Wards will now start notifying customers their information was stolen in December

The Associated Press announced on Friday that old time retailer Montgomery Ward is the latest victim of a data breach, where at least 51,000 records were compromised. The unfortunate problem now is they failed to notify the victims, which is the law in 44 States.Since Montgomery Ward declared bankruptcy in 2001 this announcement might sound confusing, but the company was resurrected in 2004 under the name, Direct Marketing Services Incorporated. Direct Market Services sells merchandise under the names Wards.com, SearsHomeCenter.com, SearsShowplace.com,...

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Retailers Honor Sleuths Who Smashed $100 Million Organized Retail Crime Ring

The National Retail Federation is recognizing a couple of individuals, both from law enforcement and within their own ranks, for their contributions in smashing a $100 million organized retail crime ring. These crime fighters are being honored at the NRF Loss Prevention Conference & EXPO in Orlando, Florida.The two being honored are Detective Ostojic, of the Polk Country Sheriff's Department, and Ron Averette from the loss prevention department at Publix Supermarkets. In June 2007, the two began comparing notes on a group that was stealing...

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Inside CRM publishes 50 ways to protect your privacy!

I got a tip from Fiona King at InsideCRM magazine about an article they published that lists fifty tips to protect your privacy, personal and financial information. InsideCRM represents the customer relationship management industry.The article intended to provide useful tips to protect the average person from fraud, phishing, and all the assorted financial misdeeds facing the average person in today's world. The tips provide information on how these scams originate and emphasize how a person can take back control of their personal and financial...

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Yes we can protect the citizen from the Big Oil Scam!

Recently, I've written a couple of posts about energy speculation and why it's part of the reason for the current energy crisis. This occurs when speculators buy oil on paper with credit, the oil is never delivered and then we are told that supply and demand is driving the prices up.Then all of a sudden, I read a story that Barack Obama is calling for an end to the speculation many believe is the cause of the out-of-control prices. Some think these high prices are being enabled by a law known as the "Enron Loophole." One would think that after...

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Identity Theft Service wins Network Products Guide 2008 Product Innovation Award

Tom Fragala announced on his blog that "Truston received a 2008 Product Innovation Award from Network Products Guide for our myTruston Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform."Tom is a well known blogger on the subject of identity theft, was really a victim himself and has spent a lot of time advocating for victims.He quoted Networks Product Guide as saying:“Truston's innovative SaaS platform offers an organized approach to getting a stolen identity back and keeping it safe.myTruston is the only ID theft product that does not require sensitive data,...

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Mortgage crooks arrested nationwide in FBI sweep!

Recently, the FBI hinted that a lot of criminals might be getting arrested for contributing to the mortgage meltdown.It appears that they are now backing up their words with some action.From the FBI press release:From March 1 to June 18, 2008, Operation Malicious Mortgage resulted in 144 mortgage fraud cases in which 406 defendants were charged. Yesterday, 60 arrests were made in mortgage fraud-related cases in 15 districts. Charges in Operation Malicious Mortgage cases were brought in every region of the United States and in more than 50 judicial...

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Wawa gas pumps latest target of payment card skimming devices!

When I'm traveling on business in the Mid Atlantic, Wawa is a great place to stop. They literally provide just about anything a road warrior would desire.Unfortunately their self service pumps are the latest targets of payment card (credit/debit) skimming devices. Just about any self service machine that accepts payments, or dispenses money (ATM machines)...

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$60 billion would provide a lot of health care to the people who need it!

The candidates all are talking about making the health care system available to everyone. I wonder if any of them have considered that a lot of tax dollars are already being handed over to crooks scamming the current system providing free healthcare to the general public? Some estimate that this costs the taxpayers up to $60 billion a year.$60 billion would go a long way to helping people, who need medical attention and can't afford it.Carrie Johnson of the Washington Post writes:All it took to bilk the federal government out of $105 million was...

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Credit Card fraud used to fund Terrorist Organization

Here is an example of cyber crime being used to fund terrorism. Fortunately, the person behind this is now behind bars.The Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence website reported:The mastermind behind the international credit card fraud for funding the LTTE terrorist organization has been arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) personnel while conducting a search operation in the Wellawatta area on Friday, June 13. The suspect Anandan, alias Neshanadan Muruganandan, was in a super luxury apartment in Wellawatta at the time he was arrested by the special...

