The manager of a travel agency falsified records and accounts to fund expensive holidays for herself and her family, a court heard, reports the Hull Daily Mail. Belinda Traves, 51, has gone on trial accused of stealing and defrauding £100,000 from Bridlington-based Holiday Travel, a family-run firm that had employed her for 11 years. Link […]
Category: Latest Fraud News
Call clearing time to be slashed to prevent fraud
Criminals are exploiting the lengthy call clearing times to trap gullible victims. UK phone companies are modifying their networks amid increasing fraud in a bid to drop features that are exploited by cyber criminals. Link to article
Fraud from stolen bank cards highest since 06
Fraud due to stolen credit and debit cards has risen to its highest levels since its peak in 2006. Some £58.9million was lost in 2013, marking a 7 per cent increase on the previous year. The total rises to £450.4million when crimes such as identity theft, cloned cards, computer viruses and internet scams are included […]
Email scams: a neat trick to sniff them out
If you receive an email that seems dodgy, here’s an easy trick for testing its trustworthiness. If you receive an email that seems dodgy, an easy trick for testing its trustworthiness is to run the screen cursor over any embedded links, according to a German computer magazine. Link to article
Stay off the sucker lists
Unfortunately, that seems to be the current thinking of today’s con artists who, according to a new survey, are specifically targeting consumers who have already fallen victim to a scam. Below, I’ll explain how this fraud works, so neither you nor your parents get fleeced. Link to article
Travel – a rich hunting ground for cyber-attackers
David Jones was the founder of Travelink, before selling the company to Comtec in 2006. He is now back in the travel industry as investor and non-executive at Cardiff-based Tigerbay. He is also a director of Westgate Cyber Security, an information security consultancy. Link to article
FIFA World Cup scams
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) is aware of a potential threat of fraudsters using the FIFA World Cup in Brazil to scam victims out of money. Action Fraud in partnership with the NFIB have identified three key trends relating to the FIFA World Cup in Brazil 2014. Link to article
Domain name scam
Dear CEO/Principal, We are the department of Asian Domain Registration Service in China. Here I have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on March 10, 2014 that a company claimed “Englhan Investment Co” were applying to register “xxxxxx” as their Net Brand and some “xxxxxx” Asian countries top-level domain names through […]
Disney tries again to toughen ticket-fraud law
Walt Disney World is trying again this year to toughen the state’s ticket-fraud laws, this time with the help of the lawmaker who killed the proposal last year as well as an influential Orlando Republican who will become Senate president next year. Link to article
Airlines confront credit card fraud in the air
When it comes to credit card fraud while flying, it is the airlines that may be the most common victims, said Mary Kirby, the CEO of Runway Girl Network, an aviation industry media company. It’s a little-known fact that most credit card purchases that take place in the air don’t actually go through to the […]
Fraudsters’ five most wanted items
Over 221,000 people fell victim to fraud last year, according to new figures from the CIFAS National Fraud Database. While this marks an 11 per cent reduction on the remarkable levels witnessed the previous year, a closer look at the figures ‘completely dispels the idea that the tide has turned in the fight against fraud’, […]
Olympic ticket fraudster
A millionaire ticket tout who ripped off Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington’s parents has been handed legal aid despite failing to pay back £1.3million he owes to his victims. Terence Shepherd, 52, was jailed for eight years in 2011 for selling seats at the 2008 Beijing games that never existed. Link to article
ABTA teams with anti-fraud campaigners
ABTA has partnered with three anti-fraud bodies to highlight the dangers of common scams that cost holidaymakers millions of pounds a year. The association is partnering with Get Safe Online, Action Fraud and the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for the second consecutive year. Link to article
Hotspots of identity fraud revealed
Identity fraud is booming, with the number of reported cases up by nearly half in three years. The annual Face of Fraud Report published today maps identity fraud activity across Britain and the profiles of likely victims. Link to article
Counterfeit 2014 World Cup tickets
Fifa enforcement officers fear a repeat of 2010 World Cup in South Africa counterfeit ticket fiasco, as fans may fall victim to multi-million-pound black market fraud. In a case, which is just an example of the multi-million-pound fraud, agents working on behalf of Wembley-based Infinity Tours were found circulating brochures stating they could “supply match […]
BA issues warning over phishing emails
A warning has been issued by British Airways about a fake ‘phishing’ email purporting to come from the airline. A man from County Down in Northern Ireland received an email from BC.CustSrvcs@email.ba.com on Monday confirming an order for a flight from London on February 26 with a price of £490. Link to article
Air India lands in another ticket scam
Loss-making Air India has flown into another multi-crore scam involving its staff passing on free tickets meant for families of the airline’s employees, to unscrupulous travel agents for sale at commercial rates to air passengers. Air India’s vigilance department has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the fraud involving travel agents selling […]
Staff frauds on the rise
Economic crime continues to affect UK companies, with theft from employers on the rise, according to PwC’s Global Economic Crime Survey 2014. The number of frauds committed by staff, as opposed to those outside an organisation, has risen from 34% in 2011 to 41% in 2013. Link to article
Disneyland ticket scam
A Ceres couple were arrested Wednesday afternoon on suspicion of 41 crimes stemming from the sales of bogus Disneyland tickets. Jessica Melendez, 33, and Israel Vasquez, 32, are accused of buying two-day Disneyland passes from AAA, then selling photocopies of them to people looking for a deal on Craigslist. Link to article
Fraudsters target Tesco Clubcard Vouchers
Tesco has suspended thousands of online accounts after cybercriminals targeted log-in credentials and Clubcard points. The deactivation comes after thousands of usernames and passwords – taken from non-Tesco websites – appeared on a text sharing website. Fraudsters then used that data to crack accounts at Tesco.com, relying on the fact that some people use the […]