Hello Fraud Fighters 👋 

Scam interdiction in banking seems to be the fraud trend of the year. I wrote about it a few weeks ago, and it continues evolving rapidly!

This week, the UK is reversing course and heading back to 2008, when it would give banks up to three days to transfer funds if it suspected fraud. I am sure this is going to piss some consumers off, but hey, it’s what you have to do these days with all these scammers everywhere.

Let’s get to some of the top developing stories and trends 👇️ 

• The Big Slowdown - Banks in the UK are headed back to 2008 when they had three days to transfer payment funds. There is just too much fraud, so banks are going to get extra time (3 days again) to review suspicious payments.

• The biggest fraud in history just happened - A massive $78 billion real estate fraud is developing in China and is called “shocking in scale”.

• What the heck check? 🤔 - A fraud ring stole a single $2,500 check from a business and was able to recruit 20 people using different names and fake id’s to cash that same check over and over again at a check cashing machine. They got $55,000!

• Inny Side Hustle -Phone store manager Jonathan Katz had a secret side hustle as an Inny; he sold his credentials to a fraudster so they could SIM swap customers’ phones.

• DOJ Fraud Report Released - The DOJ released its 2023 Annual Fraud Report, and convictions are down 15%, the first time its dipped since the pandemic showing we are through the worst of it.

• Refunding Fraud Scourge - Professional refunding was showcased on CNBC this week as Amazon and other major retailers crack down on the scourge of criminal refunding networks.

• “It’s not mine”—Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion rejected this guy's auto loan credit dispute as “suspicious,” suspecting he used a credit repair company to file it for him (aka credit washing). Now, he is suing them.

• The Big Bounce 🏀 - A Rochester restaurant owner was depositing checks as large as $1 million in his Five Star Bank account, knowing they would bounce. His balance now? Negative $19 million!

• KYC Hall Pass - SwapCam Pro is being touted on Telegram as being able to bypass Onfido’s fraud checks and give criminals a hall pass on KYC checks.

• Overrun by Scammers 🤥 —33% of listings on Facebook Marketplace are scams, and users complain that scam bots have proliferated the platform, making it nearly unusable.

• They paid the ransom and got hacked again - Court docs reveal that Flagstar paid $1M to fend off ransomware attackers in 2021 after paying a professional negotiator to help with the payment. Flagstar was hit by another ransomware attack in Oct 2023 again.

• Hundreds rescued - Close to 800 scam workers were extracted from a compound in the Philippines, including 383 Filipinos, 202 Chinese, and 73 other foreign nationals. Victims say they were recruited for their “good looks” because it made them better scammers.

Scam Crackdown - New ACH Rules Will Take A Bite Out of BEC Fraud

Nacha announced a new set of rules to take on BEC fraud head-on. The rules will do three things:

1. More monitoring - Require receiving banks to monitor incoming ACH for fraud too.

2. Hold funds - Let the receiving bank hold funds when they suspect fraud - scam interdiction.

3. Clawback - When fraud is detected, the sending bank can request the funds back from the receiving bank.

One thing the rules don’t do? Shift liability. It's still a step in the right direction. 👍️ 

eSIM Swapping Attacks Emerge - Is This Account Takeover 2.0?

When I got my new iPhone 14 a year ago, I noticed Apple had switched from those physical SIM cards to eSIMs. They said that eSIMs were more secure and easier to connect, allowing me to add multiple lines on a single phone, each with its own phone number. 🤔. I always wondered if they were more secure.

The answer is maybe not. Cybersecurity researchers in Russia have uncovered a new eSIM Swap attack vector that hackers use to exploit banks and take over online accounts.

Click to read

Pig Butchering Scams Are Ripping Couples Apart

It’s the unreported and often overlooked problem of Pig Butchering scams - broken homes.

What happens to relationships when one person simultaneously loses their life savings and has a virtual affair? You probably cannot imagine the devastating pain and yet another reason why Pig Butchering is the worst scam in the history of the world.

Click to Read

Ouch! Frost Bite Fraud Scheme Nets Dude $1.3 Million

Get this. A dude in China submerged his legs in dry ice for hours, which resulted in doctors needing to amputate his legs. He then filed eight separate insurance claims for $1.3 million in payments.

The fraudster, Zhang, submerged his feet in a bucket of dry ice from 2 a.m. until 12:20 p.m., lasting 10 hours. During this time, when Zhang felt unbearable pain and attempted to remove his feet, Liao bound him to a chair. This resulted in severe frostbite on Zhang's legs, leading to amputation below the knees.

You have to ask, was it worth it? Zhang and his friend are now both in jail and by the way, he only scored $7,000 off the insurance claims. .

SSNDOB.Org - Do You Wish To Buy an SSN? Just Do It!

It’s nuts what you will find on the open internet, including this site 👉️ SSNDOB.org.

You log in to the site, filter on what type of identity you want to buy (and there appear to be tens of millions), and pay $2.50 for the data. You can filter by city, state, zip code, and even country to find exactly what you want.

The site, which is estimated to have over 20 million SSNs, was dismantled by the IRS in 2022, but apparently, it’s back up and running!

Talk about flaunting the fraud and making it extremely convenient for fraudsters to steal your identity.

SwapCam Pro Touted As The Ultimate Software To Bypass KYC

David Maimon posted a video of a fraudster group claiming they have the “ultimate software to bypass KYC and selfie verification”.

The group that operates this Telegram channel - https://t.me/swapcam, also posts this demo video below, showing how the app works on any Android phone as a virtual camera.

One LinkedIn user commented that this guy's software is a scam, which could be the case, but we all know that many selfie verification systems were defeated with masks not that long ago.

You be the judge.

A Gruesome and Preposterous Fraud

In the shadows of West Hills, Carrie Phenix prowled the streets looking for unkempt homes in affluent neighborhoods. She used Google Maps to look for pools filled with algae, knowing there was a good chance an elderly incapacitated person lived there.

In 2020, she found her mark and broke into the home where an elderly victim resided. She took over the property and moved her friends in. The man passed away soon after, and she and her cohorts looted the home, forged documents, and stole his money while his body decomposed. In all, she stole over $3.7 million/

In a desperate attempt to cover their tracks, they tried to dissolve the body in chemicals, but when that failed, they resorted to dismembering the man and disposing of his remains in the ocean.

Click to Read

Voice Clone Was So Good - He Talked To Fake Daughter For 10 Minutes! 😲 

Now, this is scary. A father received a call early in the morning advising his daughter was arrested and in the hospital for a DUI and they needed $20,000 in cash to bail her out.

Before he agreed, he asked to speak to his daughter and they had a 10 minute conversation. He was convinced it was her so he went to the bank.

It was 100% fraud.

Click to Read

“Telegram is social media for organized criminals”

Finally. A major publication, the Financial Times, exposes Telegram for what it is - social media for criminals.

The platform currently has 900 million monthly active users, up from 500 million at the beginning of 2021 is a haven for guns, scams, fraud and the sale of stolen data.

Check it out 👇️ 

AI has surpassed the Average Human IQ For the First Time.

This is depressing. For the first time, AI is smarter than the average human. An IQ benchmarking of Claude.AI, indicates the model has scored above average against humans.

This isn’t going to end well for fraud.

Thanks for reading my weekly newsletter down to the end of the page. You must be a fraud trend junkie like me 😁 

Have a great week fighting fraud.

FrankonFraud