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Send Dad a "Phishy" E-Card for Father's Day

In case you forgot to send a Father's Day card, here are some free ones courtesy of the fine folks at the Federal Trade Commission designed to educate him about phishing, which is a leading cause of identity theft on the Internet.These were sent to me courtesy of Alvaro Puig from the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Consumer and Business Education in Washington , D.C. Please note that most of the consumer awareness materials from the FTC are available in both English and Espanol.Avaro wrote:With Father’s Day right around the corner, I wanted...

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Phishermen stealing food from the mouths of Children

It never ceases to amaze me how cyber criminals seem to have NO conscience, whatsoever.The FBI and IC3 are reporting that EPPICards, which are set up as debit cards to disburse child support payments are the latest target of the phishermen.In this instance, they are literally stealing food from the mouths of children.From the FBI press release:The FBI and its partner, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), have received reports of phishing attacks targeting users of EPPICards. The EPPICard is similar to a debit card. EPPICards are issued by...

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NRF Survey shows Organized Retail Crime activity is growing!

According to FBI estimates, Organized Retail Crime (ORC) is a $30 billion a year business. The National Retail Federation's 2008 Organized Crime Survey shows another alarming trend, which is that the amount of e-fencing to sell stolen merchandise on auction sites like eBay and Craigslist has grown 6 percent.Also mentioned in the survey are shady e-commerce sites being put up on the Internet to fence the proceeeds of ORC.In case you've never heard the term, Organized Retail Crime, here is a good description of the activity:Organized retail crime...

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Large scale data theft of U.S. information uncovered in India

Stealing personal and financial information in large quantities isn't just a problem in North America and the Europe Union. As more IT functions are outsourced to a variety of countries, this information might be getting compromised from just about anywhere.Recently, it was disclosed in the Indian press that a large amount of data was stolen by an Indian BPO from a company in United States. It's amazing this story didn't get very much coverage in the West, despite the fact that the data was stolen from a company called Noble Ventures, which is...

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Does our current economic situation make sense?

Could major companies outsourcing jobs be an enabling factor in oil prices skyrocketing out of control? After all, the oil companies claim that increased demand in Asia (especially China and India) are a major reason prices skyrocket, weekly.I guess this means we have outsourced so many jobs and manufacturing, they are using more oil?Of course, some of other reasons used to justify oil prices increasing seem to not make very much sense. Sinister terrorist threats that never surface, or minor attacks have been used to drive the price of a barrel...

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Spam ruse promising money for being an Internet crime victim spoofs IC3's name

(Picture courtesy of the FBI)"The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)," according to their website.In their own words it provides a "vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints...

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Monthly Spam report reveals how uncertain economic times are fueling new scams!

(Courtesy of Symantec)With prices rising out-of-control and foreclosure signs being used to market real estate, one might think that scam artists and other less than ethical people would lay off for awhile. Think again, they are out in force and coming up with devious methods to make bad situations, worse.I follow Symantec's spam report on a monthly...

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Fraudsters mutate counterfeit MoneyGram money order scam to fool victims/financial institutions

Counterfeit MoneyGram Money Orders seem to be surfacing all over the place, again! Here is what I wrote about them the last time I posted on them:Recently, MoneyGram removed the Travelers Express name from their money order product. The new version is branded simply as MoneyGram, printed in Spanish (Espanol) in addition to English.The old version with the Travelers Express name have been counterfeited and circulated via Internet scams for a couple of years. A lot of them had Walmart's logo printed on them. We've seen similar counterfeit American...

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Bank of Mellon reports a second data breach

Last week, the Bank of Mellon disclosed they had lost unencrypted tapes containing the personal and financial information of several million people about three months ago.Now it is being revealed that about a month ago, another incident involving a missing (unecrypted) tape occurred. This time, scanned images of checks, along with other assorted sensitive information disappeared. The Check 21 Act, passed in 2004 allows financial institutions to electronically deposit images of checks instead of using the actual paper check, itself.According to...

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