Financial Fraud Research Center

6/10/2013 – Banks Seen as Aid in Fraud Against Older Consumers

mbeals — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:45:04 +0000

The pitch arrived, as so many do, with a friendly cold call.

Bruno Koch, 83, told the telemarketer on the line that, yes, of course he would like to update his health insurance card. Then Mr. Koch, of Newport News, Va., slipped up: he divulged his bank account information.

Read the full article at The New York Times.

6/7/2013 – Scam Suspects Become the Victims

mbeals — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:19:38 +0000

The scam’s elaborate setup began Monday afternoon with a simple question on a Chinatown sidewalk, and built itself up in a series of seemingly chance encounters and grave predictions. Grave in tone, but also as in coming from a dead person below ground.

It all ended a few hours later, when one woman handed another a paper bag in Chatham Square, and a man down the block shouted a warning in Cantonese, too late, into a cellphone.

Read the full article at The New York Times.

6/7/2013 – Senior citizens vulnerable to lottery scams

mbeals — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:30:01 +0000

An 84-year-old may have won last month’s record-setting lottery, but some of Gloria MacKenzie’s peers are finding themselves winning a different kind of lottery — the kind that loses them money.

Read the full article at USA Today.

6/6/2013 – Elder Abuse and Technology

mbeals — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:28:40 +0000

In a world of Silicon Valley technology where tourists take photos using iPads and Google Glass can practically read your mind, it may sound surprising that there remains a sector of our population that is only now beginning to learn about the Internet. Yet that is true of older Americans.

Read the full article at The Commonwealth Club of California.

6/5/2013 – FTC Sues Payment Processor for Assisting Credit Card Debt Relief Scam

mbeals — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:23:53 +0000

As part of the Federal Trade Commission’s ongoing crackdown on payment processors that turn a blind eye to fraud, the agency sued a payment processing business that allegedly assisted and facilitated a telemarketing credit card interest rate reduction scam.

Read the full article at the Federal Trade Commission.

Consumer Fraud in the United States, 2011: The Third FTC Survey

mbeals — Fri, 31 May 2013 18:51:49 +0000

Title: Consumer Fraud in the United States, 2011: The Third FTC Survey

Author: Anderson, Keith B.

Publication: Staff Report of the Bureaus of Economics and Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission

Year: 2013

Focus Area: Prevalence, Victim Profiling, Fraud Surveys

Relevance: Surveys of fraud prevalence in the United States help define the scope of the problem and allow enforcement agencies to tailor their prevention and education efforts. The FTC Survey is one of the most comprehensive surveys of fraud-related information.

Summary: This report details the findings from the third survey commissioned by the Federal Trade Commission to examine consumer fraud in the United States. The survey was conducted from late 2011 to early 2012.

Consumers were asked questions designed to learn whether they had been victims of specific types of fraudulent transactions. The survey also provides information about the mechanism through which the fraudulent transaction occurred. Finally, the survey investigated the relationship between certain demographic characteristics and the likelihood of fraud victimization.

Key findings include:

During 2011, an estimated 25.6 million adults (10.8 percent of the adult population) were victimized by fraud.
The top 5 fraud categories were:

Weight-loss Products (estimated 5.1 million victims)
Prize Promotions (estimated 2.4 million)
Unauthorized Billing for Buyer’s Club Memberships (estimated 1.9 million)
Unauthorized Billing for Internet Services (estimated 1.9 million)
Work-at-Home Programs (estimated 1.8 million)

The Internet was the most common way victims first learned about offers that turned out to be fraudulent and the most common way orders were placed.
High school graduates were the least likely to have been victimized by fraud.
Survey respondents who were more willing to take risks, who recently experienced a negative life event, and who had more debt than they could handle were more likely to have been victimized by fraud.
In general, consumers age 45-54 were the most likely to have been victimized by fraud. Those under age 45 were somewhat less likely to have been victimized than those 45-54, and those 55 and over were the least likely to have experience fraud. However, those between 55 and 74 had the greatest chance of being victims of fraudulent prize promotions.

Full Article

5/29/2013 – Anonymous Payment Schemes Thriving on Web

mbeals — Thu, 30 May 2013 19:39:24 +0000

Eight years ago, Ernie Allen, the head of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, called the heads of major banks and credit card companies. Why, he wanted to know, were they letting child pornographers move illicit profits through their systems?

Read the full article at The New York Times.

5/26/2013 – New study, bill puts focus on senior fraud

mbeals — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:57:42 +0000

New efforts are underway to combat what aging experts say has become one of the top threats facing elders: losing their savings to con artists and financial predators.

Read the full article at SunSentinel.

5/23/2013 – Civil Rights Firebrand’s Fraud Case in Georgia Now Has Others Treading Softly

mbeals — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:16:13 +0000

In the state where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born and a legacy of lynching still informs politics, it is never easy to suggest that a leader of the civil rights movement might be a thief. That is why Sally Yates, a United States attorney, stepped carefully last week when she brought a 54-page indictment against Tyrone Brooks, a state representative from Atlanta who got his start as a street soldier for Dr. King.

Read the full article at The New York Times.

5/21/2013 – IBM Software Fights Financial Fraud At MoneyGram

mbeals — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:00:10 +0000

In the first week after MoneyGram International implemented software, called Identity Insight, to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions, the program stopped $1 million in fraud. Over the course of its first year of operations, it stopped $60 million in fraudulent transactions.

Read the full article at Forbes.