“HOLIDAY SCAM” HOW IT WORKS

Renters looking for accommodation on HomeAway/Owners Direct websites have a massive choice (HomeAwaylists 1m properties) and most contact the owner through the “inquire” page on the website. The trouble is, the scammer may have got there first intercepting the request. They do this by sending the property owner an initial, fake inquiry. It has a link that once clicked on makes the recipient think they are logging in to either their HomeAway, or email sign-in page. But in reality the link takes them to a page created by the fraudster.  If the owner logs in, the scammer now has access to their email account, and can begin intercepting legitimate rental inquiries. To cover his tracks, the scammer will typically delete real requests and reply to the victim from an entirely different, but similar email address set up for the purpose. They then pose as the owner providing fake details, sending fake contracts, answering questions etc., and finally asking for the payment to be made direct into their bank account. The real owner will often know nothing about it and just think the number of inquiries has fallen away. Because the sites show a renter’s email address on all requests, the scammers can email them to offer an alternative.

Campaigners calling for security to be improved say the sites should stop sending renters’ email addresses to owners and, instead, all email addresses should be held within its internal system. They say rival sites have changed the way they operate to improve security. This week Guardian Money sent messages to two Owners Direct properties in France. One replied within the HomeAway website, the second simply sent an email from their personal email address both saying the house was available. Is the latter from a scammer? The inquirer has no idea. Some owners have even reported their phone numbers are changed on their listings, allowing the scammer to intercept calls from concerned renters. It all means booking a property using these sites can be a giant leap of faith.

In response, HomeAway/Owners Direct says it is just one of a number of online businesses engaged in a difficult battle with fraudsters, and that it takes its online security “extremely seriously”. “While Owners Direct is protected through effective security systems, we have no control over the systems providers of email accounts. This is where the property owner’s email accounts may be compromised. Unless an owner, or an advertiser, contacts us to let us know there is a problem, we have no way to identify that a phishing incident has occurred.” It says it has provided lots of information and advice to travellers in order to educate them about the risks. It offers free insurance up to £700 in the event of a scam plus the option of purchasing full cover. It is also developing an Owners Direct platform and will include online payments “to further increase safety”.

• Anyone caught by this fraud who wants to contact the group set up to help victims should email: Vacationrental scamvictims@yahoo.com

Culled from Guardian

SIX CHARGED IN CONNECTION WITH ALLEGED INTERNET DATING SCAM

Hampshire police arrest five men and a woman in connection with alleged fraud involving users of Match.com. Five men and a woman have been charged in connection with an alleged scam involving an internet dating site. Hampshire police arrested the suspects following a "lengthy investigation" into the alleged fraud, which involved women being asked to give "significant" amounts of money after meeting men on the Match.com site.

Detective Constable Darrin Carey said: "These charges come following a lengthy investigation into an alleged scam where women are asked to hand over significant amounts of cash after meeting men on the Match.com dating website. Alleged victims in this case are from the Basingstoke area, across Hampshire and England. If you have any information which may assist this investigation, please contact me on 101." The suspects charged with conspiracy to commit fraud are Emmanuel Oko, 29, of Waverley Grove, Southsea, Hampshire; Brooke Boston, 28, of Chelsea Road, Southsea; Monty Emu, 28, of Frencham Road, Southsea; Eberechi Ekpo, 26, of Adair Road, Southsea; Chukwuka Ugwu, 28, of Somers Road, Southsea, and Adewunmi Nusi, 26, of Bomford Close, Hermitage, Berkshire. They are all due to appear later at Basingstoke magistrates court.

Match.com offers the following safety advice: "Criminals should not get away with scams whether on dating sites, over the internet or in any walk of life. While the authorities and dating sites work closely together to ensure a safe environment on the internet, we encourage everyone to apply the same caution when meeting people online as they would when meeting through friends or in a bar. "Never give money to anyone just as you would never give money to someone you recently met in a pub or cafe. Do not share personal contact details off the site. If in doubt, use the highly visible 'report a concern' button which flags issues to our care team."

