City A.M.: Rip-off travel ads ‘rife’ on Google as scammers exploit Brexit confusion. “Rip-off copycat adverts for travel documents are ‘running rife’ on search engines such as Google as unscrupulous sellers look to capitalise on confusion over post-Brexit travel arrangements.”
WUSF: State Launches Website To Provide Surfside Assistance, Warns Of GoFundMe Scams . “Florida has created a new website that pools together federal, state and community efforts to help victims, families and first responders affected by the Surfside collapse, amid warnings of GoFundMe scams.”
EveningStandard: New Twitter prompt to offer support to online scam victims. “A new tool offering support and guidance to people who have been the victim of an online scam will begin appearing on Twitter on Tuesday.”
Arab News: Fraudulent ad promoters on social media could face hefty fines, jail in Saudi Arabia. “Those who promote and advertise fraudulent goods on social media sites have been warned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Prosecution that they could face up to three years in prison or a SR1 million ($267,000) fine, or both.”
MakeUseOf: 5 Facebook Marketplace Scams and How to Avoid Them. “When used responsibly, Facebook Marketplace is an excellent resource for getting anything you need at an affordable price. Learning how to identify sketchy situations and suspicious items lets you take advantage of everything the platform has to offer while keeping yourself safe.”
Toronto Star: Google’s negligence on fake reviews is yet another reason to take action against Big Tech. “I’ve documented thousands of fake reviews across multiple review platforms, involving everyone from doctors to lawyers to home contractors to dog walkers. It’s not just deceived consumers who are being hurt, either. Honest businesses must vie against cheaters who lure customers with fake positive reviews. But the real beneficiaries of this fraud are the review sites and the tech companies who continue to rake in advertising dollars with a wink and a nod to the cheaters. None of the review platforms appear too serious about cleaning up fraud on their sites, and Google is at the top of that list.”
Chemistry World: Publishers grapple with an invisible foe as huge organised fraud hits scientific journals. “While plagiarism and fraud isn’t new – individual researchers have been caught photoshopping electron microscopy images or inventing elemental analysis data – paper mills serve up professional fakery for their customers on an industrial scale. Buyers can apparently purchase a paper, or authorship of one, on any topic based on phony results to submit to a journal. This makes them not only harder to detect and crack down on, but also exponentially increases the damage they could do.”
SangFroid Web: Phishing SCAM Alert: Beware of Fake Email from an “Experienced Photographer and Illustrator” Claiming Copyright Infringement. “We have received reports from clients about a malicious scammer named ‘Mel’ (‘Mellie’ in one case and ‘Melina’ in the other) filling out their website form, and very aggressively claiming copyright infringement. The email arrives via your website contact form and accuses you of using copyrighted website images and asks you to click on a link to see the list of the images that are in violation. (DON’T CLICK THE LINK.) The writer threatens to file a complaint with your hosting company and sue you.” The one I got, the person was named Rochelle.
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.
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.”
Bleeping Computer: Google Alerts continues to be a hotbed of scams and malware. “While Google Alerts has been abused for a long time, BleepingComputer has noticed a significant increase in activity over the past couple of weeks. For example, I use Google Alerts to monitor for various terms related to cyberattacks, security incidents, malware, etc. In one particular Google Alert, almost every new article shared with me today by the service led to a scam or malicious website, with two of them shown below.” I’m not seeing that in my Google Alerts – but I am seeing a lot of Web spam.
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.”
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.”
