Hello FrankonFraud Friends,

It’s another wonderful week in fraud-fighting.

This week’s big stories and trends are interesting 👇

• Covid Prosecutions are dropping murder rate

• HeyGen delivers scary good deepfakes

• Hackers shift to stealing car data for crimes

• Ransomware attacks hit Las Vegas Casinos

• IRS Suspends ERC Due To Tsunami of Fraud

• US doubled its Covid Fraud Estimate to $135 Billion

• Riskified reports Refund Fraud is $100 Billion a year

• Call center launches the largest attack on scammers ever

• Mark Cuban got phished for $1 million scam

Let’s get to those top stories now!

“The Peoples Call Center” Launches Largest Attack On Scammers Ever

F^cK Scammers.😠 And that’s exactly what a massive group of volunteers and scambaiters launched with The Peoples Call Center last week.

And it’s amazing, launching history's single biggest attack on scammers.

The call center was launched as a collaboration between AnyDesk and Pierogi the popular scambaiter and Youtuber.

By partnering with AnyDesk (the remote desktop that many scammers use) they can shut down scammers by the thousands - identifying where the scammers are operating and turning them off.

Check out the video of what they are doing.

Covid 19 Fraud Lockups Linked To Drop In Murder

Think fraud and violent crime aren’t linked? Think again. 🤔 

Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron says that 60% of violent criminals are also committing some type of COVID-19 fraud, and because of that, his office investigates every single violent crime target to see whether they've committed pandemic fraud.

Based on the prosecutions, he estimates that there has been a 10% drop in the fatal homicide rate in the city.

Should I Be Scared Or Excited About This DeepFake AI?

Fraud Fighter Ken Palla introduced me to a terrifying and exciting AI app called HeyGen.

The application allows you to upload a video of yourself. It will then take that video and using AI will do two things.

• It will clone your voice and translate what you said into the language you choose.

• It will alter your video to make you perfectly lip-synch to the new language.

I uploaded a real video of myself and in about 5 minutes I had my clone and I was speaking French with my lips perfectly synched to the french language that I was speaking.

Pre-Made CPN’s Being Sold To Consumers -But They Are Actually Stolen Identities

CPN’s (Credit Privacy Numbers) is the biggest scam in the world being sold to consumers.

Credit repair fraudsters are often behind it but there is a new scam that has emerged over last 18 months - Premade CPN’s.

But consumers that buy these Premade CPN’s are buying nothing more than a stolen identity. Instead of selling just stolen SSN’s that are then built into synthetic identities, the consumer is sold an actual stolen identity and given a fake drivers license to use along with the stolen identity.

Consumers seek out these “Pre-Made CPN’s” because they don’t need to go through the typical synthetic credit building process which can take several months to do.

The instant CPN’s can be used the very next day.

Why Steal A Person’s Identity, When You Can Steal The Identity Of A Car?

It can cost about $1,000 to purchase a person’s identity on Telegram, but why pay that much when you can steal a car’s identity for $2.

According to Kasada, criminals are now selling auto data which can be used for everything from car cloning to home burglary.

Click On This Link Or Image Below To Read The Blog

Fraud Hype. Are Most AI DeepFake Videos Just Talking Photos?

AI is coming for you. It’s going to take your job. 👨‍💻 It’s going to steal your money. 💰 It’s going to give fraudsters a magic wand to do all their evil deeds.

Is this all hype, though? Probably most of it. At least right now.

I talked to two fraud experts, Brett Johnson and Peter Taylor who think that AI is being overhyped and giving fraud fighters shiny object syndrome.

I also discovered something surprising about deepfakes that had me re-thinking about what is really going on.

Click on This Link Or Image Below To Read The Blog

It Happened - The IRS Shuts Down ERC Due To A Tsunami of Fraud

Fraudsters wrecked another government stimulus program - this time the ERC.

Last Thursday the IRS announced that they were suspending the program for at least 3 months because it was being abused by fraudsters.

The IRS has paid out on a whopping 3.6 million claims for $153 billion and received 600,000 new claims - many of which are fraud in the last 90 days.

You gotta be kidding me?

Point Predictive - Auto Loan’s Other Big Issue Is Credit Washing

Last month, Trans Union reported a 40% spike in synthetic identity balances at Auto Lenders and pointed to the fact that it is the most targeted industry in finance.

But Synthetic Identities evil twin sister - Credit Washing is also tracking higher according to Point Predictive.

In a recent report Point Predictive's fraud analyst analyzed million of loan submissions from 2019 through 2022 and reviewed the rate at which the applications triggered credit washing red flags.

The rate of credit washing increased from 30 basis points to 51 basis points in 2022, a 60% increase. This means about 1 out of every 200 auto loans has significant evidence of the borrower cleaning their credit before applying for the loan.

99% Of Covid Fraud Losses May Be Gone Forever

Fraud does pay I guess. This week the GAO doubled their estimate of how much was lost to unemployment fraud to $135 billion.

Surprisingly only $1.2 billion of those funds have been recovered which doesn’t even cover the $1.4 billion in funds the government spent in federal aid to help states track and penalize fraudsters.

Preventing fraud is far easier and less expensive than trying to get the money back from the losers that stole it.

It’s A First Party Fraud War - Fraudulent Refunders Vs Merchants

A new Riskified Fraud Report is shedding light into one of the biggest wars on First Party Fraud - Fraudulent Refunds.

The report, based on a survey from over 300 industry executives estimates that over $100 billion in fraudulent refunds are issued to customers every year.

The report also tackles the degree of first party refund fraudsters who can run the gamut from friendly “wardrobing” (buying clothes to wear with the intention of returning them, to professional refunders that exploit merchants refund policies by saying they never received the item.

Click On This Link Or Image Below To Read The Article

A Gamble. Should You Pay Ransom? MGM and Caesars Took Different Bets

On Sunday September 10th, MGM was hit with a ransomeware attack that took MGM’s websites offline and disrupted gaming and resort operations at all 12 of its Las Vegas properties. A week later, many of those same systems are down and the casino is in turmoil.

Surprisingly the massive attack started due to a simple social engineering call to MGM’s help desk. The hackers went on Linkedin, found an employee and called the help desk to intrude the $34 billion company.

Ironically, Caesars reported in an SEC filing that they had the very same attack and that hackers gained access to their Caesars rewards accounts exposing names, drivers licenses and PII of their customers.

Apparently the hackers captured 6 Terabytes of data according to some experts (including SSN’s of loyalty members)

According to the Wall Street Journal, the hackers demanded a $30 million ransom from Caesars and eventually Caesars paid a ransom for an undisclosed amount.

In the end, Caesars paid the ransom and kept their operations running MGM did not and they are still in shambles. It’s horrible to think of paying a ransom, but in the end it’s often the cheaper option for these companies.

The FBI by the way advises against paying ransom’s but according to reports about 83% of companies now do.

Click On This Link Or Image Below To Read The Article

Even Mark Cuban Gets Fooled, Loses Almost $1 Million In Scam

Everyone can fall for scams, even the ultra rich and famous techies.

Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire technology investor Mark Cuban lost some $870,000 worth of tokens over the weekend after likely clicking on a phishing link after “months of inactivity.”

Thanks for reading the weekly fraud newsletter.

If you have any hot tips or trends in fraud you think readers should know about - hit me up!

FrankonFraud