HOLIDAY SCAM

Holiday misery for the scam victims who believed they had booked a villa through Owners Direct. Families pay for accommodation only to discover, at the last minute, it does not exist. That means finding somewhere else to stay and meeting the cost. Three weeks ago Natasha McDonald, her husband and three children were standing outside the villa in Puerto Banús, near Marbella in southern Spain that they had booked for 10 days at a cost of £1,600. But there was no sign of the owner, or the keys. The villa company website was down and, in despair, the family trudged off with their bags to a hotel for the night. Only the next day did the McDonalds, from south London, discover they had fallen victim to a cruel scam in which crooks hijack the emails of villa owners who advertise through Owners Direct and its sister site, HomeAway.

All the time that Natasha had been emailing with the “owner” with mundane inquiries such as: parking, wi-fi, and the deposit she had, in fact, been dealing with a fraudster posing as the owner. It is highly unlikely she will ever see the £1,600 rental cost ever returned or the £2,900 she had to pay in hotel bills. Natasha is not alone. Since Guardian Money first featured the story of a family whose holiday was wrecked in this way, more and more victims have come forward and not just British holidaymakers.

Owners Direct and HomeAway (the brand used more commonly outside the UK) is the world’s biggest villa rentals company, with more than 1m listings in 190 countries. It has emerged that thousands of holidaymakers from all over the world have fallen victim to the scam. Jillian Roberts contacted us after she was scammed out of the £4,000 that she paid for a family villa in Marbella. She only discovered what had happened a few days before she was due to fly out. Liz Bancroft from east London was due to be spending this week in the Alps after paying £2,700. Like Roberts, she was forced to find alternative accommodation. Money is also aware of American tourists travelling to Umbria in Italy who found the villa owner knew nothing of their booking.

Nearly all complain about the poor response from HomeAway/Owners Direct, which says it cannot be held responsible for villa owners who fall for “phishing” attacks. But the victims accuse the company of failing to address what they claim are serious flaws in the way it operates. Sarah Allen, who lives in the Middle East, learned she had been scammed the day before she was due to fly from the UK to the south of France. Like Natasha McDonald, she had found a villa via the Owners Direct and, like her, had used the “contact the owner” facility to inquire whether it was available. Again she got an email from what she assumed to be the owner and, following the usual discussions about security codes etc. paid €5,940 (around £4,800) by bank transfer. She got an email the day before they were due to fly claiming (falsely) that the owners had a buyer now for the villa and could no longer rent it. “I felt sick. We were already checked in for our flight and my parents were on the way. We agreed to try to see if we could find alternative accommodation as it seemed we would otherwise definitely lose our flights and our parents would be stranded,” she says. When she got through to Owners Direct she was told by its “trust and security” department it would try to contact the owners and phone back.

“He phoned back to says he could not get hold of the owner. At that point the phone was cut off, and he did not bother to phone again.” They found a last-minute replacement but Allen says she spent most of the holiday trying to establish what had happened and if she could get her money back. “The owner has been helpful and called in IT experts to get to the bottom of what happened. He told me four other families had sent money for non-existent bookings. “I reported the matter to Action Fraud and my bank, and am waiting to see if any of the money can be traced. If Owners Direct is aware of such cases, it should be giving very clear advice to would-be travellers about the insurance options, but I saw nothing.”

The pair was two of several readers who contacted Money after we highlighted the plight of JL from Warwick who lost £2,790 in identical circumstances. Campaigners in Indonesia have also contacted us to say the fraud has been going on as far back as 2010. The group of villa owners, some who claim they have had their Owners Direct accounts hacked five times, believe the numbers are the tip of the iceberg, and claim both HomeAway and security authorities such as Action Fraud are failing to take the problem seriously.

Culled from Guardian

BEWARE THE BOGUS BANK EMPLOYEES WHO COULD SCAM YOU OF YOUR LIFE SAVINGS

Police are warning of 'courier fraud', where victims dial their bank's number and speak to 'staff' who persuade them to part with huge sums of money. It starts with a phone call from someone pretending to be from your bank, and can end with the loss of £40,000 or more. It is one of the most sophisticated bank frauds police have seen; one that targets older women in well-off areas. The banks know it is going on but are refusing to reimburse victims. So why have there been so few warnings about this scam? That is the question the family of Cecily Grange* were asking this week. The 76-year-old from Windsor lost £23,000 earlier this year after two conmen persuaded her they were calling from her local Barclays branch, and that she needed to move her savings to a "new account" that staff had supposedly set up. In a separate incident, Oxford woman Mary Wilson* lost £7,000 in similar circumstances. In her case, she handed the cash to a courier who arrived at her door. Wilson believed she was helping to track and capture bank staffs who were stealing customers' money, while Grange thought she was moving her savings to prevent fraud.

