ComputerWeekly: Scammers accidentally reveal fake Amazon review data. “An opsec-illiterate scammer has accidentally exposed more than 13 million data records via an open ElasticSearch database, relating to a large-scale fake review scam implicating independent Amazon vendors and users in unethical and illegal behaviour.”
India Today: Exclusive: On board Delhi’s sickening ambulances fleecing Covid-19 patients. “As surging demands bring emergency responders to a breaking point, an India Today TV investigation in Delhi found some ambulance operators charging exorbitantly high to shift Covid-19 patients. The probe found them to be soliciting more than Rs 1,000 per kilometer to transport a patient in an ICU vehicle. Vinod, an ambulance operator outside a private hospital in East Delhi, demanded Rs 50,000 for a ride to a healthcare facility in Gurugram, 44 km away.
NBC News: Pro-Trump web forums are abuzz with directions to forge Covid vaccine cards. “Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.”
Gizmodo: New Google Play Store Rules Aim to Weed Out Spammy Apps. “In an attempt to boost confidence in its Play Store offerings, Google has announced new rules that will look to weed out misleading, low-quality apps from its marketplace. In an update published Thursday, the company announced new metadata policies designed to moderate how developers present their apps. The rules, meant to drive more ‘meaningful downloads’ for consumers, will take effect later this year.”
New York Times: The Slander Industry. “To get slander removed, many people hire a ‘reputation management’ company. In my case, it was going to cost roughly $20,000. We soon discovered a secret, hidden behind a smokescreen of fake companies and false identities. The people facilitating slander and the self-proclaimed good guys who help remove it are often one and the same.”
Department of Justice: Nigerian National Facing Federal Charges for Role in Social Media Elder Scam with Losses of More Than $474,000. “A criminal complaint was filed today in U.S. District Court in Maryland charging Oluwaseyi Akinyemi a/k/a ‘Paddy Linkin’, a/k/a ‘Joseph Kadin’, age 34, of Hyattsville, Maryland, for the federal charges of mail fraud, attempted mail fraud, and mail and wire fraud conspiracy, in connections with an advanced fee fraud scheme using social media to target elderly victims and causing losses of $474,145.07.”
Mother Jones: The TikTok Trend That Has Immigration Lawyers Worried. “TikTok’s ecosystem of immigration lawyers is a diverse one. There are plenty of zealous advocates attempting to explain in digestible sound bites convoluted, ever-changing policies. There is also potentially misleading content. Many of the advertisements seem to target undocumented Latin American immigrants with strong ties to the United States and few to no existing options for obtaining legal status.”
Department of Justice: Justice Department Warns About Fake Post-Vaccine Survey Scams. “Consumers receive the surveys via email and text message, and are told that, as a gift for filling out the survey, they can choose from various free prizes, such as an iPad Pro. The messages claim that the consumers need only pay shipping and handling fees to receive their prize. Victims provide their credit card information and are charged for shipping and handling fees, but never receive the promised prize. Victims also are exposing their personally identifiable information (PII) to scammers, thereby increasing the probability of identity theft.”
Washington Post: He believed Apple’s App Store was safe. Then a fake app stole his life savings in bitcoin.. “Phillipe Christodoulou wanted to check his bitcoin balance last month, so he searched the App Store on his iPhone for ‘Trezor,’ the maker of a small hardware device he uses to store his cryptocurrency. Up popped the company’s padlock logo set against a bright green background. The app was rated close to five stars. He downloaded it and typed in his credentials. In less than a second, nearly all of his life savings — 17.1 bitcoin worth $600,000 at the time — was gone. The app was a fake, designed to trick people into thinking it was a legitimate app.”
The Guardian: Web giants must stop cashing in on pension scam misery, say MPs. “Ministers must force tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft to stop the ‘immoral’ practice of profiting from the £10bn of pension fraud committed by internet scammers, a committee of MPs has urged. Fraudsters use online advertisements, mostly on Google, to trick people out of their pension funds, according to a report published by the work and pensions select committee, but regulators are ‘powerless’ to hold the internet firms to account.”
CNBC: Fraudsters are laundering millions in Covid relief funds through online investment platforms. “Tech-savvy fraudsters stealing from the government’s Covid pandemic relief programs to help businesses have found a convenient way to launder the money: they’re opening accounts with at least four online investment platforms, law enforcement officials said. The digital platforms, investigators said, are easy to dump the money into by setting up accounts with stolen identities. More than $100 million in fraudulent funds passed through investment accounts since Congress passed the CARES Act last March, according to authorities.”
The Daily Beast: Meet the Fake Lawyer Who Goes to War for Anti-Mask Restaurants. “Rick Martin presented a formidable résumé. ‘Lawyer Rick Martin “The Judge Slayer,”‘ a biography on his website read. Billing himself as the head of the ‘Constitutional Law Group,’ (CLG), Martin advertised his legal services for businesses that defied anti-COVID-19 measures. ‘“I have put three District Judges, two District Attorneys, and countless law enforcement officers behind prison walls,’ he wrote. ‘We the People need to come together and take back our country from these unlawful criminals.’ But it was Martin and one of his clients who went to jail this month.”
USA Today: You will never be asked to pay for a vaccine: Watch out for these vaccination scams looking to get your money, information. “As if it wasn’t a stressful enough time – with tens of millions of Americans anxiously awaiting vaccination information to help protect themselves and their families from COVID-19 – a new crop of scams are exploiting the process. In fact, the FBI and the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services are warning about fraudulent vaccination schemes circulating through telemarketing calls, text messages, social media platforms, and even door-to-door visits.”
NPR: DOJ Has Charged Nearly 500 With COVID-Related Fraud In The Past Year. “Early on in the pandemic, the Justice Department made fighting such crimes a priority. There was added urgency after Congress passed the massive CARES Act a year ago Friday, which provided a lifeline of cash to help support the country’s economy. Now, on the anniversary of the CARES Act, the Justice Department says that over the past year it has charged 474 defendants with fraud or other criminal schemes tied to the pandemic. The grand total that fraudsters tried to scam from the government and the public in those cases is more than $569 million.”
