Hello Fraud Fighters 👋 ,

It finally happened. Last week was the week when deepfakes when absolutely crazy. The launch of Open AI’s Sora2 turned into absolute chaos as thousands of people began creating highly believable deepfakes of celebrities.

Apparently, OpenAI had ZERO guardrails and got absolutely smoked! The put in new guardrails but it doesn’t appear to be working.

Let’s get to the top news!

Fraud News Roundup 🗞️ 

• The Fraud Complaint Machine - Revolut continues to top the charts in a way no bank wants - fraud complaints. For the third year running, they dominate, and it’s not even close.

• Salesforce Massive Hack - Hackers are claiming to have stolen 1 billion customer records from Salesforce and are trying to extort them. Salesforce denies it, but you never know with these things.

• VA Fraud and Exploits - The Washington Post investigates how some Vets exploit the VA programs. It's eye-opening how questionable claims gum up the system.

• Unsustainable Fraud Strategy - A leading anti-fraud expert says that Europe’s strategy of blocking 30% of total call volume for fraud is an unsustainable strategy.

• Cure for Hangovers? - Asahi, one of the largest brewers in the world was hacked and its created a major shortage in beer worldwide.

• Bank Employee Loots Safe Deposit Boxes - An employee of MUFG Bank managed the spare keys to safe deposit boxes and used the keys to loot over $2.5 million from customers.

• Kim Jong Un Is Fat - New report claims North Korean Agents deepfaking US IT workers has funneled $1 billion to the countries nuclear program. By the way, insulting him doesn’t work anymore.

• Zelle Humor 😄 - Zelle is touting its incredibly low fraud rate of 2 basis points, saying it is 3 times more likely to get injured by a toilet than have a Zelle fraud. The toilet injury rate is 7 basis points of the population, which is surprising.

• Shame on the Cambodian Government - The US State Dept has now named the Cambodian government as a state sponsor of Human Trafficking as Pig Butchering operations proliferate.

• Scam Workers Revolt - Videos out of Cambodia show growing unrest as trafficked Indian scammers take to the streets to protest horrible conditions. And here are more videos of them smashing the offices.

• Regions Bank AI Warning - The bank is proactively warning consumers that its not a matter of “if” but “when” they will become a victim of an AI scam.

• Singapore Banks Get Tough - Banks in Singapore can now outright reject large money transfers when they believe the account is getting drained by scams.

• Weirdo - A 22-year-old sex offender used fraudulent documentation and a fake identity to enroll in high school and even joined the football team.

• Fake Copyright Violation Wave - A new wave of phishing emails that spoof big law firms that scares victims into thinking they are victims of a big investigation is spreading malware fast.

• Inflation Refund Scam Hits New York - Millions of residents of New York State will start to receive checks for up to $400 and scammers are rushing to phish their personal details.

• Cool New Newsletter - ValidSystems just launched a great newsletter called “Women in Fraud” featuring incredible fraud fighters.

• Feedzai Valuation - Feedzai scored a $2 billion valuation and $75 million in new investment based on a letter of intent from Europes Central Bank to provide fraud protection for the digital euro.

• Point Predictive - Tim Grace and I are delivering a Webinar on new Innovations in Income and Employment Validation and avoiding fraud using Consortium Data after it was pulled for being “too competitive.”

Tricolor Fall Called A Fraud Of “Extraordinary Proportion”

The Tricolor shockwaves continue to ripple across the auto industry.

Last week the trustee said it was a fraud of “extraordinary proportion”, referred to it as “pervasive” and involved “potentially systematic levels of fraud. The company tapped Wall Street for more than $2 billion before filing for bankruptcy last month and its a doozy.

Tricolor pledged at least 29,000 car loans to creditors that were already tied to other loans - a practice called double-pledging.

Even worse? Nearly 40% of the subprime lender's 70,000 active loans shared identical details with other loans, including vehicle identification numbers.

