Criminal organizations operating out of China have made more than $1 billion over the last three years by bombarding Americans with scam text messages, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Typical scam messages warn unsuspecting Americans of toll violations or postal fees, eventually asking for a credit card number.
A task force of over 80 leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors is pushing for a coordinated, government-wide approach to fight the growing scourge of scams, which cost Americans over $158 billion last year. The recommendations include applying pressure to foreign countries that look the other way while their citizens steal Americans’ hard-earned savings.
A Boston grand jury has indicted a former U.S. Postal inspector for stealing more than $330,000 from the mail — most of it from senior citizens he was supposed to protect from mail fraud.
The rise of AI cheats and scammers using deepfake technology to trick interviewers is leading companies to revert to a more traditional hiring practice — the in-person job interview.
Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMVs) in multiple states are alerting drivers about a new wave of fraudulent text messages designed to trick recipients into revealing their personal and financial information.
The FCC has proposed a $4,492,500 fine against voice service provider Telnyx for allegedly violating “Know Your Customer” rules and enabling a robocall scam. The fraudsters had their con game of impersonating FCC officials blow up in their face when they made the unfortunate mistake of targeting actual FCC employees with their robocalls.
A Florida attorney and Democrat political candidate claims he was the target of a sophisticated AI voice-cloning scam that almost fooled his father into handing over $35,000.
A group of criminals set up a fake U.S. “immigration court” inside a Venezuelan prison to scam migrants in New York out of thousands of dollars through false court proceedings and “legal” fees, Univisión reported on Monday.
Shan Hanes, the former CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, has been sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for embezzling $47 million from the bank and sending it to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by scammers who tricked him with a “Pig butchering” scheme.
A massive scheme organized by New York City-based Russian fraudsters, MS-13 gang members, corrupt surgeons, and greedy lawyers has cost local businesses and insurance companies “billions,” a report revealed Sunday.
Small businesses across various industries are facing an onslaught of attacks from online scammers who use their videos, logos, and social media posts to assume their identities and sell cheap knockoffs or simply take customers’ money. Meanwhile, Meta, Amazon, and other tech giants are doing little to help them.
The FBI has issued a warning about a new phishing scam that targets Americans using toll roads via SMS text messages. The messages typically claim that the user’s toll account is overdrawn with a link to the hacker’s site to make a false payment.
A pair of Nigerian brothers pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit American minors after a 17-year-old Michigan boy committed suicide as a result of their online sextortion scheme.
One of Mexico’s most violent cartels is running a series of call centers that target U.S. citizens in order to scam them out of millions. The scam points to the ongoing diversification by criminal organizations, which have been moving into more traditional schemes, including racketeering and fraud. In at least one case, this scam is linked to the murder of a U.S. citizen from Arizona.
Two brothers from Temecula, California, pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. Postal Service out of more than $2.3 million, authorities announced Friday.
Crooks and scammers are having a field day thanks to the advent of AI technologies used for cloning voices and extracting personal information from social media platforms. Cybercriminals are using AI to create convincing copies of young people’s voices, which are used to power “grandparent scams” targeting elderly relatives.
An FBI investigation has uncovered a shadowy “cash-for-Bitcoin” scheme in New York City, where a group has been accused of laundering at least $30 million through a covert service aimed at helping crooks wash cryptocurrency they steal.
The world of robocalling is evolving, with generative AI now enabling scammers to mimic the voices of people we know, making fraudulent calls seem more trustworthy and heightening the risk of successful scams.
A sophisticated and twisted new phone scam is targeting parents in New York City, with fraudsters utilizing advanced AI to mimic the distressed voices of their target’s children. One woman who was scammed by a call seeming to come from her 14-year-old daughter crying and claiming to have been arrested explains, “I’m aware it was really stupid – and I’m not a stupid person – but when you hear your child’s voice, screaming, crying, it just puts you on a different level.”
Robocall scammers have begun targeting the elderly with fake Medicare calls, with 36 million scam calls reported in January. Medicare recipients are advised to never divulge their private information to anyone but their “doctor, pharmacist, hospital, health insurer, or other trusted healthcare provider.”
A number of “pig-butchering” scam apps have reportedly made their way onto Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, leaving users vulnerable to scammers.
A New Jersey woman has been sentenced to three years in state prison for her part in scamming over $400,000 from GoFundMe donors. The scam went viral based on the promise the money would be donated to a homeless man who gave her his last $20. The woman and her boyfriend planned to use the funds to buy a BMW, takes trips, and make other extravagant purchases.
A New Jersey man who defrauded several women by making false romantic promises through telephone dating services, and escaped federal custody in July 2020, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison Wednesday.
The FBI recently stated that investment fraudsters exploiting Microsoft’s business networking platform LinkedIn pose a “significant threat” to the company and its users. Breitbart News has several suggestions for avoiding scams on the social media platform commonly used by business professionals.
A California mother, whose 11-year-old daughter has a rare disease that impacts her ability to digest food, says she was scammed while trying to purchase baby formula amid the nationwide shortage.
Scammers are allegedly calling up Italians and threatening to cut off gas to their homes if they do not give them money, claiming the cash is an economic contribution for Ukraine. A pensioner in the municipality of Trezzo sull’Adda near Milan
A grandmother got the better of some would-be criminals on Long Island as police said their intentions were to scam the woman out of a large amount of cash.
Scammers have reportedly begun placing fake QR codes on parking meters to trick people parking their vehicles into sending their cash to the scammers. Fake QR codes have been located in multiple cities in Texas including Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.
An organised gang led by a Turkish national are said to have made millions of euros by disguising themselves as police officers and robbing the elderly in Vienna. The gang, which has been in operation since 2018, is said to
The FTC has warned consumers of an increase in robocalls from scammers pretending to be representatives from tech giant Apple as well as Amazon.
Police in India arrested two men on Sunday for allegedly scamming a doctor into paying seven million rupees – well over $90,000 – for a fake “Aladdin’s lamp,” complete with a fake genie.
The Chinese embassy in Paris has lodged complaints, stating that Chinese nationals have been scammed with fake fines by fraudsters pretending to be enforcing Islamic veil laws on those wearing masks.
The Federal Communications Commission has collected just $6,790 since it began fining robocallers and other telemarketing violators in 2015, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
Online scammers are reportedly using fake Netflix billing emails in an attempt to steal users’ personal and financial data.
