How you can protect yourself against fraudsters

Deal Only With Real Regulators — It's not hard to figure out who the real regulators are and how you can contact them. You'll find a list of international securities regulators on the website of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and a directory of state and provincial regulators in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. on the website of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). If someone encourages you to verify information about a deal with an entity that doesn't appear on these lists — such as the "Federal Regulatory & Compliance Department," the "Securities and Registration Compliance" agency, or the "U.S. Securities Registration Bureau" — you're probably dealing with fraudsters. You'll find legitimate contact information for the SEC in the Contact Us section of our website and on SEC Division Homepages. If you're ever unsure whether you're dealing with someone from the real SEC, use our online Question Form to ask us.

Be Skeptical of Government Approval — The SEC does not evaluate the merits of any securities offering, nor do we determine whether a particular security is a "good" investment. Instead, the SEC's staff reviews registration statements for securities offerings and declares those statements "effective" if the companies appear to have satisfied our disclosure rules. In general, all securities offered in the U.S. must be registered with the SEC or must qualify for an exemption from the registration requirements. You can check to see whether a company has registered its securities with the SEC and download its disclosure documents using our EDGAR database of company filings.

Look Past Fancy Seals and Impressive Letterheads — Most people who use computers know how easy it can be to copy and paste images. As a result, today's technology allows fraudsters to create impressive, legitimate-looking websites and stationery at little to no cost. Don't be taken in by a glossy brochure, a glitzy website, or the presence of a regulator's official seal on a web page or document. Again, the SEC does not authorize private companies to use our seal — even as a legitimate link to our website. If you see the SEC seal on a company's website or materials, think twice.

Check Out the Broker and the Firm — Always verify whether any broker offering to buy or sell securities is properly licensed to do business in your state, province, or country. If the person claims to work with a U.S. brokerage firm, call FINRA's Public Disclosure Program hotline at (800) 289-9999 or visit FINRA's website to check out the background of both the individual broker and the firm. Be sure to confirm whether the firm actually exists and is current in its registration, and ask whether the broker or the firm has a history of complaints. You can often get even more information from your state securities regulator.

Be Wary of "Advance Fee" or "Recovery Room" Schemes — An increasing number of investment-related frauds target investors worldwide who purchase "microcap" stocks, the low-priced and thinly traded stocks issued by the smallest of U.S. companies. If the stock price falls or the company goes out of business, the fraudsters swoop in, falsely claiming that they can help investors recover their losses — for a substantial fee disguised as some type of tax, deposit, or refundable insurance bond. As soon as an unwary investor pays the "advance fees," the fraudsters disappear — leaving the investor with even higher losses. For more information about these types of frauds, please read our publication entitled The Fleecing of Foreign Investors.

Beware of fraudsters and scammers

source: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/fakeseals.htm

New type of nigerian scam

Beware of 419scam

Phishing scam nets drivers licences

The New Zealand Transport Agency is offering to waive the fee for a replacement driver's license for victims of an online phishing scam. An extensive email, claiming to be from the New Zealand Transport Agency services team, was recently sent to customers. Recipients were asked to enter their license details on a scam account of the NZTA website.

Today people who entered their personal details on the fake website must contact it on 0800 822 422 to have their licenses cancelled, an agency reported. The agency is contributing to waive the normal fee of $38.20 for a replacement license for those who caught out.

Phishing scams try to gain personal details from recipients and may result in identity theft. NZTA spokesman Andy Knackstedt said: If you receive one of these messages you must delete it immediately. The agency urged anyone who provided their drivers license on the fake website to have them cancelled.

NZTA had exposed a newer version of the email after warnings were issued to customers about the original frauds yesterday. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Internal Affairs have added it to their public scam warnings.

Jiffy Lube Scam Caught on Tape

Jiffy Lube caught by a news investigation team charging people for work and not doing it.Three years later Jiffy Lube is still scamming customers.

SC issued notices to Rama Raju and four others- Satyam scam

The Supreme Court on Monday asked B Rama Raju and four others, who were asset key positions in Satyam when the Rs 7,000 crore scam came to light, to show the reason why their bail be not cancelled.

A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked them to file reply to the CBI's special leave appeal within two weeks. The CBI has challenged the bail granted to V Srinivas, G Ramakrishna, D Venkatapathy Raju and Ch Srisailam, who were all accused in the Rs 7,000 crore Satyam scam. They were decided bail by High court on the ground that there was no possibility of early completion of trial.

Assuring the apex court that the trial was likely to be completed within six months, solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam alleged all these persons including Rama Raju were the ones who truly forged the annual financial statements of the company to artificially jack up the share prices of Satyam.

