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- 🚗 CPN Whips For Sale Are Fuel For Synthetic ID Auto Loans
🚗 CPN Whips For Sale Are Fuel For Synthetic ID Auto Loans
Frank McKenna
October 31, 2023
Happy Halloween From FrankonFraud,
What kind of scary trends, fraud stories, and scam treats do we have for the kiddy kiddies? 🧙♀️
A trick or treat? You be the judge 👇
Big Check fraud scheme hits Regions Bank
“CPN Whips” are selling fast
FlowGPT has some scary Fraud AI on it
Gary Warner exposes a Shutterstock for Scammers
Post Office goes big on OTP
Hacker sells sign-on to Meta Police portal
Meta isn’t stopping chronic catfishing
Scammers evolve to “God-Like” level
Banks grapple with scammers spells
A crooked CEO doles out money to his friend
Email Phishing up 1,265% since GPT launched
Let’s get to this weeks top stories in fraud!
Profit Killing Check Fraud Hits Regions Earnings Hard. Which Bank is Next?
A recent transcript from Regions 3rd Quarter investor call details the massive increase in check deposit fraud that occurred this year.
Normalized check fraud losses are approximately $20 million a quarter, but in the second quarter, the losses jumped to $82 million and then the bank discovered another $53 million in check fraud losses in the 3rd quarter.
David Turner, the banks CFO said the bank has invested heavily and believe they will bring the losses back down to about $25 million a quarter.
While Regions Bank has been hit, they are not alone. The whole industry is under attack from fraudsters capitalizing on the aging check fraud systems, processes, and anti-fraud tech - most of which was implemented back in 1995.
“CPN Whips” For Sale. How Synthetic Identity Fraudsters Monetize Their Cars
A guy named Al is selling a car. A 2020 Dodge Charger. But he doesn’t have the title.
Why does he not have the title? Because he or someone else financed the car using a synthetic identity that he created with a CPN, the bank has the title because he hasn’t made any payments.
So Al heads over to Facebook and posts the car on the Facebook group called No Title, No Problem Auto, ATV and MORE.
Sound too good to be true? That car should normally go for about $35,000 but he is willing to take a 90% discount.
What he is doing is monetizing his CPN purchased cars and lots of other fraudsters are doing just the same thing.
FlowGPT - Is This The Next Telegram But For Fraud AI?
Forget FraudGPT, that is old news. Have you heard of Evil Pure Evil, Anarchy, FraudCode, or Code Fraudster?
Neither had I until I stumbled on FlowGPT and took a look around.
FlowGPT is a community-driven platform that allows users to share and discover AI prompts. Think of it like the App Store but for customizations of ChatGPT that can enable you to do anything. I mean there is literally a GPT for everything you can think of.
In about 30 minutes on the platform I was able to find variants of ChatGPT that;
wrote malicious malware for me,
created compelling phishing emails,
wrote python code for a credential stuffing attack,
told me how to create a synthetic identity,
told me how to create the best fake LinkedIn profile
and more!
The question is, is this the next Telegram but for Fraud and Malicious AI?
Dog Pusher Library - The ShutterStock of Pig Butcherers
Have you ever wondered where Pig Butchering scammers get all of their photos that they use to to create their pretend lives?
In this recent eye opening research Gary Warner exposes the dark underworld of “Dog Pusher Channels”, a virtual library of thousands of stock images that are used by cat fishers to lure their victims in.
So if they need an instagram worthy photo showing their trip to Paris, or a shopping trip they took in London, or even a picture showing their steak dinner - they can get it all there!
Each of these channels has more than 1,000 sets of photos on their assigned theme. Most of the "characters" in wealthy roles where they can travel freely, which makes it easier to use impressive photos from all around the world.
And since they are on private channels, the goal is that they cannot be reverse image searched.
Chasing Ghost - Meta Does Little To Stop CatFishing and Cyber Harassment
80% of scams begin on Meta. And many of those involve fake accounts.
HypeAuditor estimates that as much as 45% of the 1.3 billion accounts on Meta are fake, bots or dormant. And that means a lot of those accounts are used for Catfishing.
An article written by Whitney Clegg titled “I’m Literally Chasing Ghost” follows one victim, Presley Rhodes whose images have been used for years to catfish victims. Presley receives hundreds of emails and calls from victims that tell her that her photos were used to catfish them.
Under A Scammers Spell - “I Lied To The Bank”
Revolut and Virgin Money knew something was fishy when retired couple Ann and James opened an online banking account and began to transfer out large sums of money.
Despite repeated calls and warnings from the fraud departments of both companies, Ann and James were 100% sure they were investing in crypto currency that was going to make them rich.
To convince Revolut, Ann lied and even held up this picture 👇
The couple was under a “spell” from the scammer and would listen to anything she told her.
In the end they lost everything. How can banks compete with scammers who have consumers under their spell?
This Is Scary Bananas. Scammers Are Evolving To A “God-Like” Level
This guy shares his experience of an AI Voice cloning scam he nearly fell for after he got a call from what he thought was his mother.
This is bananas 😳
— Old Row (@OldRowViral)
3:19 PM • Oct 23, 2023
Post Office - OTP and License Checks Dropped Change of Address Fraud 99%
The US Postal Service is cracking down on fraud and crime with an initiative called Project Safe Delivery.
As part of the initiative, they cracked down on the epidemic of Change of Address Fraud by implementing two things earlier this year.
For online COA - OTP for online change of address to a phone number where the address matches the new or old address.
For in-person COA - Drivers license validation
And it appears that they are making a significant dent. Since May they have reduced fraudulent change of address submissions by 99.3% by implementing new procedures.
Report - This Crooked And Now Defunct Bank Accused Of Rampant Fraud
As the president of Washington Federal Bank was running what ultimately was exposed as a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scheme, one of its biggest customers - Edward H. Gobbo- was getting out of having to repay $4 million he owed the bank by filing for bankruptcy.
One month later after the bankruptcy was complete, John F. Gembara — the bank’s president and CEO started giving even more money to Gobbo, and he just kept giving him more, and more and more.
I guess it helps that Gobbo was considered a “close friend” of the Gembara.
When the bank was shut down, federal bank examiners discovered that Gobbo and his immediate family owed more than $3.8 million on 27 residential loans, some of them years overdue, court records show.
Hacker sells sign-on to Meta Law Enforcement portal
A threat actor is selling access to Facebooks Law Enforcement Portal for $700 in online fraud chatrooms.
Having access to Facebook Police portal would give a fraudster access to sensitive information including - IP addresses, phone numbers, emails, direct messages, deleted posts, device information, and much, much more.
Email Phishing Is Up 1,265% Since GPT Was Launched
A new report by cybersecurity firm SlashNext says phishing emails have jumped 1,265% since the launch of ChatGPT.
“When ChatGPT released in February, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of phishing attacks, obviously partly driven by, just in general, overall attacks because of the success,” SlashNext CEO Patrick Harr told Decrypt.
“While there has been some debate about the true influence of generative AI on cybercriminal activity, we know from our research that threat actors are leveraging tools like ChatGPT to help write sophisticated, targeted business email compromises and other phishing messages,” Harr said.
Thanks for catching up on my weekly fraud trends.
I hope you have an amazing week fighting fraud.