Zelle Scams Are on The Rise: A Look at a Recent Attempt

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Zelle Scams Are on The Rise: A Look at a Recent Attempt

It is common these days to sell items we no longer need on online marketplaces such as Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. It’s easy, local and usually fast. The process is further simplified through the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) payment methods such as Venmo, PayPal and Zelle. However, this ease to buy and sell can attract fraudsters looking to make a quick buck. I personally use Facebook Marketplace frequently and when I recently sold my treadmill, I experienced a scam attempt firsthand.

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Extreme Couponing to Extreme Fraud

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Extreme Couponing to Extreme Fraud

Anyone waiting in line at the grocery store knows that when the person in front of them pulls out coupons — especially a binder full — they’re going to be there for a while. That ominous binder can only mean one thing: an extreme couponer.

One Virginia Beach couple’s extreme couponing fun turned out to be extreme couponing fraud. Over the course of three years, Lori Ann Talens perpetrated the largest coupon fraud scheme ever discovered in the U.S.

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Creepy and Costly Frightening Frauds

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Creepy and Costly Frightening Frauds

As fraud examiners know, fraud comes in many varieties and touches every type of business. Some fraud stories defy belief due to the audacity of the fraudsters, the context in which they occur, or both. These seasonally appropriate examples of frightening frauds show that fraudsters will consider any type of trick when it comes to scamming victims.

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Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Dog Breeder Scams on the Rise

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Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Dog Breeder Scams on the Rise

Throughout the pandemic, as more people found themselves quarantined at home and with more time on their hands, many animal lovers turned toward the joys of new dog ownership. However, scammers quickly realized the opportunities to defraud these hopeful pet adopters and worked out a variety of ways to cheat unsuspecting customers out of hundreds of dollars.

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An Overview of the Federal Trade Commission’s 2020 Consumer Reports

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An Overview of the Federal Trade Commission’s 2020 Consumer Reports

While the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) exists to put forth pertinent regulations and publish findings, some of its best resources for new marketplace discoveries are consumers themselves. Through consumer reporting, the FTC can identify trends and questionable business practices from the perspectives of those who directly experience them. Consumer reports are stored in the Consumer Sentinel Network (Sentinel). Sentinel is a secure online database available to law enforcement, allowing the FTC’s law enforcement partners to use the information from the database to better enforce anti-fraud laws.

In February of this year, the FTC released their Consumer Sentinel Network 2020 Data Book, which aggregated more than 4.7 million consumer reports made in 2020 and sorted them into 29 top categories. The data is based on unverified reports made to the FTC’s call center or online, as well as reports filed with other federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies, as well as organizations like the Better Business Bureau and Publishers Clearing House. The Data Book provides illuminating information on how a year defined by the pandemic influenced fraud methods and the trends anti-fraud professionals should expect in the years to come.

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