For a long time, scammers have been utilizing a number of different approaches to try and bilk unsuspecting individuals of their hard earned money. In the past, they have tried unsubstantiated Nigerian lotteries, secret shopper programs, and even crazy cash checking schemes. Now they are attempting to achieve the same success but through the use of consumer fear.

One of our readers recently sent us an email that they received from a “collection agency” stating that they were collecting an unpaid balance on behalf of their client. The subject line of the email was entitled PAST DUE NOTICE and a PDF version of the communication was attached. The content of the letter is below. As you can see, it uses all the proper phrases and buzz words that are included in any standard collection agency notice. With the exception of the account number being asterisked out and no mention of the actual client they are trying to collect for, this letter could be quickly construed as being an official document and warrant a quick reply or response.

Our assumption is that the scammers are relying upon the fact that the sense of urgency expressed in the letter would encourage recipients to hit reply and inquire for additional information. At that point, the scammer will probably have a second phase of their scheme set up to further entice the unsuspecting target to be relieved of any extra funds.

As always, we encourage our readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com to be vigilant in regard to emails, phone calls, and text messages that they receive from unknown sources. If you know of anyone that would benefit from this information, please be sure to use the Share Tab below to spread the wealth of this knowledge.

US NATIONAL DEBT COLLECTIONS INC.

801 S. 48TH STREET

PHILADELPHIA, PA 19143

ACCT #: ****************

AMOUNT: 0.00

FEES: 0.00

INTEREST: 0.00

TOTAL DUE: $873.13 (DEBT SETTLEMENT)

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT WE HAVE BEEN RETAINED TO COLLECT THIS DEBT ON

BEHALF OF OUR CLIENT. WE HAVE ATTEMPTED TO NOTIFY YOU ON SEVERAL

OCCASIONS REGARDING YOUR DELINQUENT ACCOUNT. WE THOUGHT IT BEST TO STATE

OUR INTENTIONS AND MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WE INTEND TO COLLECT THIS DEBT

USING ALL AVAILABLE MEANS AT OUR DISPOSAL.

UNLESS WE RECEIVE PAYMENT FROM YOU SOON, WE WILL ASSUME THAT YOU HAVE NO

INTENTIONS OF LIQUIDATING YOUR DEBT VOLUNTARILY. WE WILL ADVISE OUR

CLIENT THAT THEY MAY WISH TO FILE SUIT AGAINST YOU TO RECOVER THIS DEBT.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IF LEGAL ACTION IS UNDERTAKEN, IT COULD BE COSTLY

AND TIME CONSUMING. IF YOU SHOULD LOSE IN SUCH AN ACTION, YOU COULD ALSO

BE SUBJECT TO COURT COSTS AND/OR ATTORNEY FEES, IF APPLICABLE. THERE ARE

VARIOUS AVENUES WHICH COULD BE USED TO SATISFY SUCH A JUDGEMENT. THIS

COULD INCLUDE GARNISHMENT OF WAGES, SEIZURE OF BANK ACCOUNTS OR OTHER

PERSONAL PROPERTY.

IT IS NOT OUR INTENTION TO THREATEN YOU BUT TO POINT OUT THE PROBLEMS AND

COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH REFUSING TO PAY YOUR DEBT. WE HOPE THAT NO FURTHER

ACTION WILL BE NECESSARY AND YOU WILL AGREE TO OUR AMICABLE PAYMENT

ARRANGEMENT.

PLEASE: TO ENSURE PROPER CREDIT, REMIT PAYMENT IMMEDIATELY. FOR YOUR

CONVENIENCE WE MAY BE ABLE TO ACCEPT PAYMENT ON YOUR ACCOUNT IN THE

FOLLOWING METHOD: WESTERN UNION.

HOW TO PAY:

Visit www.westernunion.com or your nearest Western Union agent location

and make your payment of $873.13 to:

Lisa Baker

Philadelphia, PA

After your payment has been sent, please email us the following

information:

The Money Transfer Control Number. (MTCN)

The exact dollar amount sent.

Your first and last name.

The city and state the money was sent from.

THIS COMMUNICATION IS FROM A DEBT COLLECTOR. THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO

COLLECT A DEBT. ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE USED SOLELY FOR THAT

PURPOSE

Identity thieves are still up to no good and are as mischievous as ever. With the continued successes in technology, identity thieves are finding more clever ways of apprehending your hard earned identity and laying waste to it as they utilize it to secure credit in your name or utilize your existing credit and financial standing to gain access to material goods.