Gopal Subramaniam said they were liable for forging bank statements about finances to show that there was huge balance in the company's accounts. The agency renowned their cases from that of Talluri Sirnivas, who was granted, bail by the apex court on February 4.

The CBI said it was a case based on documents and the evidence to expose the crime came mainly from employees of Satyam who were recruited by these accused and that "most of the witnesses were appointed by these accused and hence they may not come forward to topple against them, in case they were released on bail.

CBI said the HC was informed that investigations are going on in two critical areas and letters rogatory in this regard to US, UK, Belgium and two other countries were also sent and that steps are being taken to make sure that tryout is not in any way hampered.

Marriage Scam

A hot Mexican actress and her American husband are likely to stand trial on immigration fraud charges this week after her spurned fashion-photographer ex-boyfriend claimed to feds that the couple's marriage was a scam.

Markus Klinko, star of the Bravo reality illustrate "Double Exposure," told federal immigration officials said that Fernanda Romero's 2005 marriage to Kent Ross, of California, was a green-card scam after she deserted Klinko in 2007, prosecutors say.

Klinko is now predictable to be the star witness at Romero and Ross' immoral trial, slated to start tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Romero and Ross, both were 28, each face up to 5 years in central prison if convicted.

Their lawyers maintain the wedding weren't a scam, saying the pair had been in love but the marriage didn't work out.

"This is a case of two young people in love but immature to the complexities of marriage. The older man, Markus Klinko, who was fanatical with a young woman half his age, who spurned as her lover, was driven by malice and revenge to destroy her life, her career and her reputation," their filings say.

Prosecutors said that although Ross and Romero's claims of a "twister romance" that resulted in their June 2005 marriage, they were in fact set up by Romero's ex-boyfriend, Michael Ball (president of the Rock & Republic jeans brand).
Fernanda Romero, who had a bit part in last year's "Drag Me to Hell," paid Ross a $5,000 dowry for serving to keep her in the United States and working as a model and actress, filings say. The feds said the pair never even lived jointly.

The criminal complaint said: "After they were married, Ross lived as a single male with a roommate and sustained to date as if he had never been married. Romero likewise lived as an unmarried woman and carried on dating other men”.

One of those men was Klinko, who has photographed the likes of Britney Spears and Mariah Carey. The pair met about a month after Romero's marriage and went on their first date 2 days after, the feds say.

The filing says she came spotless about the marriage in '06, telling Klinko she had tied the knot only so "she could obtain permanent-residence status." The complaint says Romero discarded Klinko in early 2007.

The relationship didn't end silently. It was at the center of a $500,000 lawsuit Klinko filed later that year against Ball, the Rock & Republic CEO. The astounding suit charged that Ball had backed out of a deal with Klinko after resulting out the lensman had been seeing Romero.

The outfit, later dismissed, also charged that Ball arranged Romero's marriage to Kent.

Klinko has angrily left without ratting out the marriage, but both the feds and Romero have fingered him as the steal.

Romero has filed court papers and said she plans to disclose the Swiss native had his own scam marriage in 1987 but dumped his wife after four months when he found an American he liked more.

Taxman Scam

HM Revenue & Customs is warning pupil to beware of fraudsters who are posing as the taxman in a bid to get their hands on our current accounts.

The scam is actually fairly simple and based on endearing your confidence. The perpetrators simply contact you, as a taxpayer, by phone and convince you that you’re due a tax rebate. To claim your refund, you’re asked to provide your bank details and personal information. But, certainly, instead of getting a bit of cash back from the revenue, your bank account is emptied and your personal data sold on to other criminal organizations.

Scam By Email:

Phishing emails are hoaxes which attempt to coax out your bank details and individual security data. In such case, the sender will claim to be from HMRC and again asks you to verify your current account details by clicking on a link so that you can get back your tax rebate.

Pakistani saves life of Mumbai businessman from Nigerian Scam

A Mumbai based businessman lost Rs.7 lakhs to a Nigerian fraud in an African nation, where he was called for a business deal but came away unharmed with the help of a Pakistani national.

The later guided him to an Indian community office and the local police who saved his life. Other traders had been killed by the same Nigerian gang, local cops told to P.Chandra Sekaran. He has now penned a script to make a documentary on the Nigerian scam.
P.Chandra Sekaran started an export business in 2007. He got an email from an organization, Shepherd Aid Network, a country neighboring Nigeria.

Sekaran went to Benin at the invitation of the organisation's director, John Ndaba, to complete legal formalities for the business. Sekaran was received at the airport by a Nigerian representative. He was asked to deposit Rs.7 lakh with the finance department of the company. Ndaba promised to take him on a tour of their rehabilitation centre, but his calls to Ndaba, the next two days, went unrequited.

