By Dorothy Riggs, CFE Reportedly, the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel project tallied 3 million consumer complaints received in 2016.   Regarding consumer fraud, identity theft has lost its #1 position.   Impostor fraud has taken the lead.   Last year victims lost $744.5 million collectively to impostor fraud schemes. What is Impostor Fraud? Impostor fraud involves fraudsters impersonating someone else in order to carry out a fraud scheme.   They often contact consumers pretending to be family members, law enforcement, representatives of government agencies, bill collectors and so on.

By:  Dorothy Riggs, CFE Being one of the people who still have a landline, upon arriving home one evening last week I listened to messages left on my answering machine and heard an unfamiliar voice asking “Can you hear me okay?” a few times before hanging up.  I thought it was strange.  Then I remembered a recent news story warning viewers about an old phone scam with a new twist where fraudsters phone you, begin talking, then suddenly ask, Can you hear me?  If you answer ‘yes’ your response is recorded and used to make unauthorized charges on a utility or phone bill. In some cases, your recorded acknowledgement is all it takes to make you liable not only for charges on phone and utilities, but items like cruises, office supplies and business services also.  So, when answering work and personal calls beware if you don’t want to receive unwanted products and invoices to contend with.

By:  Dorothy Riggs, CFE According to a report from a fraud-fighting colleague, Lycamobile customers are being targeted by scammers.  Lycamobile is a  mobile network operator company with competitive price offerings to consumers in 21 countries worldwide.  Don’t think the information in this post doesn’t apply to you because you use a different mobile network. Fraudsters show no partiality to one group over another. This time it’s Lycamobile customers who are being targeted. The next time it could be you. The Lyca Lottery scam works as follows: Perpetrators cold call Lycamobile customers, promising a £50k lottery win, once a £500 admin fee is paid.  Of course, once the £500 fee is paid the victim’s don’t receive a penny of the supposed lottery winnings.  To give the scheme an air of legitimacy, the crooks have set up a this sham website:   www.lycamobilewinners.com

I hope 2017 is off to an amazing start for everyone.  I have so many things I want to accomplish this year, so I've been busy planning.  Among my plans for fraud sense this year is GIVEAWAYS! I'm sure you have big dreams and goals to realize also.  So, I'm thrilled to announce our first GIVEAWAY! One of my subscribers will receive a Happy Planner kit to help chart the way to success this year! If I'm not mistaken, it was Benjamin Franklin who said "Failing to plan is planning to fail."  The graphic below contains the prize contents and entry rules.  Good luck!

By:   Dorothy Riggs, CFE Fraud activity is ever increasing and diverse in the methods in which it is executed.   Several really interesting fraud cases came to light in 2016.   Some of the top headlines included a designer handbag scam , BEC (Business Email Compromises) , EAC (Email Account Compromises) , romance schemes , card data breaches and hacking . As you can tell from these articles, any industry or aspect of life can be affected by trickery and deceit…fashion & beauty, romantic relationships, meals, daily business and even a country’s presidential election.

By:  Dorothy Riggs, CFE It’s important that merchant employees and cardholders possess basic knowledge about card skimmers in order to mitigate financial loss to card issuers and cardholders and to thwart reputational loss to merchants. What is a card skimmer? A skimmer is an electronic device that captures card data.   Card data thieves install the small devices onto or into card terminals at various merchants.   Gas pump terminals and ATMs are among their preferred targets.   Unscrupulous employees at restaurants and the like have also been known to use skimmers to steal card data.

By:   Dorothy Riggs, CFE The initial EMV chip card compliance date for gas pumps was set for October 1, 2017.   However, on December 1, 2016 Visa and MasterCard decided to extend the compliance date to October 1, 2020 , due to difficulties associated with retrofitting fuel pumps to accept EMV chip cards.   Given the prolonged transition date, financial institutions, merchants and card users should brace themselves for elevated card breach attacks launched at fuel pumps along with any other non-EMV-compliant merchants.