As you know, we at SmartSecurityPeople.com have already researched and identified the origination of identity theft. You also know that a good number of paid services are available from successful companies such as LifeLock, TrustedID and Equifax to help aide you in keeping your credit and identity safe and secure.

The following are some tips recently provide by Equifax to keep us vigilant and aware of new approaches by identity thieves using the latest and greatest technology. Enjoy!

Gadget Grifters:
One of the growing types of identity theft involves stealing information through our electronic gadgets. As society becomes increasingly “wired,” it’s becoming easier to gain access to sensitive personal information on the go.

Criminals can use cell phones and PDAs to their advantage in a number of ways. If you’re not careful when using your credit card, a thief could easily and discreetly take a picture of your card with his camera phone. Similarly, it is important to watch out for peering eyes if using your computer in public. In general, take steps to safeguard your belongings; the more personal information we store on our electronic devices, the more vulnerable we leave ourselves to identity theft if those devices are misplaced or stolen.

The best way to safeguard against these kinds of crimes is to be discreet when paying with a credit card to prevent any unwanted eyes from seeing it. Additionally, make sure you use secure sites on your wireless devices and clear all personal data from them when you’re finished with your transactions. You could also consider utilizing password protection on your phone and laptop.

Tech Tactics
Identity thieves are always developing new ways to obtain sensitive personal information over the Internet. While you may have heard of phishing (fraudulent e-mails disguised as if they were from trusted sources to obtain personal information) and pharming (redirecting Web traffic to fraudulent sites to obtain information), you should also be conscious of IP spoofing.

IP spoofing, or Internet Protocol spoofing, is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers by tricking the computer itself into thinking the hacker’s IP is a “safe” one. Once this is accomplished, the hacker could have full access to your computer - without you even knowing. The best way to avoid this sort of fraud is by making sure your computer’s security programs are up-to-date and utilizing the most secure filter, router, or firewall offered.

New Twists on Old Techniques:
Identity thieves have relied on credit card scams for quite a while, but current economic challenges have allowed them to use new, more successful angles to get the information they need. Due to tightened credit, criminals are advertising fraudulent credit offers to victims who may be strapped for cash but aren’t qualified to apply for credit (poor credit score, lacking a SSN).

They can also obtain sensitive personal information by posing as debt consolidation experts or by offering to obtain lower interest rates for the victims. Make sure that all credit interactions you have are with reputable sources. You can always turn to the Better Business Bureau if you are unsure.

We hope you find this information useful. If you would like additional information about identity theft, please don’t hesitate to view our guide on protecting your identity. We also have some great links in the right hand tab under INFORMATION that are great resources as well.

Ashley Johnson, 24, of Memphis TN was recently arrested by local authorities when she attempted to open a Macy’s credit card account using another woman’s identity. This story starts out pretty simple and sounds like a normal case of identity theft, however, the details of how Ashley got to this point are quite amazing.

It all started when Ms. Johnson went dumpster diving back in December of 2008 to try and locate some moving boxes. She did not find any packing boxes in the dumpster behind McAlister’s Deli but what she did find proved to be much more valuable. The deli had recently tossed a stockpile of old applications (some from over 2 years ago) in the garbage and neglected to shred them before doing so. Ms. Johnson found these applications(hundreds of them) and this is where she was able to turn another person’s trash into her own treasure.

Ms. Johnson began applying for credit cards right away using the information from these applications. She was successful in obtaining over 100 credit cards. Once she received the credit cards, she would go on a shopping spree and purchase merchandise from multiple department stores. Once she had the merchandise, she would take it to other stores and receive store credit (gift cards) for the returned items. She would then sell these gift cards to people off the street for half the value. Authorities estimate that she laundered over $60,000 of merchandise in a 5 month period. (WOW! She certainly did not let grass grow under her feet.) Ms. Johnson’s favorite stores for this scheme were JCPenny, Target, and Macy’s. However, in order to keep up with her social network, she managed to get 4 Verizon phone accounts set up under different names as well.

Johnson is charged with identity theft, forgery and theft. She is being held on a $35,000 bond at Shelby County Jail East. There could be more charges in this case. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office is working with Memphis Police and Bartlett Police. A full press release from the local Sheriff’s office can be found here.

We hope this story helps to educate and enlighten our readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com to always guard your private information. You never know when a “Ms. Johnson” will be dumpster diving in your area!

