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  • Fraud Fighters Brace For Shapeshifting Black Friday Attacks 😨

Fraud Fighters Brace For Shapeshifting Black Friday Attacks 😨

Author

Frank McKenna
November 21, 2023

Hello, Faithful Fraud Fighters 🔥 

What kind of dastardly deeds and stories do I have for you this week? It’s Black Friday week, so naturally, we’re all a little on edge. Check out the top stories this week 👇️ 

Let’s dig into some of these, shall we?

The Return Of “The Master Manipulators”. Fraud Fighters Brace For New Attacks

It was Friday, November 25th, 2022 and when Karisse Hendrick woke up, she knew something was wrong. Her phone was blowing up with text messages 💣 – one after another.

Fraud was going haywire and merchants were giving her a heads up.

What followed changed fraud fighting forever, and now merchants are bracing for a renewed round of attacks.

Merchants Brace For Attacks

It was Friday, November 25th and when Karisse Hendrick woke up, she knew something was wrong.

Is Tomo Credit Selling Fake Tradelines To Boost Credit Scores?

An explosive article by Alex Johnson in WorkWeek claims that TomoCredit is offering fake reported tradelines as part of the credit builder program.

TomoCredit is no small beans either, having raised 6 rounds of capital and was valued at over $222 million last year.

For $49-$99 a month, the firm will report up to a $30,000 line of credit and back date it 24 months to boost your credit.

If true this would violate data furnishing agreements and get them in hot water with the bureaus.

All Right, Let’s Do This One Last Time.

My name is Alex Johnson. I was bitten by a radioactive charge card.

Are These AI Bot Attacks A Harbinger Of A True Black Friday?

Red flags are flashing.. ⚠️ 

A disturbing trend is being reported by online retailers. “AI Bot” swarm attacks are occurring for 24-48 bursts in what many, including Karisse Hendrick believes is a Black Friday dress rehearsal.

In what can only be called Deja-Vu, these attacks are eerily similar to what happened last year but these attacks are even more dangerous because they appear to be driven by artificial intelligence.

And here is the deal - the bots have figured out an exploit of fraud vendor tools that seems to work 👉️ processing duplicate transactions (one low risk and one high risk nano-seconds later) so that the fraud vendor scores the low risk transaction and passes it through.

AI Bots Hit Online Retailers

AI bots have emerged. The bots are not rule-based scripts but they appear to be driven by artificial intelligence

Confessions of A Dog Push And His Fireworks Show

He’s a professional Dog Push working in Myanmar. He was trafficked from China and is now scouting for victims to steal from.

After he scammed his first victim of $27,000, the scam bosses had a firework show that night in his honor. They do that every time one of their dog pushers lands a whale

Confessions Of A Dog Push

He worked as a "dog push" in Myanmar since last year. Find out how he scammed people and his methods www.globalantiscam.org/post/scammerconfession

31,000 Scam Suspects Arrested - Will Pig Butchering Now Decline?

Will we see a decline in Pig Butchering in the coming months? A series of sweeping mass arrests of scammers may certainly point to it.

Myanmar authorities have reportedly handed over 31,000 suspects of Pig Butchering scams to the Chinese government since September.

Sixty-three were masterminds, organizers, and key figures operating scam groups behind the scenes, and 1,531 were on wanted lists.

First-Party Fraud Refunders Are Driving Up Inflation By Billions

Did you know that fraud is helping to drive this massive inflation we are experiencing?

PPP fraud certainly drove a lot of it. But now there is a new wrinkle - First Party Fraudsters - and statistically you probably know a few of them.

According to Socure, First Party Fraud is running rampant - over 1 in 3 Americans admit to doing it. The $100 billion they steal from retailers each year means those merchants are passing the cost from those deadbeats on to you and that my friend is pure inflation.

Given that Americans are shelling out about $2.8 trillion more a year due to inflation, that means first-party fraudsters are responsible for about 4% of the problem.

Student Loan Program Only Validated Income On 6% Of Applications

An industry watchdog is reporting that the government might have gotten screwed big time in the Student Loan Debt Relief Program because they let loan holders state they made less than $125,000 a year without validating their claims with any tech.

Apparently over 18 million of the 19 million applications (94%) had no income validation checks before the loans were approved.

Another example of some poor fraud checks in government loan programs.

94% No Income Validated

Another Government Loan Program Might have some serious fraud risk, over 94% of apps had no income validation checks

MasterCard “Ties Up” With Feedzai On Crypto Fraud

Around 40% of fraudulent transactions currently originate from a bank account and go directly to a cryptocurrency exchanges.

To tackle the issue Mastercard is partnering with Feedzai in an unusual integration of their data.

CipherTrace Armada will be embedded directly in Feedzai’s technology, rather than accessed through an API, or application programming interface, with Feedzai absorbing the data to enable real-time alerts about suspicious crypto transactions.

The platform is used to help banks monitor transactions from over 6,000 crypto exchanges for fraud, money laundering and other suspicious activity.

New Technique Ram Raiding - Brazen Criminals Loot ATMs, Steal Guns

You got to check out how bad it’s getting out there. A new criminal technique called “Ram-Raiding” is catching fire across the US.

Criminals steal Hyundais and Kias, then ram them into stores so they can raid the store of guns, ATM machines, cash, and whatever else they can get their hands on

Brazen Burglars Are Ram Raiding

In a tactic called “ram-raiding,” burglars drive a stolen vehicle through a storefront and then loot ATMs, guns and other valuables inside.

Someone Fraudulently Said He Was Dead, US Bank Sends His Money Into The Ether

You gotta check this video out. Someone reported this poor guy as dead to US Bank and poof all his money disappeared.

@kaosleader001

US Bank said someone said I was dead so they close my account and mailed my money away. It’s been five days and Steel they will not open m... See more

What Happened To This 55-Year-Old Mysterious Fraud Case?

An interesting case, I discovered from Ken Palla this week.

In what might be the oldest case available on PACER, the Justice Department has dropped a 1968 embezzlement case against a John Doe finding that the case is “no longer viable for prosecution”.

But as it turns out the DOJ actually prosecuted the case, about 50 years ago against Robert Dale Chapman but it was an identity theft case. Chapman apparently stole the identity of Dr M Bergal (who lived in Indiana) and then used it to buy a bunch of plane tickets in New York.

The DOJ finally discovered the old case and finally closed it this week. Mystery solved!

Happy Day 🥳 Winning LendTech Of The Year

As a co-founder of a fraud tech company, life is a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, smiles 😁 and frowns 🙁 .

But this. This was awesome. 👇️ 

If you don’t know Tim and I have been creating fraud tech together for 25 years. We’ve had amazing times together, but this award was truly special.

Thank you US Fintech for the award 🙏 

Thanks for catching up on my weekly newsletter.

Keep the fraud fighting fire in you alive 🔥 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and good luck on Black Friday to all you retail fraud fighters!