no idea if that is fully the truth but the bank was claiming that's why they are finding it difficult, as those 100 banks could be in multiple countries, they could put a hold on all transfers for 24 hours, but then other people would complain.

[fightbackninja]

CIFAS Registration Protects Against Identity Theft

CIFAS a not-for-profit company working to protect businesses, charities, public bodies and individuals from financial crime. They have more than 25 years of experience in fraud prevention and financial crime, working with a range of UK organisations to protect their customers and the public.

https://www.cifas.org.uk

Cifas Protective Registration is a defence against identity fraud. It’s not for everyone – only those who have good reason to think they’re at risk, for example:

• people who have recently lost personal documents, or had them stolen
• customers of organisations that recently lost or leaked sensitive data
• anyone who has been advised by the police that they’re at risk.

How does it work?

When you request Protective Registration, they place a warning flag against your name and other personal details in the National Fraud Database. This tells the hundreds of organisations that use Cifas data to pay special attention when your details are used to apply for their products or services. Knowing you’re at risk, they’ll carry out extra checks to make sure it’s really you applying, and not a fraudster using your details. What is identity fraud?

Identity fraud happens when a fraudster pretends to be someone else and uses their credit card or account to buy products or services in their name or takes out a loan in that person’s name.

Victims may not even realise that they have been targeted until a bill arrives for something they did not buy or they experience problems with their credit rating. To carry out this kind of fraud successfully, fraudsters usually have access to their victim’s personal information such as name, date of birth, address etc. Fraudsters get hold of this in a variety of ways, including through phishing emails, fake websites, hacking and data loss, as well as using social media to put the pieces of someone’s identity together. What to do if you’re a victim:

ACT FAST if you think you have been a victim of identity fraud

If you receive any mail that seems suspicious or implies you have an account with the sender when you don’t, do not ignore it. Phone one of the major credit reference agencies to report your concerns.

Get a copy of your credit report as it is one of the first places you can spot if someone is misusing your personal information – before you suffer financial loss. Review every entry on your credit report and if you see an account or even a credit search from a company that you do not recognise, notify the credit reference agency.

Individuals or businesses who have fallen victim to identity fraud should report this to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk.

It pays to be careful with your identity and never give out confidential information unless you are sure of who you are giving it to.

[fightbackninja]

How to Report a Bad Website

It can be very simple and quick for people to create websites – good websites and bad websites.

What can you do if you encounter a bad website?

Bad in this case doesn’t mean something you don’t like but a website that is a scam or misleading or steals your personal information or is a copy of someone else’s website etc.

You can report the bad website to the search engines, blacklists, review sites and the Authorities. Search Engines

Google, Bing and the other search engines want to know about bad websites so they can direct traffic away from them and where relevant will report the sites to the Police or other Authority.

Report to Google https://safebrowsing.google.com/safe...badware/?hl=en

Instructions for Bing https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...shing-web-site

To report a site Internet Explorer: If you are running IE and are still on the site in question, then click on the Safety icon, which is on the toolbar go to “SmartScreen Filter” and select “Report unsafe website”. Blacklists

Many organisations maintain lists of ‘bad’ websites called blacklists. This is to enable services such as Web of Trust, Trustwave, Brightcloud, numerous anti virus and anti malware companies such as McAfee, Sophos and many others to block access to those sites.

When you navigate to a blacklisted listed website, your anti-virus or other software will warn you and stop the browser opening that site. Which such software protection you choose is up to you but they all try to offer a good service.

PhishTank is a collaborative clearing house for data and information about phishing on the Internet. It maintains a blacklist used by software services. PhishTank allows developers to integrate anti-phishing data into their applications at no charge. https://www.phishtank.com/ Review Sites

There are various review websites that allow you to enter information, reviews, comments on websites and businesses – to help others make informed choices.

Which one you pick to report a bad website to depends on the nature of the website

e.g. for travel reviews – Trip Advisor

Some of the largest of these review sites are Consumer Report, Four Square, Better Business Bureau, Angie’s List and there are lots more. The Authorities

You can report websites to Action Fraud if there is evidence of criminal activity.

You can report online scams and rip-offs to Trading Standards via the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Helpline on: 03454 04 05 06

[fightbackninja]

Facebook Scammer is Scammed

Teddy Wayne was bored one weekend and received a friend request on Facebook. Her name was Claire Anri and she sent photos of herself – a beautiful young woman (turns out the photos were fake as they had been taken from the Facebook page of a personal trainer in New York).

