Fraud News from the Web
Truston's identity theft blog has another reason to purchase a cheap answering machine.
Here’s a great blog by Susan Brenner that gives a lot of information about caller ID spoofing that'can be'used to steal identities or even worse.
The spoofing is being used to commit identity theft and other types of fraud, though, as I note below, it’s also been used for some other undesirable purposes. For fraud and identity theft, the would-be perpetrator spoofs the caller ID so the person taking the call believes they are talking to their bank, credit card company or some other source with which they would feel free to share personal information, such as their Social Security number. The caller persuades the person to give up as much information as seems useful, hangs up and identity theft or some other kind of fraud is set in motion, with the person duped by the caller ID spoofing as the victim.
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"(Via Identity Theft Blog by Truston.)
Pinktruth has an interesting story about earnings claims made by Mary Kay"Dearest Friends,"As you know I resigned from Mary Kay earlier this year. I am sharing this out of concern for others. I realize some may be angry at me, but I truly have nothing to gain or lose by telling you the following.
In October of 2006, I discovered some very disturbing things about this company that I was unaware of previously. I want to say I never meant to mislead anyone in anyway. Please accept my deepest and heart felt apologies if you have felt ‘injured’ in any way through this Mary Kay ‘Opportunity’.
I received some information about Mary Kay Corp that was not from Mary Kay.
Sam Antar, on whitecollarblog, has a fascinating and hard hitting discussion about he and his cousin's white collar fraud.
Crazy Eddie Speaks Cousin Sam E. Antar Responds: "
The daring of Wall Street
In his hey day, Eddie Antar was the darling of Wall Street. Until our frauds imploded, our manufactured financial statements produced a constant fiction of Crazy Eddie's superior financial success and Eddie's Antar's supposed business acumen. We were sought after by Wall Street investment bankers hungry to feed Crazy Eddie with capital to expand its business and let their investors get in on a piece of the action. We had four public offerings. We sold investors on hope as the family cashed out almost $100 million in stock.
A consumer's hero
Eddie Antar was legend in his time as he a became a folk hero to consumers by thumbing his nose at 'fair trade' laws that stifled competition. However, it was our intention to bait and switch our customers to more profitable merchandise. In the early days before the company went public, if we could not switch a customer who paid cash, we simply pocketed the sales tax.
Upcoming Eddie Antar and Sam E. Antar interview on CNBC Business Nation by Herb Greenberg on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 10:00 PM and 1:00 AM
Security Fix has a nice article on an update to an old style con.
"Red Cross Scam Targets Military Families: "Low-life scam artists have sunk to new depths by posing as American Red Cross workers in an effort to steal personal information from military families with loved ones in Iraq. The caller, who sounds like a young American, calls a military spouse and identifies herself as a Red Cross representative, according to an alert posted by the Red Cross. The caller says the spouse's husband, who is not identified by name, was hurt while on duty in Iraq and taken to a hospital in Germany. 'The caller stated they couldn't start treatment until paperwork was accomplished, and that in order to start the paperwork they needed the spouse to verify her husband's Social Security number and date of birth. In this case, the spouse was quick to catch on and she did not provide any information to the caller,' according to the alert."(Via Security Fix.)
