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15 Million Silent Victims of Synthetic Identity Fraud 💥
Frank McKenna
November 12, 2024
Good morning,
Synthetic identity fraud is such a diabolical fraud. Even the victims of it are left in the dark, unaware that their social security numbers have been exploited. How will we ever get justice for victims of America’s fastest-growing financial crime?
I explore that and other stories this week.
Singaporean Scam Freeze - Singapore may soon be the first in the world to give the police powers to control the bank accounts of stubborn scam victims, who insist they are not being scammed even though the evidence says they are.
Sizzling Data - Did you hear this? This is crazy. Your air fryer might secretly record your conversations and send your PII and other sensitive data back to China.
Bizarro - A scammer in China convinced a man to pay her $10,000 so she could burn her ex-husband’s bed for good luck so they could get married. He paid her, then she vanished with his money.
Humiliation Tactics - Yahoo Boys are resorting to new lows, posting humiliating videos of their victims after they engage in fake AI videos. One video shows a woman apologizing for doubting her scammer after the video proved he was “real”.
Ankle Monitor - She just could not stop stealing checks. A parolee on house arrest with an ankle monitor was pulled over with a car full of stolen checks and a pile of stolen mail.
Lots of Deepfakers - OpenAI says it rejected over 250,000 requests to create deepfakes of Trump and Harris in the weeks leading up to the election.
FraudFighter Love - Close to 50% of customers say they have a better impression of their bank after they become a victim and the fraud department helps them. That’s some fraud fighter love right there ❤️
Brazen But Dumb, Michael Warren forged a $1.8 million business check and tried to use it to buy a house in Texas.
Scooter Devils - In the UK, fraudsters on scooters target high-end cars in “crash for cash” schemes. There has been close to 400% in the last year.
$7.95 Plug - This Yahoo Boy has set up a website and wants to be your plug or your mentor for as little as $7.95.
No Help Available For 15 Million Victims of Synthetic Identity
Are you a victim of synthetic identity? By my conservative estimate, there are at least 15 million victims of synthetic identity here in the United States, which means 1 in every 22 people is a victim.
Perhaps you are one of them. But you may never know because there is no way for a bank or lender to notify you.
Visa Quietly Rolls Out Massive New Merchant Fraud Program
US online merchants may be stunned to discover that in four months, they will be subject to massive changes in how Visa measures and penalizes them for fraud.
Some large merchants don’t like the new program, complaining that Visa is using a “poison and antidote” approach to sell its fraud solution.
Visa is dropping its acceptable fraud thresholds by nearly 70%—from 90 to 30 basis points. Merchants and acquirers that exceed that threshold on their portfolios (probably most merchants in the US) will be subject to fines and penalties payable to Visa.
But here is the kicker: If a merchant wants to avoid those penalties, they can sign up for Visa’s pricey fraud service - Visa Verified.
Starling Bank’s Super Clever Fraud Pop-Up
One bank created a simple, clever, and effective way to stop impersonation scams. It involves using a pop-up notification tied to their banking app.
Credit Repair Guru Hired Hitman To Take Out Whistleblower
By all accounts, Ashley Grayson was a rising Credit Repair superstar who touted she made 1 million dollars in her first hour of business.
When a woman named Darricka Hallwell, claimed she was a fraud and called her out on her popular Facebook group, Ashley hired a hitman to take her out.
Credit repair is a pretty dirty business these days. Should I be concerned? 😲
Read the Warning Regulators Sent To Big Tech Scam “Enablers”
UK Regulators plan on publishing stats on which big tech companies are the worst offending “enablers” of scams. The report will be issued in 4 weeks and they sent this letter to warn Meta, err..I mean, big tech companies need to get ahead of it.
Banks Inny Fraud Problem Is All Over Telegram
This week, another bank employee was arrested for stealing customer personal information and distributing it on Telegram.
When police searched TD Bank employee Daria Sewell’s phone, they found that she had images of 255 cheques with names of customers, along with personal information of nearly 70 other customers, including names, addresses, and social security numbers.
Today, hundreds of advertisements for “Inny Access” reference most of the US major banks' employees, including bank tellers and others who can help fraudsters bypass bank controls.
When Hackers Issue Fraudulent Sobpoenas For $100
The FBI is on high alert and warning tech companies of a dangerous new threat designed to steal troves of PII from them.
They discovered a spike while monitoring criminal communications and noticed hackers selling emails and guidance for $100 online.
Hackers are stealing official government emails, sending emergency data requests, and using highly realistic forged subpoenas to demand tech companies turn over personal information in their databases.
The FBI warns companies to ensure their third-party vendors know this new scam.
New Fraud Analyst Impersonation Scam Is Tricky Tricky
A Reddit post reveals a new bank impersonation scam method working on many unsuspecting customers. It’s unusual because it requires two scammers working together to pull it off.
Instead of going right to stealing OTP’s or logins, scammers are building confidence with the victim by first reading off their recent transaction history to them to make them feel at ease.
AI Voice Scam - The Cartel Kidnapped Her Daughter!
Imagine getting a call from your daughter crying, “They’re taking me.”, she says. Then, a man jumps on the phone from the Mexican Cartel and snatches the phone from her, demanding $50,000 to release her.
That happened to Mary Schat from Michigan, but it was yet another AI ruse, a scheme now playing out all over the US.
Yahoo Boys Hire Only Fans Models To Do Their Scamming Videos
Video, video, video! Yahoo Boys are incorporating video calls into almost all of their scams now. And now, here is an interesting new twist - they are hiring porn stars and Only Fans models to do their scamming videos for them.
An investigation by a reporter uncovered this new technique.
Pig Butcherers Can Send Millions Of “Hello” Messages With This AI Bot
Troy Gochenour highlights another devious piece of software being sold on Telegram that lets scammers send millions of “Hello” messages via WhatsApp to users all over the world.
The software will change the message based on the user's country code. So, users in the US might receive “hello” messages, while users in France would get “Bonjour” messages.
She Poisoned Boyfriend For Fraudulent $30 Million Inheritance
Steven Riley thought he would live like a king when he heard from a distant relative that he would receive a $30 million inheritance.
His common-law girlfriend, whom he had lived with for years Ina Kenoyer, was stewing inside and felt that she would miss out on the payday since they were not officially married. So she poisoned him. Then she tried to claim she deserved the money.
She killed him for nothing. It turns out the inheritance was just part of a scam.
That’s a wrap for another weekly edition of FrankonFraud.
Happy fraud-hunting fraud fighters!