This was an obvious scam but Teddy played along for 3 months – continually making a mess of transferring money to Claire. She wanted money to travel to America and become his wife.

Teddy kept up the dialogue on Facebook and had a lot of fun with the scammer. He found ways to annoy her and test her determination to get money from him.

This section below is one of the funniest.

Teddy: I am afraid you will stop loving me once you have to live with my chronic diarrhoea. Please tell me you will not let it get in the way of our love.

Claire: I wont. I promise you my love

Teddy: thank you. It has gotten worse with the stress from the hurricane but II am only having “episodes” 12 or 13 times a day now. But enough about me. How are YOU?

Claire: 24 and you?

Teddy: 32. I have had the chronic diarrhoea since I was 24, though, so we have something in common!

Claire: what we have in common is love

Teddy: yes. love, and your age being the age when I developed chronic diarrhoea.

Claire: — and I will always be there for you my love. Honey when are you sending me the money I asked you?

Teddy: — I cannot wait. The happiness I receive will overpower this episode of diarrhoea I am currently undergoing.

 — I have sent it already and will give you the MTCN when I see the pics and know that your love for me is true

Claire: don’t let it lost the way you did the last one you sent

Teddy: no, you have been so nice about not leaving me because of my chronic diarrhoea; I am going to add another $1,000 to it, ok? You are worth it, baby. Where are you now?

Claire: am still in Malaysia and you my husband?

Teddy: still in NYC. My diarrhoea clinic is here so I pretty much have to stay here.

Claire: am sending the pictures now

These scammers are usually male and very determined to get your money – 3 months of being played along was finally enough for the scammer to give up.

The complete story is available at https://theawl.com/my-three-month-fa...n-d451bb9e0e7d

[fightbackninja]

Call Blocking Phones for Dementia Sufferers



In 2015, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) received almost 170,000 complaints about nuisance calls

Cold callers are a nuisance to most of us. But to someone suffering from dementia, they can be a scourge.

This is also the case for many people with mental disabilities, the very elderly and people not used to callers pretending to be helpful but just seeking to defraud them.

Many of the large charity organisations until recently used to exchange caller lists so anyone who was generous to one charity would find themselves bombarded with calls from other charities and many paid over far more money than they should have.

Prime Minister Theresa May said “We want to create a fairer society by cracking down on unscrupulous practices which target the most vulnerable”. She has announced plan to give elderly and vulnerable people hi-tech devices to block these nuisance calls.

The call blocking devices will be installed in the homes of some of the most vulnerable people across the UK who have been identified by doctors, Trading Standards officials and local councils as being at risk from nuisance callers.

These trueCall devices will block all recorded messages, silent calls and calls from numbers not already pre-identified by the home owner – offering particular protection to those with dementia.

The project, which is being co-ordinated by the National Trading Standards Scams Team and supported by local Trading Standards departments, is the latest of a series of government crackdowns on nuisance callers

The chief executive of Dementia UK, Hilda Hayo, said: We welcome this project as some people living with dementia are vulnerable to nuisance callers who offer bogus services and financial schemes. These calls can not only have a negative financial impact but can also lead to psychological effects such as anxiety, depression and a loss of self-esteem. We frequently receive calls to our national helpline from family members who are concerned that their relative with dementia has fallen prey to rogue traders.

The funding for this scheme includes £300,000 to supply call blocking machines with the remaining budget spent on the management of the service and raising public awareness of scam and nuisance calls

The only problem is that the money will run out long before everyone who needs one of the phones gets it. Let’s hope more money can be found.

To report a nuisance go to the Information Commissioners Office online at www.ico.org.uk

[charitynjw]

fightbackninja

Hi, FBN
I received an email this morning, directing me to the following link

http://tiffanychiles.com/.well-known...y/?9vw9mz9r9k4

So I checked

[fightbackninja]

fightbackninja

Hi, FBN
I received an email this morning, directing me to the following link

http://tiffanychiles.com/.well-known...y/?9vw9mz9r9k4

So I checked

Sadly there are numerous Bitcoin scams around

[dogtired]

Had a strange one last weekend . Facebook Messinger pretending to be one of my friends asking how I was, then started to get me to sign up for a
" grant" for help with care costs, using strange language and when challenged could not tell me personal things this friend would know. Apparently all I had to do was to " donate" $100 to get ;£1000! A link to a Chrsytal Mitchell on the whole very dodgy!