The third day, he managed to contact the organization's office alone but was twisted away. He then started to query about the organisation but locals able understood only French.

His four hours of try ended when a man introduced himself as a Pakistani. Abdulla guided Sekaran to the community office in Beni, where he narrated his story to community officer Manglani Gobind who contacted the police. Sekaran then received a call from Ndaba, telling him to take back his money.

Gobind and Sekaran along with a team of policemen raided the organisation's office. The police then provided protection to Sekaran for three days till he returns back to India.

Sekaran reported: "I am lucky I survived. I approached the president and senior ministers to make a documentary on my script”.

Beware Nigerian Scam Emails

Nigerian scam mail archives

Ashley Anne Kirilow :-A Fake Cancer Girl

Ashley Anne Kirilow, a 23-year-old Canadian, may have continued to scam people. She shaved her head, plucked her eyebrows, ravenous herself to look like a cancer patient. Then she founded a bogus cancer research charity and collected thousands of dollars in aid. She was taking people's money and it wasn't going to the University of Alberta.

Kirilow said, that she had brain, liver, stomach and ovarian cancer and that she was dying. Over the course of a year, she called her divorced parents, both of whom she has had little contact with, to ask for money for chemotherapy treatments. Her biological mother, a former school bus driver, told the The Toronto Star, "The only thing she ever wanted from me was money, and I couldn't ever give it to her."

Kirilow gave her friends two scam stories about her parents: In one, they were dead; in the other, they were drug addicts. She was alone and dying of cancer and had no money.

People in the Toronto music and skateboarding scenes, supported her cause. A Toronto charity, believing Kirilow was fatally ill, flew her to Disney World. The main volunteers for Cancer for Change allege that Kirilow took in more than $20,000. Privately, Kirilow had accumulated more than $30,000 in credit card debt.

Kirilow's father, Mike, told "GMA" that his daughter had been deceitful since a young age and that her criminal activity was predictable. “Her stepmother added that at age 16, Kirilow, who had left her mother's home to avoid following rules, "made this house a living hell."

Kirilow's parents have confirmed to media outlets that they engaged in a custody quarrel and that they had a dysfunctional relationship.

Kirilow is currently in police custody and facing several counts of fraud. Her parents will not pay her bail.

Interne Money Scams-Fake Drugs

You may think that internet scam is rare, but the truth is different. It affects the lives of many people whose only crime was to be slightly naïve. When some person got in scam, the first thing we tell them is to go straight to the police, but sought us out to talk about the real-life effects of internet crime on people's lives.

Around the world, people are losing their savings and homes to internet criminals. The most common attack is still phishing, believing that they're receiving emails from their bank or some other institution. When they try to log in via the provided link, all they see is an error message apologizing for heavy server load and asking them to try again later. But the truth is, their log-in details have been saved and the criminals now have access to their bank account.

To Beat The Internet scam:

One of the most common tricks and goals of scambaiter is advanced fee fraud. The general approach is to dangle the promise of huge gains and then ask for ever-increasing fees, expenses before they dole out a slice of the fictional cash pie.

Fake Drugs:

A large amount of spam concerns fake drugs, where scammers target those looking for a good time. Viagra, stimulants and smart drugs are freely available via internet pharmacies. In some instances, outfits have even offered cannabis and ecstasy.

The problem is that like some pharmacy will simply collect the credit card details. It isn't worth the risk.

Advance Fee Scam

Police say they are unable to help to stop a phone scam that has already sapped thousands of dollars from Monash residents.
Monash CIU detective Sgt Brian Nolan stated the scammers were phoning people and posing as representatives of, and telling the customer they were entitled to a refund. But the caller reportedly says that before the money can be released, the customer has to pay tax on the amount, and directs them to transfer the payment through money transfer service Western Union.

Sgt Nolan reported “The callers leave a number that appears to be an Australian number, but the number is re-routed to India”. He said the wired money was “basically untraceable”.
Ms Healey said “A scam of this nature is called Advanced Fee Fraud, where the scammer requests payment in advance, on the false promise of a big cash payout.
In 2009 to 10, Consumer Affairs Victoria received about 260 calls to its main advice line and 10 formal complaints about a variety of advanced fee fraud scams.
If you are a victim of a scam, go to consumer.vic.gov.au.

Interview With "Black Money" Scam Victim

A 39 year old teacher lost about 140, 000 to a black money scam syndicate after sympathising with a widow. Noraini Ahmad tells her story to StarProbe Investigative team.

