A fake Qantas Facebook page offering free first class flights for the rest of the year has fooled thousands of people. To win, all users have to do is like and share an image of a ‘complimentary invitation’ to Qantas’ First Lounge. Within 16 hours the offer had received 36,790 likes and had been shared […]
Category: Latest Fraud News
Apple Pay Is Reportedly Being Used to Commit Fraud
Apple Pay doesn’t require a physical credit card. So fraudsters are apparently taking advantage of this and using credit card info stolen from retail breaches. Criminals are using Apple Pay to commit fraud by using credit card information stolen in breaches at Target and Home Depot, according to a report in The Wall St. Journal. […]
ID Fraud Drops for First Time Since 2010
Identity fraud reported by U.S. consumers dropped 3 percent in 2014, according to Javelin Strategy & Research’s just-released report, 2015 Identity Fraud: Protecting Vulnerable Populations. The report, now in its 11th year, is based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers conducted last October. But while this decrease may sound promising at first glance – […]
Luxury hotel chain suffers credit card data breach
The Mandarin Hotel Group has confirmed that it is investigating a security breach at its hotels after receiving numerous complaints of fraudulent charges being made on its customers’ credit cards. The luxury hotel chain has two dozen hotels around the world in major cities such as London, Paris, New York, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Shanghai and […]
Fare dodger ordered to pay back £17,000
Mason, of Hatfield, Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, was sentenced to six months in prison suspended for two years. He has also been ordered to carry out 240 hours unpaid work and a 12-day restorative justice course at Sheffield Crown Court. The British Transport Police investigation began in autumn 2013 when East Coast Trains station support […]
Man accused of air tickets fraud in court
Alleged airline fraudster Fernando de Carvalho was at court to face multiple charges yesterday, but was refused legal aid to fight them. The Crown amended the charges against de Carvalho after a summons was posted to him under the wrong name and date of birth. The 30-year-old, of Barrington Street, Tiverton, said there had been […]
Customer data stolen in TalkTalk hack attack
TalkTalk customers are being warned about scammers who managed to steal account numbers and names from the company’s computers. In an email sent to every customer, TalkTalk said scammers were using stolen information to trick people into handing over banking details. TalkTalk said it had sent the email to every customer although only a few […]
Top five email scams revealed
New research by Which? has revealed the top five email scams to be aware of this year. Bank scams, Paypal scams and tax rebate scams top the email phishing list in the survey of 2,016 adults carried out in January. Email inboxes are a valuable target for scammers with 54% of respondents claiming to have […]
Make fraud detection part of your company’s DNA
Fraud can hit your bottom line, hammer your reputation, and scare off customers. But it is possible to minimise the risks. More control and more automation is the best place to start. This is because the complicated transactional nature of travel leaves it open to fraud. There are deposits, payments, cancellations, refunds, taxes, discounts and […]
Banks are hit by largest cybercrime ever detected
The days of criminals putting a stocking over their face and stealing cash with a sawn-off shotgun over a bank counter, or masterminding events such as the Great Train Robbery, are largely over. In the 21st Century, there has been a rise of sophisticated fraudsters operating in gangs to steal large sums from behind their […]
Stamp out ticket crime
The Government was on Thursday night under mounting pressure to end its opposition to a new law that would help prevent fans buying tickets for this year’s Rugby World Cup and Ashes from being ripped off. The Rugby Football Union and England and Wales Cricket Board joined MPs and peers in urging ministers to back […]
Cybersecurity: Tackling the threat from within
For a long time, cybersecurity has been about defending the castle walls against intruders. The firewalls, anti-virus software, mail-filters and other digital defences used across the business world are generally looking for external threats. But what if the bad guys are on the inside? What if your own employees are seeking to defraud your company […]
Hotels hit by email scam – booking.com
A number of hotels in Europe have fallen victim to an email scam which captures commissions paid to Booking.com. The email scammers use a tried a tested method of creating a branded page to lure the recipients to send their monthly fees to the Priceline-owned Booking.com. Booking.com says the “incidences appear to be limited”, but […]
Hackers steal £650m
More than £650m has gone missing from banks around the world in what is thought to be the biggest ever ‘cybercrime’. Hackers are thought to have stolen £650m from bank accounts across the world in an extraordinary heist that may have cost British banks tens of millions of pounds. A gang of Russian-based hackers used […]
Travel Scams
Travelling is a lot of fun. It’s full of adventure and wonder. However, travellers always have to be on their toes when travelling, especially when travelling to different countries. Since tourists are usually targeted by scammers as easy targets, there are a few scams for which travellers should be on the lookout. Cheap Airline Tickets […]
Hill Dickinson and Europcar disrupt staged accident
Hill Dickinson’s Counter Fraud Group and Europcar, the car hire services company, have successfully disrupted the activities of a staged accident fraudster. Following a court case centred on a staged collision between a family’s vehicle and a car hired from Europcar, Hill Dickinson’s fraud arm was able to identify suspicious activity carried out by Mark […]
1 billion data records stolen last year
New research suggests more than 1 billion data records were stolen from more than 1,500 individual data breaches last year. Data breaches were up by 49 percent, while the theft or loss of data records were up by 78 percent on the year prior. Banking giant JPMorgan Chase, and retailer Target were named two of […]
How hacking is improving the world
It is easy to think about hacking in an entirely negative way. When the major film studios Sony Pictures was brought to a standstill over the release of “The Interview,” it was hacking that was to blame. Even something with relatively little technical sophistication, such as the nude celebrity image scandal, was attributed to this […]
Hacker reveals how easy it is to steal credit cards
A new breed of digital pickpocket has been discovered lurking in stations and shopping centres. They come armed with technology that can effortlessly steal credit and debit card details without so much as touching your wallet. Standing just six inches (15cm) away, these criminals use radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers to harvest bank details in a […]
Spending on contactless cards trebles in just one year
Shoppers increased spending on contactless cards by 300 per cent in the past year, with ten contactless payment now made every second, new figures revealed. Total spend in 2014 was more than double that of all the previous six years combined, with annual spending reaching a record £2.32billion, the UK Cards Association said. The steep […]