Both women were rung up out of the blue and told that their bank suspected they had been victims of fraud. They were invited to call the bank back, using the phone number on the back of their debit card. Having dialled the bank's number, the victims assumed they were speaking to bank staff; but in both cases the conmen had kept the line open. Many people are unaware that a phone line can remain open for up to five minutes after the handset has been put down by the person receiving the call, enabling fraudsters to stay on the line to impersonate a victim's bank. Police say scammers have refined "courier fraud" into a fine art. This month, City of London police revealed that 2,556 courier fraud offences were reported to the Metropolitan police between April 2013 and March 2014. This is a nationwide problem: since February, Greater Manchester police has recorded 346 offences, while in one of the cases investigated by Devon and Cornwall police, the victim lost £40,000.

In its simplest form, courier fraud is where scammers phone the victim, purporting to be from their bank, the police, or another law enforcement agency. They then dupe the person into withdrawing a large sum and handing it to a courier or taxi driver, who may not know they are being used as part of the scam. Often, the victim is asked to assist with a police investigation, or told there is a corrupt member of staff in the bank and asked for help to identify them. The victim is told the money will be "marked" and collected. They may be asked to ring the number on the back of their card, convincing them the call is genuine. In Grange's case, the caller rang her in February to say that someone had siphoned £1,000 out of her accounts and asked whether she had authorised the transactions. Greatly alarmed, she was persuaded she must immediately transfer her remaining balance into a new account that had been set up for her. Her family says she was not asked for her pin, and knew not to give it to anyone. The conmen were so convincing that they persuaded Grange – who suffers from poor health and requires a stick to go any distance – to walk from her flat to her Barclays branch in Windsor. There, she stuck to the line she had been given that she was not to discuss the matter with the cashiers, as they might be the fraudsters.

Grange's daughter, who contacted Guardian Money, has questioned why staff who, she says, would have been aware of the scam did nothing to stop her mother as she emptied her current and savings accounts and sent the total of £23,000 to a TSB account, an account into which she had never paid any money previously. Barclays has told her it is not liable for the losses. "I appreciate Barclays could well argue they have no obligation to reimburse my mother, as it was not a fraud involving a credit or debit card, nor did it involve a third party withdrawing funds from her account. However, she did so because she genuinely believed Barclays had instructed her to, and because she was too elderly and unwell to realise she was being duped," says Grange's daughter. Mary Wilson's case is similar. She was persuaded to withdraw £7,000 by fraudsters who rang her Oxford home at the end of January while her husband was on business. In her case she was told to take the money out of the couple's joint account in cash, and to hand it over to a courier, who would come to her home. Again, she was told not to answer any questions as to why she was taking out such a large sum. She was repeatedly reassured that once the sting had been enacted, her money; marked and followed by police would be returned, and that she was being a great help to the authorities. NatWest, her bank, has told her it will not refund her losses.

The figures, for London only, show the average age of a victim was aged 54, and nearly two thirds of victims were female. The average loss was around £2,600. Last week, the Met police launched a Courier Fraud Awareness Day, but failed to tell anyone. Guardian Money only came across it while researching this article. The campaign has been backed by Barclays and Natwest, as well as Santander. The Met police insist much has been done in the last year to tackle courier fraud, but adds that this crime "continues to evolve; we want people to question even truly genuine-sounding calls and, most importantly, remember police and banks will never ask for your pin or bank card, so you should never give these away."

A spokesman for Barclays says their staffs constantly try to strike a balance between honouring customers' wishes to withdraw their own money, and doing their utmost to prevent fraud. In Grange's case, staff identified her using chip and pin technology, and identification and verification checklist was completed, it says.

"Staffs are trained to be alert to unusually large transactions, but there are also situations in which a transaction appears unusual but the customer would like it to go ahead for valid reasons. Our guidance highlights key warning signs branch staff should look for, and encourages them to tactfully ask the customer why the transaction is required. At the time [we] concluded that the funds were required for a genuine purpose. Therefore we are unable to reimburse these funds," he says.