Charity Scam

Ohio authorities have issued a nationwide warranty for Bobby Thompson, the director of a suspect veteran’s charity organization. He used a stolen identity to execute an apparent fundraising scam.
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray stated Thursday that the man who represented himself as Bobby Thompson used a false identity to rent a UPS box that served as a collection point for donations to the state's chapter of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. Authorities have charged him with identity scam.
The real Bobby Thompson, whose identity (Social Security number and date of birth) was stolen, has absolutely no connection to the U.S. Navy Veterans Association.

The infer most recently lived in Tampa, Fla., but deserted his rented duplex in March after the St. Petersburg Times newspaper began inquiring him about the activities of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association.

The nonprofit association is under investigation in Virginia about whether millions of dollars raised by the group truly went to help Navy veterans. Regulators are unable to find its leaders, whose only known addresses are UPS mail drops.

According to Cordray's office, Ohioans have contributed nearly $1.9 million to the association.

Most of the elected officials who received contributions from Thompson moved quickly to donate the funds to charity. Bobby Thompson was the second-largest individual contributor to Cuccinelli's campaign.

Marriage Scam

Sussex vicar guilty of immigration marriage scam

A vicar has been found responsible of carrying out hundreds of scam marriages to bypass immigration law.

Alex Brown conducted 383 weddings, over four years at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards, Sussex, 360 of them were fake.

Crown Prosecution Service said it was thought to be the largest fake marriage case it had brought to court. The jury at Lewes Crown Court convicted the 61-year-old of conspiring to facilitate illegal immigration.
Co-defendants Vladymyr Buchak, 33-year-old, have also been found guilty of the same offence, paid eastern Europeans up to £3,000 each to marry Africans, mainly from Nigeria.

The court heard Brown conducted the 360 fake ceremonies between July 2005 and July 2009. The defendants were caught after the UK Border Agency investigated the bogus marriages. Brown was arrested last June.

Jurors were shown photocopies of the marriage register which showed hundreds of people who had got married all seem to live in a small number of streets, with 90 couples registered as living in one road. In some cases, several brides and grooms claimed to live in the same house. The court heard most of those involved in the marriages had given false addresses. Brown insisted he only ever married couples he was sure were together for the right reasons and said he only made exceptions if the bride-to-be was about to give birth. Sentencing was adjourned until 6 September for pre-sentence reports to be carried out on Brown and Adelasoye.

Jury said specialist teams of immigration and police officers were working to tackle this form of organised criminality.

Work At Home Scams

Many were tempted of money during this financial time and lost their large sums of money, but beware of scammer who offers you money suddenly without any notification.

Advance fee scam: They will send you the mail like, Just invest five hundred dollars in inventory. Starting a home-based business is easy!
Criminal Activity: Criminals often located overseas. They will hire you as a U.S.-based agent to receive and re-ship checks, to other potential victims.

Tips to avoid home scams:

• Do your own research, when starting home base business opportunities.
• Contact the Better Business Bureau at bbb.org.
• When first interacting with your prospective employer, don’t provide your personal information.

How To Avoid Scam

U.S. citizens lose billions of dollars yearly in international financial scams.This video helps you when you are being scammed.

Signs Of Scam:

• scammer and victim person meets online.
• Will send photo of attractive person.
• Suddenly needs financial help.
• Claims to be U.S citizen, but will use grammar and spelling indicative of a non-English speaker.

Now Its Time To Scam the Scammers

Scammers often get away with their crimes from law enforcement. But there are people who are helping victims fight back. Scammers are there to grab your money.
Here is an interesting video to catch the scammers in a smart way.

How To Protect From dating scammers

Dating scam is a continuous expanding industry.
The scammer will create false profiles and sends an email with valuable talk of love.

Here are some tips to protect you from dating scammers.

• Do not open spam mail and never reply to spam mail.
• Dating scammers often use fake websites. So, check the website address carefully.
• Don’t send you address details and never agree to transfer money.
• Don’t give your login information.
• Don’t make your password something easy.

“Smartly think before you act.”

How to protect your children from Internet Scams

The most important thing in today’s world is to teach your children how to protect them from Internet Scams.
They may use social Web sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr etc normally to chat, play games and to post their photos. Unfortunately some of the information posted by kid may lead to scams.

Help your children to use the websites safely:

• Educate them about the basics of sites mainly the social networking sites.
• Tell them why they should not suggest any personal information to others.
• Guide them how to communicate with such a kind of internet strangers.
• Don’t allow your children’s to post their full names or nick names, it may attract the strangers.
• Never allow your children to meet a person in individual, whom they have communicated via online only.