Hello from FrankonFraud,

Everyone was buzzing about the Prove Fraud Fight Club in Charlotte. The panels and networking were a blast. The AboutFraud guys pulled off another great event. 👏 

Let’s get to the top stories!

• It must be nice— Feedzai announced a record-breaking year in revenues fueled by a record-breaking $100 million multi-year deal with a top-10 European bank. That is a whale of a deal! Who sold that?

• Cloned Arrow Keys -A Texas man was indicted for using a 3D Printer to clone mailbox keys in a string of crimes he was arrested for.

• Sky High Losses - A new report by Ayden says retail merchants are lost a staggering $429 Billion in 2023 due to payments fraud. 13,177 merchants participated in the analysis according the firm.

• CBS Investigates— CBS released a six-part investigative series called “Inside America’s Scam Epidemic” last week. The series provides an in-depth and personal look into the problem.

• Stamping Out Fraud - A woman pulled of the most daring heist against the postal service in history, stealing over $150 million in postage and sending out tens of millions of parcels with counterfeit stamps.

• Wild Ride - Car banditos with a taste for luxury cars financed 75 Porches, Mercedes, and BMWs using stolen identities. All told, they commandeered over $2 million in vehicles.

• Deepfake Revenge Scandal - An athletic director used A.I. to create a deepfake voice clone of the school’s principal going on a racist tirade. You can listen to the deepfake AI clone here, which is very disturbing.

• California EDD Broke - California’s unemployment insurance fund is broke, buried by over $55 billion in fraud which was raided by scammers during the pandemic.

• Maybe You Are a Robot—It’s not you. Those Captchas are getting harder. The Wall Street Journal dives into Arkose Labs Captchas and why the CEO says they are going to get even stranger over time.

• Tesla’s Enron moment - A billionaire alleges Tesla committed "consumer fraud on a massive scale," comparing it to Enron. With plummeting profits, executive resignations, and federal scrutiny, could jail time be next for Musk?

The Fraud Case Of Alice Fries Could Expose Wells Fargo To Reimburse Her

Alice Fries was the victim of an imposter scam that drained $100,000 from her Wells Fargo account. After the bank only agreed to refund her $50 as a courtesy, she lawyered up.

Her primary gripe? 👉️ Wells Fargo’s own representatives use the same OTP verification process as fraudsters despite knowing for years it confuses customers and causes losses.

But she has more. She said the smoking gun is a leaked transcript of the verification call between Wells Fargo and the scammer that proves she should get her money back.

I dove into the case over the weekend, and I think Alice Fries might have raised some good points. 🤔 

Click to Read The Blog

10 Things I Learned From Yahoo Boys University This Weekend

I was browsing Facebook crime groups, and believe me, they are all over the platform. While browsing, I happenstanced on hundreds of “Yahoo Boys” University channels.

I attended Yahoo Boys University over the weekend to learn more about it. Not actually attended I should say, more like “lurking” on the groups and gathering information on what these schools are all about.

Why not? 🤷 I have nothing better to do over the weekend.

Click To See What I Learned

Scam Interdiction - It’s Working Very Well In Australia

Whatever they are doing in Australia to stop scams appears to be working. The National Anti Scam Center released its annual report last week with wonderfully surprising results. Scam-related losses are dropping month over month in the country.

Experts had predicted that scam losses should increase well over $3.1 billion for the year, but the actual losses came under that number at only $2.7 billion.

About a year ago, Australian banks elected to use a “sand in the gears” approach to slow down payments or even stop them in the riskiest of situations. It’s a winning strategy. 💪 

Canada Targets Synthetic Identity In Sweeping Crackdown

Over 680 synthetic identities, many using the same photos, were used to steal millions from Canadian banks and businesses, and Toronto Police are engaging in “Operation Deja Vu”

A major press conference was held yesterday to disclose the results of the police action.

Click to Read Blog

Call Center Reps Searched and Stole Older USAA Customer’s Info and Sold It

An outsourced call center for USAA - Teleperformance is taking heat for an internal fraud scheme.

A few of their employees had a side hustle between fielding their calls. They would search for bank accounts with a specific profile -older customers with higher account balances. They believed older customers were less likely to check their balances and easier to defraud.

They would send screenshots and messages on their phone to fraudsters who would create counterfeit checks and deposit them to banks nationwide.

Click to Read

New Vaneer “Technicians” Are A Total Scam and Illegal

A wave of newly minted “basement dentists” armed with “Vaneer Tech” certificates are shaving people's teeth down and installing veneers. The problem? They are not dentist and most have only two days of training.

The dangerous wave is sweeping across Atlanta, as these techs are wrecking peoples teeth forever.

Click to Read

Las Vegas Police Check 11,000 Terminals For Skimmers, Find 18

The Las Vegas Police and Secret Service manually checked 11,600 terminals in Las Vegas for skimming devices. Marc Evans was part of the task force, indicating they found and removed 18 skimmers!

Was It A Vendetta? MGM Sues The FTC

As luck would have it, while cyber attackers took down MGM last September, the Chairman of the FTC, Lina Khan, just happened to be staying at the resort.

While the systems were down, an employee asked Khan to write her credit card information on paper to check into the hotel. Kahn balked and asked the employee how they handled security for the paper she wrote the number on. Kahn didn’t like the answer she got from the front desk clerk, so when she returned to the FTC offices, she had the department launch a full investigation into MGM.

MGM is now suing the FTC, alleging Kahn has a vendetta against them.

Click to Read Lawsuit

Class Action - Lexis Nexis Sued For Using PII To Sell Search Services

LexisNexis finds itself in the crosshairs of a class action lawsuit, accused of exploiting personal information to sell its products.

The consumers allege that LexisNexis dangled tantalizing "free trials" of its people-search products, granting unfettered access to a treasure trove of sensitive data – all without the knowledge or consent of those exposed.

Filed in California and Illinois, they are seeking $1,000 per infraction.

How The $25 Billion Worst DeepFake In History Went Down In Hong Kong

I Did This Last Week. Now My Phone Is Eerily Silent

I get 5-8 scam calls a day. I have no idea why, but my phone is buzzing like crazy. Then it occurred to me that there is an iPhone setting that you can set to stop it all—it's called Silence Unknown Callers.

This might be the #1 way to stop becoming a victim. If someone needs to reach me, they can leave a voicemail. If you have elderly parents, turn this on for them as well!

Thanks for following my weekly newsletter. I hope you have another great week fighting fraud and stopping those bad guys 🦹 

FrankonFraud