A spokeswoman for NatWest confirmed it will not refund Wilson as she had "willingly handed over the money". "We would advise all our customers to be extra vigilant and in the case of suspicious or unexpected calls, always verify the caller using an independently checked telephone number and using a different phone line."

These cases may help explain why – as reported by Money last month – HSBC has been asking some customers making large cash withdrawals to provide documentary evidence of what the money is needed for. At the time the bank said it was to "reduce the risk of money laundering, fraud and other crimes". Regulator Ofcom says it is working with the police and the telecoms industry to help stamp out courier fraud, and adds: "Over the past year a number of telephone providers have made changes to their networks to cut the time a phone line remains open to a couple of seconds. This has stopped fraudsters being able to stay on the line to impersonate a victim's bank or the police."

* Names have been changed

'TECH SUPPORT' SCAMMERS USING FAKE DOWNLOADS TO SNARE NEW VICTIMS

Intentionally failed installation lures users into calling ‘support’ line, which drags them into multimillion pound scam. “Microsoft virus phone call” scammers are tricking people into paying bogus support fees by setting up fake websites offering antivirus downloads designed to fail on installation. The failed installation tells the user to call a phone number which connects them to the scammers, who then talk the customer through a process that makes it seem like their PC has a virus infection. The scammers “install” software and charge annual fees, part of an ongoing process that has cost victims millions around the world.

The new version of the scam was discovered by the security company Malwarebytes, which documents it in a new blog post. It has reported a number of websites and is telling LogMeIn, a legitimate remote support tool that is favoured by the scammers, of codes they use so they can be blocked. “The online tech support industry is facing a big problem right now,” Jérome Segura of Malwarebytes told the Guardian. “There are too many fraudulent companies being overly aggressive in reaching out to people, whether it is with cold calls, online adverts or fake pop-ups. “And then in between you have companies that perhaps started an honest business but over time have gone shady because they realised how easy it was to make an enormous amount of money using deceptive practices. That is bad news for consumers who are walking a minefield when looking for support.”

The modus operandi of the tech support scammers, almost all of whom operate out of Kolkata in India, is to use phone directories and cold-call people telling them they are “from Microsoft” or “from Microsoft Windows” and that their PC has been reported as transmitting viruses. They then tell people to open a program on their machine which appears, to the uninitiated user, to be warning of errors on their system, but is in fact indicative of normal operation. The scammers then tell alarmed customers they can “fix” the problem for a price which can range to hundreds of pounds. They use LogMeIn or another remote support company to gain remote access to the system, and “fix” the nonexistent problem.

The Guardian exposed in July 2010 how the “support scams” were being run from call centres in India. Subsequently the Guardian obtained details of three individuals, two based in India and one in Canada, who were believed to be the ringleaders of one of the scams, using an online payment company to route their payments from victims. The details were passed to police.

In October 2012 the US Federal Trade Commission froze the US bank accounts and assets of a number of “tech support” companies in India, alleging that tens of thousands of Americans have been tricked into paying for unneeded “support”. Among those who had accounts frozen was a company called Pecon Support, now inactive. However, that has not stopped gangs in India from making cold calls and scamming victims, often older people who do not realise that Microsoft does not make such calls. “We know that there are multiple organisations in India as well as the US but getting an exact picture of how they relate to each other is not easy,” Segura told the Guardian. “This is in part due to the fact that these groups use multiple identities, websites and hundreds of different phone numbers. This particular antivirus rip off scam was located in India, but unlike so many others the technicians showed a better command of the English language, in fact sounding quite British. These are the kind of little details that we, as investigators, pick upon because they can help us to identify various accents and put individuals on a map, because we know accents vary per region in India.”

He said that one technician told him that they were receiving an average of 3,000 calls a day. “If we keep in mind the price for support services typically ranges between two to four hundred dollars, we are talking about a multimillion dollar industry that crooks are exploiting every single day,” Segura said.

