Fraud Fighters, 👋 

There are so many policy changes at government agencies that it can be tough to keep up with how they will impact fraud departments.

One interesting change is that the Death Master File now will contain living people who have had their social security numbers terminated. That’s going to make working those fraud alerts a bit more complicated!

Let’s check out the top snippets and trends this week.

This Week’s Top Fraud Snippets

• Fintech Founder Fraud - A supposed AI App called “Nate” was not powered by AI at all; rather, it was hundreds of customer service workers in the Philippines clicking buttons behind the scenes. Read More

• OverRun - California State Universities says in 2024, about 34% of applicants were fake students trying to raid Financial Aid and they stole $5 million in benefits. Read More

• ChatGPT Used In Highly Targeted Attack - Attackers convinced ChatGPT they were a marketing assistant and used the AI to create highly targeted messages that bypassed spam filters of over 80,000 websites. This is just a precursor to how phishing attacks will become highly personalized. Read More

• Tariff Scams And Blowback - There is trouble brewing. Security experts are worried that China will soon retaliate against Tariff hikes with massive cyberattacks, and they are seeing scammers ramp up fake websites related to fake tariff invoices. Read More

• New Wrinkle - As Pig Butchering crypto scams become more well known, scammers may shift tactics to fake casino sites to steal millions from victims. A Reddit User lays it out in a post. Read More

• Strange Fraud Discovery - Musk claimed to have found millions in unemployment fraud for hundreds and thousands of people born in the future. Turns out he stumbled on a fraud tactic states were told to do when they discovered fraud - create make-believe people. Read More

• Claude Writes Great Fraud Rules - Chen Zamir proves that Claude can write remarkably effective fraud rules if you feed it the right data with the right prompts. Soon, GenAI will help fraud analyst write great rules. Read More

• Interesting Podcast - An interesting and candid interview with Johnny Ayers of Socure who reveals the challenges (including having social media networks cut off their access in the early days) and triumphs of building a fraud startup to over 500 employees. Watch it

• $16.5 Million - Thats what the SSA spent on a fraud tool to monitor 4.5 million calls a year that will flag 1.5% of those calls a year for in person fraud checks. Read More

New SSN Changes Will Complicate Fraud Department Identity Checks

Last week, the government added 6,300 new Social Security numbers to the SSN Death Master File (DMF). The only catch is that the people that own those social security numbers are not dead; they’re immigrants whose Visa have been revoked.

The DMF now contains SSN’s of the living and the dead, and that is going to complicate banks’ synthetic identity controls. Banks have continuously operated under the rule that “dead people don’t apply for new loans”, but that has all changed.

Read More

The Aftermath: Whatever Happened To The Chase Glitchers Six Months Later?

The Chase Glitch seemed like it was just yesterday, but its actually been six months since thousands of people lined up at ATM’s to get free money.

But whatever happened to the glitchers? Did anyone ever get arrested or have to pay the money back?

I followed up, researching court documents and recent reports to get to the bottom of that question.

Read More

New Scam Wave: Toll Scammers Just Switched To Targeting Banks

Do you know those Toll-Phishing messages that have overrun the country? Well, banks are probably the next wave.

Security researchers have discovered that the Smishing Triad, a Chinese group behind those texts, has expanded its service to target banks in 121 countries.

Millions of people in the US will start getting texts like this soon 👇️ 

The report mentions HSBC, Citibank, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe.

The Telegram channel   Laowang Notice advertises the new fraud kits. You can watch demos of how the kits work, but they are all in Chinese. 

Fannie Mae Fires 200 Employees For Same Fraud That Targeted Apple Too

Fannie Mae fired 200 employees for allegedly engaging in a matching donations kickback scheme they say was fraudulent.

The employees would coordinate with certain charities to make donations, submit a matching donation request to Fannie Mae and then get their original donation kicked back to them - sometimes with extra “commissions”.

Apple fired 185 employees for the same scheme in January.

Read More

OpenAI Just Invested $43 Million in This “KnowBe4 on Steroids” StartUp

Adaptive security could be called Knowbe4 on steroids. The next-generation AI company lets customers track GenAI risk in their company, run deepfake simulations of their executives, and engage employees in impressive demos.

I guess since ChatGPT will create so many deepfakes, they wanted to invest in a company that could help stop it.

I get many questions about how companies can prepare for deepfakes, which are among the best I have seen.

Check Them Out

“The Biggest Theft In The History Of Texas”

Tasmanian gambler Zeljko Ranogajec orchestrated the purchase of 25.8 million lotto tickets in just 72 hours and secured a $57. million jackpot for the Texas State Lottery.

Behind the audacious scheme was a London Banker who flew to Texas, secured the official ticket terminals and organized millions of QR-coded tickets so they could easily locate the winning ticket(s).

Texas called it the biggest theft in history, but the pair were just using good old fashioned analytics to game the system.

Read More

“That Is Not A Real Person”. Man Uses AI Lawyer In Case And Shocks Judge 😆 

Who says old people can’t use AI? James Dewald just cemented himself a spot in the Internet Hall of Fame by using an AI generated lawyer to represent him in court.

The judge was furious and instantly noticed something was awry as the slick lawyer on video began speaking.

This is both shocking and hilarious at the same time.

Read More

The Jigs Up: This $2 Billion Bank Fraudster Has Been Arrested

The 65-year-old fugitive jeweler wanted for allegedly defrauding India's Punjab National Bank of $1.8 billion, has been captured in Antwerp, Belgium's diamond trading hub.

The wealthy businessman had been on the run since 2018, living between Caribbean Island and Belgium, living like a king no doubt.

He is accused of working with insiders at the banks to pull off a close to $2 billion hiest of loans without the proper collateral or documentation.

Read More

Growing Scams Are Targeting 16-Year-Olds When Managers Are Gone

Imagine being 16 and being terrorized by a scammer to the point that you left your job to get your own money out to help the owners.

Reddit posts like this are emerging where scammers contact workers when no managers available and scare the young workers into giving them money. You can read the scam here 👉️ Dunkin Donut Scare.

However, a week earlier, the scam also targeted a 16-year-old worker at a small ice cream shop. The video below shows how the scam worked.

Watch It

Thanks for fighting fraud with me. Do you have a tip or know about a fraud trend or scam my readers should be aware of?

Please send me a tip! (Not the money kind, the information kind) 😆