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- Bank Reports That 80% Of Scams Start On Zuckerberg's Platforms 😯
Bank Reports That 80% Of Scams Start On Zuckerberg's Platforms 😯
Frank McKenna
May 09, 2023
Greetings from FrankonFraud,
I’m headed out to the Fraud Fight Club this week to meet up with a big contingent of fraud fighters. How about you, will you be there?
This week we saw lots of interesting news:
TSB said Meta drives about 80% of scams against customers.
Chase has to pay an accused fraudster’s legal bills.
The UK launched a major campaign against fraudsters.
The Head of Santander fraud was impersonated by a thief.
Fraudsters sold glasses to dudes to see people naked.
Let’s get to the top fraud stories of the week!
Bank Report - 80% Of Their Customer Scams Start On Zuckerberg Platforms
Mark Zuckerberg is doing a horrible job protecting customers. His platform is responsible for originating at least 80% of the scam attempts against their customers.
And one fraud executive - Paul Davis - wants them and other social media companies to step up and own financial liability just like the banks do now.
TSB has seen massive increases in certain types of family and friends scam and says that there has been a 300% spike in those frauds - mostly originating from WhatsApp.
Javice May Have Created A Massive Fraud, But Chase Has To Pay Her Legal Bills
Charlie Javice may have perpetrated one of the biggest fake account frauds in history, but Chase could be on the hook for paying her civil and criminal legal fees. That blows my mind.
A judge concluded this week that JPMorgan was legally obligated to cover Javice’s legal bills, rejecting the bank’s argument that her alleged fraud fell outside the scope of the 2021 merger agreement. The ruling likely also covers Javice’s defense of criminal fraud too. She is reportedly negotiating a plea deal at the moment.
The reason Chase has to pay? Because she was an employee at the time, Chase discovered the fraud, so they are responsible for covering her legal bills.
It’s a good thing for Javis. She was reportedly running out of money. The biggest source of her wealth was her cut of the money she made from selling Frank for $175 million. After she was arrested in April, federal prosecutors seized Javice’s assets and blocked her from accessing them.
These Fraud Department Scams Are Proliferating, And They Are Getting Better
Another interesting video emerged this week showing just how realistic these texts from the Fraud Department scams are getting.
This woman shares her experience to a local news station WGAL and the text looks very authentic!
Criminal Posed As Chris Ainsley (The Head of Fraud For Santander) And Stole $76,000
We all know fake fraud department calls are out of control, but get this - even Santander’s Head of Fraud Chris Ainsley was impersonated by a scammer. Ainsley is a 20+ year Veteran fraud fighter, so he was shocked when he found that someone had impersonated him.
A customer of Santander Bank had £60,000 scammed from her account after transferring funds to a criminal impersonating him.
The customer received a text message asking her to confirm a $600 payment, to which she responded ‘No’.
She then received a call from a spoofed number that appeared to be Santander. The caller introduced himself as “Chris Ainsley, head of Santander’s fraud team.
He claimed to have blocked the fraudulent payment but advised there were a lot more attempts. He said he had set up a “Safe Account” where she could park her money to protect it.
The customer cross-checked Chris Ainsley’s name on Linkedin, and she indeed confirmed he was the head of fraud, so she wired the money. It wasn’t until a few days later, when her new online account was never set up that she realized she had been scammed.
UK Launches Assault on Fraud As It Hits a Record 40% Of All Reported Crime
The government in the UK is vowing to take a bite of scams in their newly unveiled Fraud Strategy Stopping Scams and Protecting The Public.
The crackdown comes on the heels of Biocatch’s recent finding that 52% of the fraud across EMEA is due to scams and that Authorized Push Payment scams are now the #1 cause of fraud in the UK.
And the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is taking action. In a recent statement, he claimed that, “Fraud now accounts for over 40% of crime and costs the UK nearly £7 billion a year, with proceeds funding organized crime and terror.
Fraud Quad Sold Glasses With “Special Powers” To See People Naked
This might be the saddest and funniest fraud story of the week.
Remember those gag glasses called X-Ray Specs that you used to get as a kid? They claimed to be able to help you see people's skeletons.
Well, in Chennai, India, a gang of four fraudsters was arrested for an elaborate hoax to sell glasses with "special powers" that could help you see people naked, even though they might be fully clothed.
Researcher Used ChatGPT To Fool Hackers By Creating A HP Printer Honeypot
ChatGPT is creating so many interesting new wrinkles in scams and malware, but there are equally as many use cases on the fraud-fighting front.
This week, researcher Xavier Bellekens coded up a Honeypot leveraging ChatGPT to fool hackers. So using the Ai, he had ChatGPT code up a Honeypot masquerading as an HP Printer.
To a hacker, the software would look and act like a real printer online, but it was all just a simulated printer designed to lure the hackers in.
Within minutes of deploying it, his ChatGPT honeypot was already getting brute-force login attempts on the main connection page. It worked!
In The US, Auto Lenders Bracing For More Fraud As Conditions Tighten
Auto lenders surveyed by Point Predictive expressed fear of worsening economic conditions this year and believe it could push loan fraud and defaults higher this year.
The survey showed 70 percent of auto lenders are preparing for a declining economy this year compared with 2022, and over 75% of auto lenders are more concerned with fraud this year than last.
Car dealerships appear to be taking the brunt of the fraud, however, with some dealerships reporting a flood of new identity theft attempts by thieves trying to abscond with high-end luxury cars.
WSJ - High Tech Banks Grapple With Old Fashioned Check Fraud
As the The Wall Street Journal reported this morning, It took California businesswoman Jennifer Krempp one day to realize someone had stolen and fraudulently cashed several checks she mailed on behalf of her family plumbing company.
Three months later, she is still waiting to get all her money back.
The process to get reimbursed for customers is complicated because checks often pass through multiple banks and they have to work with each other to determine who is responsible.
Bank customers are often left waiting for months during that complicated process.
That's all I have for you this week. Hope to connect with you on Linkedin, or see you at the Fraud Fight Club this week in New York City.
Hit me up on my email if you have any tips or suggestions for stories or interesting fraud fighters.
Have a great week ahead!