San Bruno Fire- warned against scam

Officials will mass a news conference in San Bruno today to warn inhabitants about possible scams that could mainly target the victims of last week's natural gas line explosion and fire. Prosecutor reported: Two women have pleaded not blameworthy to charges of trying to run a scams to steal aid destined for the victims of the gas line explosion and fire that ravaged a San Bruno neighborhood.

Representatives of the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office and California Department of Insurance will also describe what their agencies are doing to protect homeowners from becoming victims a second time as they repair and rebuild their homes. Nearly 37 homes were destroyed and eight damaged in the Sept. 9 fire, which was ignited when a 30inch gas line ruptured.4 people were killed and more than 50 injured in an incident.

Today's news conference at San Bruno City Hall, located at 567 El Camino Real, in Conference Room 115. San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe and San Bruno police Chief Neil Telford are scheduled to be among the speakers, who will discuss post-disaster scams, the importance of hiring licensed contractors and tips for getting through the rebuilding process.

Caution over energy top-ups scam

Consumers are being warned about a doorstep scam contributing them cheap electricity but ending up costing them twice as much for their energy. They focus and energy companies said likely 85,000 households have been affected by the illegal sale of electricity meter top-ups.

Some customers were offered £50 of electricity meter top-up for a cash payment of just £25, but they paying twice because the money was not going to energy suppliers. A national campaign has been launched, urging electricity pre-payment meter customers to buy top-ups only through official channels.

Christine McGourty, director at Energy UK said: A serious and widespread scam and be launching the Top-Up Safe campaign to urge customers to steer clear of the criminals behind it. When you buy something fake online like a ticket for a football match you're the one who'll end up losing out in the end.

Energy companies can notice the scams and you'll surely pay twice for your electricity, first to the criminal and then again to your energy company, who can always detect when electricity has been used, but not paid for through the proper channels. Energy companies are firm to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice and are working closely with the police at a local to stamp out this illegal activity.

Mike O'Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus reported: A disgraceful scam is putting cash in the pockets of criminals and thousands of people who are already hard pressed in this economic climate. Consumers must be alert for anyone who comes to their doorstep claiming to sell electricity credit. A customer who worried that they may have been affected should call their energy supplier or Consumer Direct to seek advice.

If anyone knows someone selling illegal electricity top-ups, please contact Crime stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or Crimestoppers-uk.org. The community can play a vital role in helping to catch criminals, simply by taking a few minutes to pass on any information they may have.

Scammers Get Scammed By Scambaiters

Scammers get scammed by Scambaiters

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”.

latest news:Taxman warns of new email scam

CUSTOMS officers have warned taxpayers to be wary of a new phone scam where callers telephone businesses pretending to be the taxman.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said it had received reports of fraudsters informing businesses – and members of the public – they were due a tax rebate, and then asking for their bank card details over the phone.

The scam email often begins with a sentence such as “We have reviewed your tax return and our calculations of your last year’s accounts show a tax refund of XXXX is due.”

The thieves then attempt to take money from the account using the details provided. HMRC said victims risked having their bank accounts emptied and their personal details sold on to other organised criminal gangs.

The warning comes amid a recent surge in the number of tax scam “phishing” emails reported to HMRC. In the last three months, HMRC said it had shut down more than 180 websites that were responsible for sending out the fake tax rebate emails.

HMRC said the increase in the number of scam emails reported to it was partly due to people following its advice and forwarding the messages to the department’s online reporting facility.

Such is the scale of the problem that in September last year, a record 83,000 phishing attempts were reported to HMRC. The following month, an unprecedented 10,000 reports of phishing scams were made to HMRC on one day alone.

Chris Hopson, Director of Customer Contact at HMRC said: “We only ever contact customers who are due a tax refund in writing by post. We never use telephone calls, emails or external companies in these circumstances. We strongly urge anyone receiving such a phone call not to give any information to the caller, but report it to the police straightaway.
“If customers receive an email claiming to be from HMRC, we recommend they send it to us for investigation before deleting it permanently.”

HMRC said it thoroughly investigated phishing attacks and worked with other law enforcement agencies in the UK and overseas. In the last 18 months, scam networks have been shut down in a number of countries, including Austria, Mexico, the UK, South Korea, the USA, Thailand and Japan.

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.

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.

Beware Of Internet Fraud

• None of us are completely safe from running into an online scam. So, all Internet users need to be cautious when they receive unsolicited e-mails and all must be educated of scams.
• Scams are so common in today’s world that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has said that over 560 million dollars have been lost to internet scams.
• More peoples are needed from the internet society to post more videos and blogs to create scam awareness among people.

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.

Scam Busters

To protect yourself from dangerous internet scams, beware of scammers’ website, list of scammers’ mail, scammers address.

Introduction To Scam Security

Introduction to scam security

View more presentations from Caroline Rose.

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.”

Beware Of Lottery Scam Mail

UK-LOTTO HEADQUARTERS:

Custom Service

580 N.Tenth Street,

CA 85914

Arena Complex 18 Route de Rufisque,

I.P.P Award Dept,

Johallesburg,

SouthAfrica,

Ref-UK/9420x2/68

Batch-074/05/zy369

We happily announce to you the draw of the UK-LOTTO Sweepstake Lottery International programs held on 26th July 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Your email address attached to

Ticket no: 66 6654444 77

Serial no 6654/04

Lucky no: 66-76-23-123

Which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category.

You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of US$3,600,000.00(3 million six hundred thousand US dollars)

This type of scam will usually come in the form of a conventional email message. It will inform you that you won millions of dollars and congratulate you repeatedly. The catch: before you can collect your “winnings”, you must pay the “processing” fee of several thousands of dollars.

Stop! The moment the bad guys cash your money order, you lose. Once you realize you have been suckered into paying $4000 to a con man, they are long gone with your money. Do not fall for this lottery scam.

Nigerianscam overview

Nigerianscam

View more presentations from Caroline Rose.

Inernet Scambaiter

TRICKS OF SCAMBAITING:

• Keeping the scammers busy through sending mails, interact with them until they ask for money.So they can’t able to interact with other persons.
• Fixing an appointment to meet in airport. So they lose their time.
• The goal is to let them run…

scamming The Scammers

People might fall for these type of scams.Scam-baiting is a potentially dangerous activity. At least one scam victim has been murdered as the result of a Nigerian 419 scam, and scam-baiters are presumably not well-liked by the 419 scam operators.