LinkedIn Sues Million Fake Account Bot Army Co For Scraping Members’ Data En Masse

A company based in Pakistan is getting sued by LinkedIn for creating a massive bot army of fake accounts, complete with generic profile photos, that were scraping members' public and non-public data, including comments.

Just as fast as LinkedIn work to shut the accounts down, the company just created more and more and kept scraping at a massive scale and selling the data for up to $15,000 a month.

FTC Shuts Down Fraud Reporting, Consumers Locked Out

The FTC has announced that Americans will be unable to report fraud during the government shutdown, leaving many consumers vulnerable for at least a month.

Approximately 780 workers will stay home, while another 400 will continue working without pay until after the shutdown.

Report - Emerging New ‘ACATS Fraud’ Hits Banks And Brokerages’ Weak Spot

This type of fraud, which exploits a hidden transfer network at investment banks, is now happening with such regularity that it is no longer referred to as “ACATS Fraud.”

Fraudsters open investment accounts using stolen credentials of a victim at one bank and then siphon off the real investments for that same victim that are at another bank or brokerage. Those funds are transferred through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Services which has few fraud controls since the money is going to the same consumer.

Equifax - Credit Card Fraud Soars 70% Higher In Canada

Credit card fraud rates in Canada have unexpectedly shot up 70% this year, even while other types of fraud, such as mortgage, auto, and application fraud, have fallen to much lower levels.

The culprit? Identity theft and third party fraudsters now account for 83% of the credit card fraud in the country. The unexpected spike in credit card fraud has experts worried about how Canadian banks will respond.

AMEX Dominates On Customer Fraud Experience Charts

Cornerstone Advisors has just released a major report on customer experience fraud. They graded major card issuers on how customers feel the bank did and AMEX dominated the rankings, followed by Capital One.

Click below to read the article.

“You’ll Never Need To Work Again” - Ransomeware Hackers Recruit Insiders

A BBC reporter received a shocking offer on Signal from hackers that claimed to be part of the Medusa Ransomeware Gang.

They promised him 25% of the ransom if he gave them access to his employers systems through his laptop.

He played along, negotiating with them for three days and it ended with them bombarding his phone with authentication request in an aggressive scheme called “MFA Bombing”.

British Citizen Missing - Its Feared He Was Lured Into Scam Compound

A British Citizen was seen slipping into Myanmar and he has not been seen since. It is feared that he was tricked or lured to become a software engineer working for a scam compound in the area.

This is highly unusual.

Builder.AI CEO Resorted To Loan Fraud To Pay Himself While Company Imploded

A new report accuses Builder.AI Manpreet Ratia of emergency loan fraud.

While the company was imploding in May of this year, he asked the founder, Sachin Duggal, for a $300,000 emergency loan, claiming the money would save employee jobs. But, the next day, he transferred $200,000 to his personal account and then initiated a plan to put the company in bankruptcy.

The company itself was called an elaborate deception for pretending to use AI to build apps when in reality it was hundreds of workers in India doing the work manually.

Karisse and About Fraud Combine Forces For Major New Fraud Conference

She is so popular, I only need to say her first name and you probably know who I am talking about - Karisse. Am I right?

She and the guys at About Fraud are launching Fraud Fight Club for Merchants!

You know the quality is going to be sky high for this event so get ready. Check out the announcement below.

SORA 2 Has Crossed The Line Into Deepfake Chaos

OpenAI's Sora 2 app launched last week with a "cameo" feature which lets users upload their face to star in AI videos. Within hours of launch, the app was flooded with realistic deepfakes of CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, dead celebrities, deceased presidents and social media will never be the same.

This is a tipping point that we may never be able to come back from. Click to watch the video below to see what we are up against.

Upwork Contractor Approached By North Korean IT Worker To Use His Identity

Here is an interesting twist.

An Upwork contractor was approached by what appears to be North Korean IT worker asking to let him use his Upwork and LinkedIn profile to get work with companies in the US and promised him 40% of revenue generated.

The worker flipped on his video and recorded the whole scheme.

Thats all for this week folks.

Thanks for reading!

FrankonFraud