Credit Card Skimming Devices Exposed
Credit card skimming is big business. Sometimes it happens when you hand your credit card to a service person who takes it to a remote location to be processed but more often than not, skimming victims helped the thieves all by themselves.
They place a device on ATM machines, gas machines and even Redbox video rental machines that fits right over where you put in your credit or debit card. They often do it so well that the device will stay in place for days before anyone notices. Read more
Escondido Woman Rips Off Craigslist Sellers for Millions
An Escondido woman, working with overseas collaborators, pulled a scam on folks selling their stuff on Craigslist and Yahoo classified ad sellers.
The scam is pretty well known but the amount of money involved is staggering – 17.2 million.
She generated counterfeit money orders, travelers checks and fraudulent checks from stolen data and then went shopping on these classified ad sites.
Identity Theft and Property Tax Refunds
It seems every time you turn around, crooks come up with another way to defraud you by using your identity in innovative ways.
This latest bit of news comes from Houston. A local woman was convicted of using identity theft to steal almost $500,000 (half a million dollars) of unclaimed funds and property tax refunds. As these items are public records – and are often printed in the newspaper – she assumed their identities to collect lots of illicit loot.
Why You Should Report Identity Theft to the Police
Identity theft is a serious crime. But unlike many other crimes, the victim can often get satisfaction working with the financial institutions involved in the issue. Because of this, identity theft can often be resolved without any involvement of the legal system.
While it is good that you, the victim, have strong remedies under the law to help you resolve the situation, the thieves just keep stealing with impunity unless and until they are caught by law enforcement.
Android Phones Vulnerable to Identity Theft
It seems the current crop of Android based phones have a huge security hole. German security researchers have found a vulnerability in how Android phones deal with login details when accessing Google’s web services – like their very popular Gmail.
It seems that they use an authentication token to say to Google services “Hey I’m still logged in and don’t need to log in again” and this token sometimes gets transferred to the web via an unsecure method. This unsecure method gives hackers a chance to monitor WiiFi signals and grab your authentication token. With this token, all your Google subscriptions are an open book to the hacker.