Tag: fraud

A follow-up from our investigative reports desk

A year and a half ago I made fun of the Karma Chip. The chip is said by its creator to heal miraculously with its presence.

The scam itself is unremarkable. My dogma ate it.

The post has had great follow-ups. Its inventor replied to the post himself in defense and got an unsympathetic response.

Another commentor remarked that two good things have come out of Yorkshire and that this is not one of them. There has been one endorsement of the chip, and another ambiguous one that links to the Museum of Hoaxes.

Finally today one very annoyed andy2020 responded with a great story about the road show for this thing. Thanks, Andy. Wow.

As for karmasingh, I don’t think he’s a very nice person. Really, not at all.

My check card got owned

Noticed it by accident. There was a 1 cent charge to the amusingly named colon700.com

I called them up and they were freaking. Said they had thousands of 1 cent charges from god knows where and everyone was calling them. They promised to call me back. They didn’t sound like they were talking through their colons.

Called the bank and shut down the card before the damned Russians bought ingots, heffalumps etc with my money.

You might want to check your accounts, folks, because this one looks like a big “surge” of fraud. I bet they broke into some e-commerce outfit.

Now that’s what I call mail fraud

Impersonating the U.S. Government? Yup. False Census mailer? Yup. Official-looking eagle and star logo? Yup. Aimed at seniors? Oh yeah.

This time the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chief huckster of the religious right, has really boned it. I reported it so far to the Census Bureau and the Post Office. Oddly there’s an article from last year about this from the SFGate site but no one is yet in jail.

cut for large scan

Don’t use your debit card at the gas station.

pinzWell you can, but don’t put in your PIN; insist on doing it as a credit transaction. Why? Because people love to steal the PIN. It’s way easier to empty your bank account that way than it is with regular credit card fraud.

Retailers will do just about anything to force you into using the PIN instead of a credit card type transaction, because credit cards cost them money and PIN/Debit transactions don’t. So you have to say it’s credit, punch the credit button, decline to use your pin, and then tell the checker again that’s credit. Or they just automatically present you with the PIN entry screen with no other options.

So, what happens when you use your PIN? Usually nothing, because supermarkets and other big retailers are secure environments. But if you use one of those rollaway ATM droids, or the ATM at some nightclub, not so good. And if you go to a gas station that only takes PIN transactions, like the ARCO here, you might just get royally and electronically screwed.

the slappy hand of justice

A shitty doctor who gave me bad medical care 17 years ago is now up on FORTY SEVEN FELONY COUNTS for doing, well, what he did to me: overcharging and charging for nonexistent services.

Odd that I reported him back then and only now is the bastard on the hook. You don’t forget a name like “Mario Rosenberg.” (He’s an Argentine.)

The guy literally stuck something up my ass and then overcharged me for it. I recall telling my next doctor the story and he said “Mario did that?” Yeah, and Luigi helped.

SPAM DU JOUR

SHARPSHOOTING? VINEGAR BIG HOLE? SIGN ME THE HELL UP!

6 Ed Frimercat,

Dcho 39-40,

08040 MERCABARNA, BARCELONA.

Telephone +34 972330808,Fax +34 972336453

Goodday,

Abaco Fish Limited is a Global Seafood Enterprise based in Spain. Abaco Fish SL has been a company formed by experienced people in the fish industry. Some of them come from centennial companies of the branch, installed for 150 years. Others with 40 years of experience in the international trade of fish and seafood, inclusively having being a principal contributor in the formation and commercial takeoff of Spanish sharpshooting companies. Also we were pioneering in 1971 and 1972 in the product packaging finished for its sale in great surfaces, as they were the first trays of clean sepia, lenguados, and producers of vinegar big hole, etc.

Originally starting out in the Food Additive Industry, the company became swiftly involved in plenty of other segments and is continuously adopting new challenges. Besides the trading business, it has identified the necessity to offer special services to Western companies that wish to engage themselves into activities in Spain but do not have the rights contacts, language abilities and/or time to get this accomplished themselves.

It is upon this note that we are writing you to seek your assistance in representing our company in your locality as our Regional Manager. Note that as a regional manager of our company, you will be entitled to a basic salary of $60,000 United States Dollars a year and 5% bonus of any amount you receive from customers on behalf of the company as payments for sales and outstanding debts on goods that they buy.

As a regional manager of our company, your primary functions are as follows:

1. Maintanance of a sales office. The company will be responsible for all costs including phone and other expenses, and the setting up of the office in your region.

2. Assume responsibility for all sales office.

3. Lastly, contacting clients on behalf of the company who are ready to make payments or wanting to pay for products they purchase from the company.

To facilitate this transaction if accepted, do send us promptly, the following:

1. Your Full Names

2. Present Occupation/Position

3. Contact address

4. Telephone number,Fax and e-mail contact.

5. Age.

Thanks for your time and anticipation to work with Abaco Ltd.

Sincerely Yours,

Torndaro Parkins

Incomprehensible reply to fraud report

I get that daily monster.com update for jobs that match my keywords. Not because I’m actively looking for a job, but because I want to know what’s going on my field. Usually it’s a stream of boring but totally doable gigs which makes me feel more secure. Occasionally it’s amusing or alarming. And, far too often, there are things that aren’t jobs but are instead trolls of some advertising for-pay job services.

These are almost always labeled something like “Work from home for major companies” and have every single location as their “home”, and some other obvious giveaways. A couple of years ago they were constant, and I gave up flagging them because I figured Monster was just selling those slots because the job market was slow.

Today I saw one, clicked through to look at it, and saw the usual website ad troll rather than a real job. This time I reported it as fraudulent through Monster’s own system, which is hard to find at first. I received the reply you see below. The last paragraph makes no sense at all and I would appreciate translation.

Content Title
Report site abuse

Discussion Thread
Response (Anisa P Varghese) 07/05/2006 05:40 AM
Hello substitute,

Thank you for contacting Monster Customer Central.

substitute, there are regulations and terms of use that must be met in order to post on the website. There is also screening for all postings listed on the website. Although this is true it is possible for a small amount of fraudulent postings to appear on the site. We have a department dedicated to locating, tracking, removing, and prosecuting when these issues do arrive. If you notice any specific fraudulent listings on the website please forward information in regards to those listings to this Email address or to “siteabuse@monster.com” (this will send directly to our Fraud prevention team). We will immediatly research and remove postings that are fraudulently posted on our site.

I would like to inform you that in some job posting when we click on the apply online button it takes us to the website of the company that posted the job. In such cases we need to set up an account in that web site for entering into the site to post for the job. The case you are referring to is also a similar one. I suggest you to create an account in the webpage you get and move forward and post for the job.

If there is anything else I can assist you with, please advise.

Have a good day, substitute !

Warm Regards,
Anisa Varghese
Monster Customer Central.