Scam World

Today I received 2 email versions of the old fashioned scam where someone you don't know writes to you for help in moving money from one country to another, and then asks if you can make a small payment to help them facilitate things. Usually, because there are legal restrictions on moving money out of the country if you are resident there.  Obviously, this is just a way to fleece anyone who participates in it. This is also known as a "419" fraud, after the section of the penal code which it violated in Nigeria, where the practice originated. This just goes to prove that there are still people who are credulous and will fall for a well known ruse.

However things have moved on a bit in scam world. I have also found out that, if you post your CV on a middle eastern job board, you will attract the attention of a new type of scammer. They write to you in the name of a company or organisation and ask you to answer a few basic questions, identify what type of roles you would be interested in and to furnish a CV. A few days later you receive a wonderful email saying that after review the organisation wishes to offer you a job with great salary, terms and conditions etc. and that there is no need for an interview. You are asked however to pay a nominated agent to facilitate flights, visas etc., which will be re-imbursed on arrival. Unfortunately there is no job and the organisation does not exist. This is only one of the modern ways of ripping people off.

A new phenomena is a scam under which someone exploits the need to pay customs dues for parcels delivered from overseas before they are released for delivery. A common email seeking fraudulent payments comes from an organisation describing itself as "royalparceldelivery" asking for a payment fee before a parcel can be released. The email address however traces back to a Nigerian organisation.

Most people have been annoyed by scam telephone calls claiming to be from all sorts of organisations: BT, Inland Revenue, bank anti fraud departments etc. all trying to extract details from the recipient which could then be used in fraudulent activities such as false loan applications or money transfers. However the newest scam involves stealing the telephone number itself. In the EU, everyone has the right to transfer their number when they switch telephone company. In the UK this is regulated by Ofcom. The fraudster looks for number which have high value to a business becasue they are easily remembered or considered lucky. So a chinese business might favour a number which is composed of 8s such as 888 8888. The fraudster then pretends to be the owner of the number and asks a telco to switch the number for them. If the current owner is not notified, then the transfer goes ahead and the new owner puts it up for sale. When the real owner realises and protests, the fraudster claims that the number is in use and Ofcom will not force return of the number. This can seriously disrupt businesses which rely on telephone numbers as a means of delivering services, leading to lost revenue and additional costs as phone numbers will be on business stationary, signage etc. In this instance the regulator is toothless and actually facilitates the fraud. But it is also a sign that some Telcos have been infiltrated by the fraudsters too as someone is helping identify the target numbers, supress notification to the customer and mislead the regulator about the number being in use by the new fraudulent user.

So everyone, including businesses needs to be vigilant. Human nature does not change, but it does alter its behaviour to exploit technical change.