Back in the day most (if not all) of your banking transactions were done face-to-face with a teller or some other banking representative. As time progressed and technology enhanced, the one-on-one time with your bank representative and that smiling teller is no longer convenient for the traditional bank customer. We, as bank customers, have come to expect more from our banks. We want online access 24/7 to our accounts, the ability to transfer funds at all hours of the day, and an ability to initiate any new banking feature quickly and efficiently with the click of a mouse. Some banks are now even offering the ability for their customer to receive mobile alerts directly to their cell phone if a balance falls below a certain level or a transaction of unusual size is being processed. With all of these conveniences, it is hard to imagine that there would be many problems. However, it is all of these fast tracks to service that open you and your bank accounts up to fraudulent activity and that is why you need to take measures to protect them.

“Firewalling” Your Bank Account

A firewall is a security measure that you put into place to keep two things apart. We mostly refer to firewalls in this day and age when we are talking about network and data protection. If you want to protect your computer from harmful viruses or your email from spammers , you create a firewall. Only those with the proper clearance are permitted to pass through the firewall. My guess is that the term “firewall” probably originated out of medieval times when it was common to pour vats of hot oil over a castle wall to keep attackers at bay but our current use of the term still seems very fitting.

Now that you know what a firewall is, how do you set one up for your bank account? The answer is easy. In most banking situations, you usually have a savings account and a checking account. In this simple scenario, the checking account would be the firewall for your savings account. Meaning… all of your transactions (online, via check, and debit card) are associated with your checking account and you transfer money internally(within the banks infrastructure) from your savings to your checking to cover bills. You never pay anyone directly using your savings account because you want to keep that account information private. With this scenario, if your checking account number becomes compromised, the would be violator would only have access to funds in your checking account and not your savings account. TA-DA you have put a firewall in place.

Now You Make Things More Complicated…

You decide that you are going to start investing online with a popular broker like E*Trade, purchasing things through eBay with PayPal, and basically go on a spending spree with internet retailers from around the world. It is ok though because firewalling can still work for you regardless of how complicated your make your finances.

The Solution…

• STEP 1: You will want to open a new checking account. You can do it at your current bank or you can you do it at another bank. The reason for this new checking account is because you do not want to open up your day-to-day checking account to all the unscrupulous characters out on the internet.
• STEP 2: When you want to fund your day trading account at E*Trade or boost up your PayPal account for a shopping spree, you will fund these accounts out of your new checking account. Why? you ask.. Because PayPal and other financial institutions are notorious for being targeted by look alike scammers wanting to prey upon your naivete and hopefully gain access to your funding account. Since you have set up a “firewall” they will not have access to your regular checking account that you pay your mortgage, car payment and groceries out of and they will have less of an impact on your day-to-day finances.
• STEP 3: Get a Credit Card! Did you know that every time you swipe your debit card, you are giving someone the opportunity to not only drain your checking account but also potentially overdraw it. Your bank has measures in place to protect you from these fraudulent transactions but it could take them up to 4 weeks to replace the stolen funds in your checking account as they verify the legitimacy of the fraudulent transaction . If you use a Credit Card for all your purchases that you would normally do with a debit card and pay that card off each month from your checking account, you will be protecting yourself from fraudulent transactions and maybe even earning some cash back of air miles at the same time. If someone compromises your credit card account, they are not impacting your checking account and you can dispute(and not pay) the transaction right away with MasterCard, Visa, etc…

Hope this information is helpful for our readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com. Should you have additional questions about the topic of “Firewalling Your Finances”, please be sure to drop us a line.

With this day and age of technology, you find that more and more consumers are doing their Christmas shopping online. In most cases it is a cheaper and more convenient approach to shopping at the brick and mortar retail stores. An extra bonus is that you can shop online at anytime of the day and you can do it in your jammies.  To give you an idea of the magnitude of online shopping that occurs, Forrester Research projects that U.S. consumers will spend $44 billion dollars online this month and next. WOW!

As you can imagine, all of this online purchasing activity does not go unnoticed. Cyber criminals are out in force and ready to prey upon an unsuspecting online shopper. Most cyber criminals are employing malicious programs that act very similar to a virus. They infect your computer like a virus, however, instead of shutting your computer down or corrupting your hard drive, the program lurks behind the scenes and tries to capture your personal information.  Once it has gathered your bank information, social security numbers, and so on.. it will then send that information back to the cyber criminal and they will use it in ways that are sure to hurt your bank account and/or credit report.

So, what can you do to combat these incredulous cyber criminal tactics?

