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Tough Love - Banks Are Going To Force You To Help You Help Yourself

Author

Frank McKenna
February 20, 2024

Hope you all had an excellent President’s Day Weekend,

I had a good time, minus the pouring rain and atmospheric rivers pounding the beautiful San Diego coast.

This week’s top fraud snippets 👇️ 

Let’s hit those top stories now!

Scam Interdiction - Banks Battle Scams With A Tough Love Approach

Banks are on the front lines of the war on scams, and regulators are pulling them in different directions.

In the UK, regulators are pushing the reimbursement model, while in Australia, they are focused on a different approach - the interdiction approach to slow down, pause, and even decline payments.

One thing is for sure, customers will probably be pissed either way. You can’t win if you’re a bank, but I can tell you this - scam interdiction is the new wave, so jump onboard!

Scam Interdiction. Banks Battle Scams With Tough Love

It's happening worldwide, and now it may be coming to the US. It's not scam reimbursement, its something better and more effective.

A Tale Of Two Cities - How BofA And Chase Handled Scam Shows Stark Differences

In August of 2022, 77-year-old Diane Yaffe picked up her phone to answer a call from Amazon. It was at that moment that her life changed forever as scammers proceeded to drain $1.8 million from her bank accounts.

Yaffe had accounts with Bank of America and Chase at the time of the scam. BofA was suspicious of her wire request from the start, and they blocked all her wire requests at the corporate level.

But her Chase account was a different story. In fact, it was so easy that the scammers had her move all of her money from BofA to Chase so they could extract all her funds. Scammers then had her go from Chase branch to Chase branch requesting wire transfers. If one branch became suspicious, the scammers had her go to another one.

This is a perfect example of why branches need to escalate scam attempts to the risk department, and not let scammers just move from branch to branch.

Yaffe Lawsuit Against Chase

When BOFA Stopped Scam, They Drained Her Chase Accounts

Facebook Is Awash With Funeral Scams Targeting Friends and Family

Just when you are at your most vulnerable, you could be a target for scammers.

This morning, 404Media published a report that scammers are upping their tactics in horrible ways.

The scams involve pulling details of real deceased people from legitimate funeral services pages and then making copycat announcements before pushing victims to a site that asks for their credit card information allegedly in order to watch the funeral of their loved one.

They are even going so far as publishing fake live streams of the funerals to get more money.

Facebook Funeral Scams

Scammers are copying genuine funeral service announcements, making their own Facebook accounts, then directing vulnerable victims to a fake livestream page. “It causes panic on the day where you shouldn't be thinking of that,” one impacted person said.

Fraud Fighter Reports On History and Problems With Chargeback Guarantee

This is an interesting and informative take on Chargeback Guarantee by fraud fighter Coby Montoya.

His take? The Chargeback Guarantee Business Model is not sustainable, and says some vendors are encouraging their customers not to rely too heavily on it.

History and Problems With Chargeback Guarantee

An Elaborate And Senseless Catfish For Murder Scam

23-year-old Denali Brehmer of Anchorage, Alaska, will spend the rest of her life in jail for the murder of her best friend, Cynthia Hoffman.

According to court documents, Ms. Brehmer met a man online who convinced her that his name was Tyler and that he was a millionaire from Kansas. The man offered Ms. Brehmer at least $9 million to kill someone in Alaska and take pictures and video of the murder, according to the indictment.

But in reality, “Tyler” was Darin Schilmiller, 25, of New Salisbury, Ind., and he was not a millionaire and was just catfishing her. She agreed to carry out the murder and took her friend on a hike, shooting her and disposing of her body in the river.

A Senseless and Tragic Catfish For Murder Scam

Lured by a false promise of at least $9 million, Denali Brehmer, 23, of Anchorage, plotted to kill Cynthia Hoffman, prosecutors said.

Sora Will Level Up Scammers Toolbox To Unlimited Power

It happened again. OpenAI just released something that is going to change fraud and scams forever. Just like last year’s launch of ChatGPT, this technology is so powerful it defies imagination.

Check out my take on how far AI video has come and what it means for fraudfighters. 👇️ 

Whistleblowers Say CashApp’s Identity Controls Are “Negligible”

In 2016, Lincoln Savings Bank only had 18,000 bank account customers. But then they struck a deal with Cash App in 2017 to handle deposits for them. By 2019, they had accumulated over 2,000,000 accounts - a growth rate of over 11 thousand percent.

That stratospheric growth rate halted when the FDIC began probing their AML and identity controls and the bank agreed to stop opening accounts for CashApp in 2019.

Fast forward to 2024 and whistleblowers now say that CashApp was the one who pressed Lincoln to forgo traditional customer due diligence to ease the process of opening accounts and to generate revenues.

Feds probing CashAPP

The payment app, used by millions and celebrated by rappers, “had no effective procedure" to establish the true identity of customers, two whistleblowers told officials.

Spoon Bending Murderer’s “Dr Death” Company Playing AI Shell Game Fraud

Dr. Serhat Gumrukcu once praised as a "rare genius," was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in May 2022 and found to have faked his academic history and clinical data. His escapades were captured on “Dr Death” and shocked the world.

The company he created still exists today, but Hindenburg Research claims they are a complete fraud. They just jumped on the AI hype train and merged with an AI health company and the investigators at Hindenburg say its’s a complete sham.

Hackers Want To Steal Your Face

There is a new piece of malware called GoldDigger that is sweeping across Asian Banks - 50 in Vietnam alone.

Security researchers found it is capable of collecting facial recognition data, identity documents, and intercepting SMS Text from the mobile phones it infects.

The malware is being spread through apps and the stolen data can be used to drain your bank account!

Face Off - Hackers Want Your Face

She Put $50,000 In A Shoebox And Handed It To A Stranger

On a Tuesday evening this past October, I put $50,000 in cash in a shoe box, taped it shut as instructed, and carried it to the sidewalk in front of my apartment, my phone clasped to my ear. “Don’t let anyone hurt me,” I told the man on the line, feeling pathetic.

“You won’t be hurt,” he answered. “Just keep doing exactly as I say.”

How I Got Scammed Out of $50,000

I’m still trying to understand why I fell for it.

Bookmark This 👉️ Free Fraud Search Portal

A new free fraud search portal called FraudFightersAlliance was launched last week and provides free access to business, email, phone, and personal searches, all in a single portal.

It integrates a bunch of different APIs and Scrapers so you can instantly search and get the intel you need.

That’s a wrap for FrankonFraud

Thanks for keeping up with me, and I hope to catch you at the Webinar this week with Alloy and David Maimon.

Special thanks to Mary Ann Miller, Ken Palla, and Karisse Hendriks for tips on fraud stories this week.