Category: Phone Fraud

Call center criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in order to maneuver around authentication and security measures, granting them access to sensitive information. It is evident the evolution of fraudsters’ techniques is jump-starting other criminal behavior including account takeover and identity theft – causing the global increase in call center fraud to jump to 113% since…

Not content with impersonating IRS agents, phone scammers now are pretending to work for the National Institutes of Health and telling victims that they’ve won an NIH grant but must pay a fee in order to get the money. The scam is a variation of the broader scheme in which fraudsters impersonate employees of various…

Criminals who run fake tech support scams are expanding their range of tactics, and now are using spam messages to push victims to their scam sites. Historically, these schemes have been run through two main channels: phone calls or malicious online ads. Victims who visit sketchy sites containing malicious ads connected to fake tech support scams will…

For the second time in less than two months, the FCC is proposing an enormous fine for someone it alleges ran an illegal robocall operation. The latest fine, announced Thursday, would be $82 million, against a North Carolin man named Philip Roesel, whom the commission says made more than 21 million illegal robocalls. The FCC…

The bank phone fraud scheme that has been making its way through the U.S. and UK has shown up in Scotland, to the tune of £2.5 million in losses. The national police force in Scotland says that a wave of phone scams hit the Highlands region of the country in the last two weeks, targeting businesses. The scheme…

Carriers are getting another tool to use in the fight against illegal robocalls. The FTC is beginning a new initiative that will feed data on robocalls that violate the Do Not Call registry rules directly to carriers each day. The plan is part of an overall strategy at the FTC to combat robocalls and illegal…

As part of its strategy to stop unwanted and illegal robocalls, the FCC is opening an inquiry into the way that providers reassign phone numbers and how they can help prevent customers from receiving robocalls intended for other people. The problem arises when one customer gives up a phone number, whether it’s a landline or…

The FCC is looking for help in developing a system to authenticate phone calls. Caller ID spoofing has become one of the bigger problems on phone networks and is one of the main tools that fraud rings use when running illegal robocall operations. Software and apps to spoof caller ID signals are easily available and…

The Chinese government has detained several dozen Japanese citizens as part of an investigation into a phone fraud ring that has been targeting elderly victims in Japan. The arrests reportedly occurred in late June and are connected to the problem of phone scams that prey on senior citizens looking for easy cash. Similar to phone…