Culled from Guardian

MONEY LAUNDERING AGENCY AND ACCC TARGET ONLINE DATING SCAM

ACCC says 43 Australians have lost more than $100,000 each this year, as it brings in alerts to crack down on suspicious money transfers. The consumer watchdog is joining forces with government anti-money laundering agents to crack down on internet dating scams. The Australian transactions reports and analysis center will alert the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) when suspicious cross-border money movements suggest somebody is being scammed.

The ACCC will then write to suspected victims with warnings to stop sending money, and in future might follow up with phone calls. Dating scams are the most costly in existence, often targeting the lonely and the elderly. This year the ACCC has found 43 people who have lost more than $100,000 each. In some cases, victims have sent more than $1m overseas over several years, said ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard.

In others, victims have continued to send money even after having been warned that they were being scammed. “People often mortgage their home; they borrow from friends and relatives. There are really tragic stories,” Rickard said. Scammers tend to approach victims on dating sites and social media and profess their love very quickly. They will then spend months and years building trust before spinning a sob story and requesting large amounts of cash. “They are very, very good at pushing emotional triggers.” 

  

SCAMMERS TARGET GENERAL PUBLIC AND RESTAURANT GOERS

Fraud prevention groups urge consumers to be vigilant of new 'professional sounding telephone con artists. Consumers are being alerted by the Money Advice Service and Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) to new telephone scams in which fraudsters try to obtain individuals' bank and credit card details or intercept legitimate transactions being made by diners in restaurants. The Money Advice Service has warned that people are being contacted by fraudsters pretending to be working on its behalf and typically offering advice on debt or pensions. The service says it never cold calls individuals, and would not ask for bank details or help with transferring a pension, credit card or bank account. It offers advice and guidance on handling financial affairs but does not do so directly for individuals.

Meanwhile, restaurant owners and diners in London and the south-east are being warned by FFA UK to stay vigilant as fraudsters attempt to target them in a new scam. Criminals posing as bank staff are telephoning restaurants claiming there is a problem with the restaurant's card payments system. The restaurant is then told to redirect any card payments to a phone number provided by the fraudster. When the restaurant calls the phone number the fraudster asks to speak to the paying customer and then goes through their security questions.

Once sufficient security details have been obtained from the customer, the fraudster will instruct the restaurant to put the transaction through. The fraudsters then call the customer's bank in an attempt to transfer money to their own account using the security details.

FFA UK works on behalf of the financial services industry to coordinate activity on fraud prevention, and in partnership with the UK Cards Association on industry initiatives to prevent fraud on credit and debit cards. Katy Worobec, director of FFA UK, said: "It is important that restaurant owners are alert. Fraudsters can sound very professional. "If you receive any calls from your bank claiming there is a problem with payments, make sure you phone them on an established number to confirm the request is genuine. In addition, always wait five minutes to ensure the line is clear, as fraudsters will sometimes stay on the phone line and pretend to be your bank." Its intelligence suggests that restaurants in London's West End, as well as Twickenham and Canary Wharf, have been targeted.

REPORT ON SEXTORTION FROM NIGERIA.

Three hotel attendants, who allegedly recorded a customer’s sexual affair and demanded a ransom of N10 million, were on Thursday charged before an Ogudu Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos. The employees had used the hotel’s CCTV to record the guest’s sexual exploit with his girlfriend. The accused: Sunday Okon, 23; Rita Emmanuel, 28; and Goodness Akpan, 24, whose addresses are unknown, are facing a four-count charge of fraud, demanding property with menace, conspiracy and indecent practices. Prosecutor Uche Simon told the court that the accused had on August 13 at a hotel in Ogudu area of Lagos conspired to record a guest while sleeping with his girlfriend. According to him, the accused produced a VCD on it which they circulated to residents of the area. He alleged that they also demanded a N10 million ransom and threatened to post it on the facebook if the man failed to part with the money. “The accused actually posted it on the facebook between Aug. 13 and 23.’’ Simon said the offences contravened Sections 136, 166 (d), 299 and 409 of Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

 The accused may be sentenced to a minimum of three years each on conviction. The three men pleaded not guilty and were granted bail in the sum of N100, 000 each with two sureties each in like sum. NAN also reports that the three attendants were taken to Kirikiri Prisons pending the fulfillment of their bail conditions. The Chief Magistrate, Mrs O. J. Awope, adjourned the case to Sept. 19 for mention. (NAN)

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