Truemark Service Available for PayPal Customers

According Gartner, phishing attacks robbed 3.6 million people of $3.2 billion in 2007. Truemark reduces the risk of e-mail phishing by confirming the source of the e-mail sender. Consumers will see the Truemark icon in their inbox next to messages from senders that have been verified as legitimate.

Iconix, a provider of visual e-mail identification solutions, announced that its Iconix Truemark service is officially available to millions of PayPal account holders.

By placing an icon next to legitimate e-mail messages, the Iconix Truemark service helps consumers visually identify legitimate e-mail messages and avoid dangerous scams known as phishing attacks.

CRM Daily

Archivist: I stole papers to pay bills

By CLARE TRAPASSO, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - A state archivist was charged Monday with stealing hundreds of artifacts — documents representing "the heritage of all Americans," according to the history buff who found some of them on eBay — to pay his household bills.
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Daniel Lorello, 54, is accused of taking the rare items from the New York State Library, including Davy Crockett Almanacs, Currier and Ives lithographs and the 1865 railroad timetable for Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. Authorities believe he hawked them for tens of thousands of dollars, using much of that to pay off his daughter's credit card debt.

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PayPal Buys Fraud Sciences

EBay's online payments division, PayPal, will pay US$169 million for an Israeli security company specializing in detecting online fraud, the companies said Monday. The deal should close within 30 days.

Fraud Sciences, a private company, has developed technology designed to differentiate between real and fraudulent transactions. That technology will be folded into PayPal's antifraud systems, which will be "significantly" improved this year, eBay said.

Fraud Sciences' Chief Operating Officer, Yossi Barak, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf will move to PayPal's technology and fraud management teams.

PC World

Cudahy police seek charges in eBay scam

A south side man with no prior criminal record told investigators he was feeding a gambling addiction when police say he defrauded 17 customers in 12 states of $8,000 during bogus computer sales over eBay.

A year-long investigation tracked as many as 42 possible victims, but Cudahy [Wisconsin] police plan to seek charges on the four most provable cases. Those victims sent money to the man's Cudahy home from Alaska, Florida, Kentucky and Ohio and were able to provide investigators strong evidence of the transactions, according to police Lt. David Aamodt, who led the investigation.

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Three charged in alleged online fraud

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Three people were arrested Wednesday for allegedly conducting fraudulent online auto-parts sales out of their Manheim Township home.

State police charged Edwin Aloysius Sanders V, 24; his brother, Robert Andrew Sanders, 20; and Keshia Marie Otto, 21, all of 423 Amesbury Road, with theft by deception, running a corrupt organization, receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit theft by deception, all felonies.

They were to be arraigned Wednesday evening.

Police said the three operated businesses known as foreignfindsonline.com and Z Corp. and sold items through online auction sites such as eBay.

Lancaster Online

Scam Wars: Phishing Kits Exploit Customers

In a twist, security researchers have discovered a group of hackers who are exploiting a new category of victims-- aspiring Internet scammers.

A Moroccan group called "Mr. Brain" is offering free phishing kits on a Web site hosted in France, said Paul Mutton, Internet services developer at Netcraft, a security company in Bath, England.

The software packages make it easy to quickly set up a fraudulent Web site mimicking a known brand in order to trick people into divulging credit card details or bank account numbers. Templates for spam e-mail are also included, targeting brands such as Bank of America, eBay, PayPal and HSBC.

full story - Yahoo News

eBay Australia con man uncovered

A DISABLED pensioner who was duped out of $11 has helped bring down an alleged internet scammer from the Northern Territory. NT Police believe 22-year-old Brent Mack conned almost $5000 out of buyers on the auction website eBay.

But the alleged scam artist might still be operating if not for the efforts of Ralph Johansson.

Mr Johansson, of Busselton in Western Australia, was so incensed at being ripped off in February 2005 he set up a website detailing the incident. He soon contacted several other eBay users who had suffered a similar fate.

Australian IT

Architect of CAD scam faces jail (UK)

By Colin Barker,
ZDNet UK


A Derby man is facing up to 10 years in jail after pleading guilty to illegally selling expensive CAD software at massively reduced prices.

The AceCad software, which has been used in high-profile projects like London's "Gherkin" building, sells for thousands of pounds; Michael Walton was selling illegal copies of the software on eBay for just 12 pounds (US$24.60).

He pleaded guilty on Friday to charges under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Trade Marks Act 1994, and will be sentenced on 1 February.

ZDNet Asia

Ebay Scam: Hot Parts

By JANET KELLEY, Staff
Lancaster New Era

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Harley-Davidson Inc. apparently keeps a very close eye on its motorcycle parts and other products.

So when assorted electrical items and accessories started appearing for sale on eBay, the online auction site, somebody at Harley-Davidson's headquarters in Milwaukee took notice.

Corporate security officers looked a little more closely at the for-sale items, following a trail that police said led them to a Lancaster County man — a man who allegedly made $78,000 from the stolen-part scam.


Lancasteronline.com>

The terrible reach of online scams

By JON TEVLIN, Star Tribune

It's easier than ever for con artists to trick people into parting with their money. And it's harder than ever for authorities to stop them.

Pete Giancola was looking for a bass boat for his son, so he went looking on eBay, where he found one listed for a good price.

He began the purchase, but it didn't take long for "the bells and whistles to start going off" for Giancola, an insurance agent trained to look for fraud.

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Pre-Christmas Search for Wii Finds UK Consumers Caught in Scam

The BBC's consumer rights team Watchdog has detailed a scam exploiting up to 2,500 people among the many thousands who were part of the pre-Christmas scramble for scarce Wii supply in the UK.

Ozone Electronics, an Oldham-based company, appealed to desperate prospective Wii buyers by guaranteeing delivery of consoles by the middle of December, while taking payment upfront. As dissatisfied shoppers watched the month pass by without receiving their orders, those contacting the company by phone were greeted by a recorded message, and visitors to the company website found it disused except for a notice to the effect that orders would not be fulfilled.

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Spammers in Full Force in 2007

According to the anti-spam website SpamStopsHere, spam accounted for 95% of all email traffic in the year 2007. Spammers grew increasingly bolder in 2007 with the development of new techniques and tactics that had not been seen in previous years.

Likewise, the number of email phishing scams also rose dramatically in 2007. The majority of phishing attacks centered on Paypal, Ebay, and the banking industry.

“2007 was a challenging year for the antispam industry and a phenomenal year for us,” said Ted Green, President of SpamStopsHere. “With spam reaching such critical levels, our customer base has grown substantially due to the simple fact that many of our competitors have difficulty keeping their antispam solutions up to date with the latest spam campaigns."

Crime wave threat to net auction site (UK)

Auction website eBay claims it is committed to ensuring that "criminal activity is detected and stopped before any harm is done". Yet we've uncovered shocking evidence of eBay neglecting warnings and allowing users to be scammed.

Danny Smyth of Manchester discovered the eBay account he'd run for more than three years had been hijacked when he got an odd call about electrical testing kits he didn't even offer.

Fraudsters had hacked into his account - capitalising on the goodwill he'd built up over the years - and were offering the kits for £500 plus

It was a scam... and as far as we can tell nobody ever got the gear they'd paid for.

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