"Children's Hospital Scam"
Renee Prink of Children's Hospital called to make us aware of a scam that is going on (and has gone on for a few years).  Ms. Prink said she received a call from a South Milwaukee resident who said they gave money to a group that was going door to door asking for donations for books or magazine subscriptions that would then be given to Children's Hospital.  Ms. Prink said they do not have any involvement with such a charity and that it is a scam.  She said the victim told her the group said they were with a company called United Sales.  She said they have attempted to contact that company without success (a phone # is given by the scammers but you just get a machine).  Ms. Prink said the Better Business Bureau has also put out an "alert" on this scam.

If you have any questions for Ms. Prink, she can be reached at 414-266-5421.


“JURY DUTY SCAM”
Beware of the “Jury Duty” scam.  There has been a recent trend that has been discovered by the FBI that is occurring in surrounding states, that involves victims being scammed through the guise of jury duty.  What happens is a scammer will call a victim claiming to be a jury duty coordinator.  The caller then would advise the victim that they have not reported for jury duty.  The unsuspecting victim would state that they never received a jury duty summons.  The scammer then asks for the victim’s Social Security number and birthday to verify the jury information and to cancel the arrest warrant.  Now that the victim believes that there is an arrest warrant for them, they would feel obligated to give up that pertinent information.  Now their identity is stolen.

What should you do?  If this or anything similar in nature happens to you, ask for the caller’s name, business (or in this case court affiliation), and call back phone number.  If you feel comfortable to call them back, then do so, especially if you phone number can be blocked.  Otherwise make a note of the time and any other information of the call.  If the calls persist, notify the police department.  Whatever you do, DO NOT give out your personal information!

“SERVICE TECHNICIAN PHONE CALL SCAM”
If you receive a phone call from a person stating that they are a service technician for the phone company and are conducting tests on the phone line, and want you to press a few numbers on the phone and then hand up do not do it, just hang up.  The scammer on the other line will instruct the victim to dial 9, 0, # (nine, zero, pound sign), and then hang up to complete the diagnostic test of the phone line.  The act seems simple enough, however beware.  If you would have done what was requested, you just gave the scammer full access to your phone line.  What does this mean?  This means that the scammer can now place long distance phone calls to all of their friends around the world on your home phone bill.

The origin for this scam is believed to have come from the jails and prisons, where the inmates rely on making collect phone calls.  This scam can also be applied to cell phone users.

If you feel that you might be getting involved in a scam, ask for the “Service Technician’s” name (or employee number) and a call back phone number.  You may either verify the caller on your own or contact the police department.

“AUSTRALIAN LOTTERY SCAM”
Emails are starting to circulate claiming that you are a winner of the Australian Lottery.  This is a similar scam like the Canadian Lottery.  In the Australian Lottery scam, they state that the lottery is fully based on an electronic selection of winners using their email address from “some” sights.

The Australian Lottery claims that you have won $1,000,000 in US dollars, and all you need to do is fill out the below claim form.  The claim form asks for your name, address, nationality, age, date of birth, occupation, phone, fax, state of origin, country, and gender.

Do not respond to this email, it’s a scam and you will be come a victim of identity theft.        

‘Vishing’: A New Twist on Identity Theft Threatens Consumers

By Martin W.G. King, NCPC Staff

The Internet Crime Complaint Center has issued a warning about a new kind of cyber attack involving vishing, the telephone version of phishing (Voice Phishing), which takes place by computer. In vishing, callers spoof Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) and pose as legitimate institutions, in an attempt to trick targets into giving them their personally identifiable information. Victims could be at risk for identity theft, among other types of fraud.

Vishing takes two forms. Instead of directing targets to a phony website, as is the case with phishing, a recorded phone call may tell the user to call a toll-free telephone number that purports to be that of a well-known financial institution or other entity. The caller is then asked to punch in his credit card number or other personal information. Another type of vishing takes the form of an email, which asks the user to make a telephone call to a toll-free number and provide his personal information. In either case, PCMagazine.com Encyclopedia says that “because people are so used to entering credit numbers and other personal information over the phone, this [vishing] technique can be highly effective.”

Hackers conducted a recent wave of vishing attacks by exploiting a weakness in early versions of Asterisk software, a free, widely used software developed to integrate PBX systems with VoIP digital Internet voice calling services. (PBX, or private branch exchange systems, are used by commercial and government entities to enhance their communications capabilities.) The weakness enabled the hackers to use the software as an automatic dialer, generating thousands of vishing telephone calls to consumers in an hour.

If consumers fall victim to this fraud, they will be at risk for identity theft, credit card fraud, and a host of other crimes. To reduce the spread of this new type of crime, agencies using Asterisk should upgrade their software to a version that has had the vulnerability fixed.

NCPC urges law enforcement personnel with responsibility for fraud prevention or citizen education to remind the public that they should never release their personal information in response to unsolicited telephone calls.

NCPC’s publication, Preventing Identity Theft (pdf), is available for download and teaches consumers how to protect themselves against this crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are hard at work on developing new ways to counter the evolving nature of identity theft. On October 28, 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FTC Chairman William E. Kovacic announced the release of a report from the President’s Identity Theft Task Force on the federal government’s progress in addressing this crime. The report presents highlights of the task force’s work and emphasizes that government and the private sector, working together with consumers, must be adaptable as new generations of identity thieves develop new techniques. The full task force report and other information on efforts to combat identity theft is available here.