Phishing

"Bidirectional Universal Switch"

Ok, so I get this voicemail message from a guy who is speaking in a thick, broken Indian Accent (Obviously disguising his voice). He claims to be Ronnie Cooper from Affidavit Consolidation Services. A complete transcript of his message follows:

- Note- the # symbol is in place of my name "This message is for #### ####. this is Ronnie Cooper from ACS. #### The reason of my call to make you aware of a very serious matter. This is to notify you that a serious issue pressed against your name. Very serious allegation on your social security number. While ####, I can't discuss much about this voicemail, please make sure you return this call on my direct desk number. My direct desk number is 347-342-0492. I repeat 347-342-0492. So ####, get back to me on my direct desk number. My message where I told you but uh ##### should you fail to do so, I will contact your employ place and I will inform them that you are ???? with the finance company, so beware and get back to us on my direct desk number Goodbye and have a blessed day." So I call the number and someone with a fake sounding English accent answers. I ask for Ronnie Cooper and another voice "appears" this time a broken Indian accent and verifies my telephone number. He proceeds to tell me that the following day (which would have been a Saturday) ACS was going to file a lawsuit against me on behalf of their client, an online Payday loan company called Cash Advance USA, for failing to pay on a $350 payday loan that I was supposed to have gotten online back in January. He says that with all the interest charges and late fees, his firm would be seeking over $2000. He reads off a few bits of personal information, my address, date of birth, and phone number and tells me that this is going to go on my credit and will be very difficult to clean up. He offers to settle out of court if I will agree too pay him over the phone.

I tell this person that I never got a payday loan and I would not be paying for a payday loan that I never received. That was when I asked for information about the loan company. He tells me that he is representing Cash Advance USA, an online payday loan company. He gives 516-833-3191 as the number for that company so after telling the guy that I guess we'll have to deal with this in court, he hung up on me.

Then I called Cash Advance USA. The person who answered the phone (no pbx system) once again in a broken, barely recognizable fake Indian accent answers, "Can I help you"? I say, "I'm sorry, is this ACS?" he says "no, this is the finance company", I say "Oh, you mean Cash Advance USA?", "uh yeah, Cash Advance". I give him my first and last name only, and he puts me on hold so he can look up my account. "Uh yes, it seems you have an open account of $350." he says. I tell him that I never opened an account and if any such account has been opened in my name, then my identity has been stolen. He says, "Well, what would you like to do?" I said that I want to follow whatever procedure his company had in place for disputed account resolution and to attempt to find out who did this and make sure that they are punished so they will think twice before they try it with anyone else." He says, "Ok, well you do what you need to do, and we'll do what we need to do" and hung up on me. When I called the "finance company" back, there was no answer. hum..... imagine that!

So, today is the day after. I check my bank account online and low and behold, over $300 worth of check card transactions have been made in Tuscon AZ. I've never been to Tuscon AZ! Now I know that they have my debit card number too, so I called the bank and canceled my card.

After contemplating this situation, I think I know what is going on here. This ring of con-artists operate an online store front that appears to be legitimate and offer great deals on popular items. The unsuspecting victim purchases an item from there web shop and provides the necessary billing information (Name, address, telephone, credit card number, exp date and security code. This information is all they need to spend your money. They can use magnetic strip coders, like the ones hotels use, to imprint the credit card number on any magnetic card. Then they can use your credit/debit card anywhere.

Apparently, they also attempt to use this information to scare their victims into sending them additional money as well. When they call you making threats of lawsuits and credit reports could definitely scare naive or unsaavy victims into sending them money just to prevent the hassle they are threatening. From my inquiries online, I have also discovered that they sometimes attempt to phish for additional information on the phone, like attempting to get someone to "verify" their account by giving their social security.

1. This is a scam. You don't have to worry about them suing you or reporting you to the credit agencies.
2. If you have been called by them, then your personal information has already been compromised. They acquired information about you that they can use to attack you by accessing your accounts or, even worse, they could open up new accounts in your name. You may not even notice your identity has been stolen until you are turned down for credit or until REAL debt collectors start hunting you down.
3. Be Warned the calls may be the least of your worries.

1. keep a close eye on your credit and debit accounts, especially the ones you use to buy online. If you see any items you don't recognize, call the bank or lender immediately and report this identity theft
2. go to www.transunion.com or any of the other credit agencies' sites and order a credit report. Everyone is entitled to one free report per year. Better yet, for about $25 a month, you can monitor your credit 24/7 at www.TransUnion.com this will let you update your report daily to detect if someone is attempting to open new accounts in your name.
3. Take this as a lesson to only shop online at reputable vendors that you know are legit. Don't be the sucker for the amazing online deal. If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

I'm not sure if you can go to jail for that.. but I think who ever does do that should go to jail

Added: You had better be TOTALLY certain that your partner is willing to engage in the act or you could be arrrested for sexual assault.

Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal financial information

• you should only communicate information such as credit card numbers or account information via a secure website or the telephone

Good luck; I've found it usually takes them over a month to get around to it, for they don't treat Phishing as serious as spam (nobody there ever thought about that!); anyway I usually forward them in blind copies, sending it every other day or so. It's usually handles by the AOL minions but sometimes you get lucky. Until they start responding I send blind copies to:

• TOSEMAIL1@aol.com
• abuse@aol.com
• TOSProfileReport@aol.com
• domain-adm@corp.aol.com
• TOSREPORTS@aol.com
• abuse@aol.net
• postmaster@aol.com
• domains@aol.net
• TOSGeneral@aol.com
• abuse@abuse.aol.com
• aolfbl@abuse.aol.com
• domaincomplaints@corp.aol.com
• spam@aol.com