1. Make sure you have some sort of anti-virus software installed on your computer. Any off- the- shelf program should work fine. You may also want to look into downloading AVG’s free virus software or the free version of Avast. Do a search on google and you will find them.
2. Be wary of the sites you are visiting. If it is a site that you have not used before and you question it’s legitimacy, then you may want to steer clear.
3. Stay vigilant even when you are visiting known sites. Unbeknown to them, they may get compromised and in turn compromise your information or data.
4. Never click on any links that are emailed to you (unless you know it to be a secure source) Always go directly to the website that the links imply that they will be taking you to.
5. Make sure your web browsers and plug-ins are up-to-date. Usually you can click on the help button in your browser and it will have a “check for updates” tab

Hopefully this list helps our readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com to become less susceptible to cyber criminals during the holiday season. If you have any other suggestions for our readers, please feel free to share below in comments.

A brother and sister duo (Melissa and Marvin Heggie) from Raleigh managed to defraud JPMorgan of $340,000 in student loans and never had to step foot on a campus or register for a course. You wonder how this can be done given the strict criteria that eduction lenders are adhering to when processing and approving student loans.

The student loan program provided by JPMorgan /Chase allows a student to apply for a private student loan and does not require certification from a school to prove that the student is actually in attendance. Once the loan is approved, the disbursement check goes directly to the student and the school is not involved. Sounds like a great unsecured loan option huh? The Heggie’s thought so. However, they never planned on paying it back.

The Heggies duped 14 other people to give them their social security numbers along with other private identifying information (They made promises of quick cash for the participants.) They then utilized the information to complete bogus student loan applications with a pre-established address set up by the Heggie’s. When the loan was approved and a check sent, the Heggie’s would meet up with the applicant and they would all cash the check together. Each person got their pre-determined amount and parted ways. Apparently the Heggie’s did this for almost a year before getting getting caught.

There are multiple learning points that can be had from this story:

1. Never ever give anyone your social security number or other personal identification information.
2. Always check your credit report to make sure no one is using your information inappropriately. (Check out our guide to protecting your identity)
3. If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.
4. If you need approved for a good education loan, it appears that JPMorgan/Chase could be the bank for you. Obviously, they do not overly screen/qualify their applicants.

Hope this story helps our readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com. Has anyone ever experienced a similar loan scam not in the educational sector? If so , please feel free to share below in comments. The more we know what to look out for, the better for all of us.

If you have not already won the “National Lottery” or received an invitation to help funnel money out of a third world country from an overthrown prince, then you can count yourself lucky (or maybe you just don’t get out much).  Given the current state of the economy, more families will fall prey to this type of scam. So be alert and if it sounds to good to be true… you know the saying.

Here is a story of a woman (Janella Spears) who lost over $400,000 dollars to a Nigerian scam. The initial email she received promised her $20 million dollars but required her to send them $100 to get the transaction started. She obliged and was quickly counter-offered the opportunity to get an extra $6 million dollars if she sent them $8,300. At this point you would think any logical person would start to question the validity of these requests, which Spears did. She received sound advice from all of her friends and family that she should walk away from this situation and that it was a scam. However, she received “official” documentation from a Nigerian Bank validating that the transaction was indeed legit and legal. The long story short is that she wiped out her husband’s retirement savings, mortgaged the house and took a loan on the car to send over $400,000 to these scammers. All she received in return is some poorly written correspondence from the Bank of Nigeria and many many false promises.

Spears came forward with her story to help others from falling prey to this type of scam. We, the readers at SmartSecurityPeople.com, appreciate her courage in bringing her situation public and allowing all of us to use it as a learning tool.

Have any of our readers ever considered participating in a situation similar to above? Has anyone sent the first $100 and then back out along the process? If so, what made you change your mind?

Check washing happens when someone utilizes simple chemicals available around the home (nail polish, bleach, etc..) to remove portions of the information you have written on your check.  Check washers typically take your check and put a piece of masking tape over your signature. Then they soak your check in the chemicals mentioned above and all the other handwritten ink will disappear from the face of your check. After letting the check dry, they now have a blank check with your legitimate signature. They complete the check for any dollar amount that they feel appropriate and are off to the local bank or check cashing store (PayDay Loans, Check Into Cash, etc..) to get your money. You don’t find out for days or weeks later and when the bank researches it and compares signatures, they say that it is an official check with your signature. Studies show that check washing is costing Americans over $800 million dollars a year!! (FTC 2006 annual report)

Help is on the way! Uni-ball, with the guidance of Frank Abagnale (author of Catch Me If You Can), has put into production a new line of pens that are impervious to check washing. The Uni-ball 207 utilizes a technologically advanced ink that won’t wash away with standard check washing solutions. The ink is formulated so that it chemically bonds to the paper that you are writing on.

SmartSecurityPeople.com recommends to our readers that the next time you go pen shopping, you should look for the Uni-ball 207 and make use of it when signing documents of importance. It is a cheap investment that provides great protection.