Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Identity Theft and Koreans

Some Americans are a little behind the times.

Today, I called a few local mortgage brokers, in order to offer them free lunch for coming to an informational session on Identity Theft. Bear in mind that I am offering to pay for their lunch at a VERY good Italian restuarant.

Most of them aren't interested in coming to FREE lunch. Isn't that wierd?

Now I understand that these mortgage brokers have been hammered by probably every major company out there offering some crappy Identity Theft product or service to protect people (which is most often nothing more than credit monitoring with an Insurance Policy attached).

But they still won't come for FREE lunch at a nice restaurant.

Wierd.



So here's a thought.

This little tiny game market in Korea (which is earning hundreds of millions of dollars/month), has cost at least 250,000 Koreans their identities.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2150677/identity-theft-online-games.

Here's the thing... Most of the people whose identities were used, had NEVER played the game. In fact, most of them had NEVER SEEN the game.

So how were their identities stolen, and why would they be used to play the game?

In order to play the game, you have to have the Korean equivalent of a social security #.

So their information was stolen from other web sites, or companies, where they were already registered. Then they were "registered" for this gaming site.

Dummy people were hired at minimal wage, to play this game, acquiring objects within the game which can be sold for real-world money.

America is next. It won't be exactly the same, but something like this is on its way.

Friday, January 27, 2006

The Scammer gets scammed

Want to see a scammer get REALLY scammed?

http://web.mac.com/dwp/iWeb/Gl2/Scam_Details.html

I emailed the author of this site, and he seems like a pretty decent guy.

We should all take as proactive of an approach to those who would defraud us!

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Check this out! iTunes Phishing

iTunes and AppleStore appears to be the latest attack target!

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/01/17/apple_phish/


Mac users are like PC users in that at least 5% of them will suspect the emails are real.

Crazy stuff!

And if that's not enough, check out The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/09/five_million_brits_duped_by_scams/

FIVE MILLION British people duped by scams? That's crazy too! I wonder if there's a good system for the British to get their credit restored, like we have here in the US?

Why is is that so few companies are offering credit restoration anyway? They market their products and services like there's some big protection they're offering, when bascially, it's credit monitoring with an insurance policy attached. You can see my take on this in a series of videos that I put together about creating a solution to Identity Theft

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

More nice IdentityTheftSecrets comments

I got some more nice comments today, and wanted to share them. Keep 'em comin!


Excellent site. I teach fraud investigation to law enforcement officers in NC. When we talk about ID theft and phishing I give your site as a reference. Great information. Great educational tool for law enforcement
-Shane, NC

Thanks Shane! Glad the site has been helpful for you!

More ebay Phishing - check out the tips!

Ebay Phishing!

Hello Identity Theft Secrets Super Sleuths! Here's another ebay phishing email that you mgiht find helpful!

http://www.identitytheftsecrets.com/videos/ebay-phishing-tips-1-24-06/ebay-phishing-tips-1-24-06.html