Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/23/fbi-online-theft-fraud-expl.html
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More than once it has occurred to me that I’d probably be rich, if I didn’t have a conscience and a strong sense of morality.
SMH
I’m going to guess that $1.3 billion difference is pretty close to the sum of crypto-currency fraud in the last year.
Ditto.
As for becoming a victim of the type of fraud that sucks money from my accounts, I’m really hoping the fact that I have almost no money will help protect me. That, and my natural resistance to being overly social or friendly with people I don’t know.
Or personal loans to Trump.
At the supermarket where I clerk I noticed a few people buying large numbers of Google Play cards. I finally asked a customer why she was doing this. She said someone online “clearing her computer of viruses” told her to pay with these. I told her it was a scam. She didn’t get the cards - I don’t know how much she believed me.
If you pay a scammer with a credit card or some other common financial method there is a chance you can get your money back. You ain’t gettin nothing back if you pay with gift cards.
I’m sure that this is mostly true but do you ever get the feeling they are pulling these numbers out of their ass?
I mean, could be $6 billion, or 1 billion.
I thought this was going to be a story about embezzlement type fraud but I guess the numbers are too low.
it will make you uncharacteristically sick with some problems
Reminder:
“It” probably has happened to you. But the major thieves are not mysterious hackers, and the FBI doesn’t give a shit about it.
You should add in tax fraud and civil forfeiture by enterprising cops as well.
I am in Germany, so the theft that happened against me last December doesn’t show up in the statistics, but someone ordered €2000 worth of goods from Burberry from my credit card. Thank goodness I check the balance online, else I wouldn’t have caught it in time. I did get my money back, and I hope the packages were intercepted by the cops, but I don’t have much hopes. Especially since online theft like this is cheaper to insure against than it is to program a more secure system.
So far I’ve been lucky. The few times a credit card was used fraudulently, the bank caught it and I lost nothing other than time waiting for a new card. But I take more precautions these days. I never store my CC information on a site, nor buy from a vendor who requires it but provides no alternatives like using Paypal. I don’t know how much that helps me, but it does ease the mind a little.
Yes, considering I’ve seen reliable numbers (direct losses as reported internally by financial institutions) of $100B and that was several years ago.
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