{"id":3157,"date":"2008-02-25T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/2007_fraud_trends_offer_much_to_ponder\/"},"modified":"2021-05-20T13:55:07","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T13:55:07","slug":"2007_fraud_trends_offer_much_to_ponder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/2007-fraud-trends-offer-much-to-ponder\/","title":{"rendered":"2007 Fraud Trends Offer Much to Ponder – National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"

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by National Consumers League staff<\/strong> We’ve been working with NCL’s Fraud Center<\/a> staff lately to crunch some data on fraud complaints from consumers in 2007, and what we’ve found is amazing! This week, the Savvy Consumer blog will bring you a series of highlights of what we tracked last year: the top scams in Internet and telemarketing, victim trends, locations of crooks, etc. First things first: the Top 10 Internet Scams of 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Fake Check Scams. <\/strong>Frauds in which consumers receive a realistic-seeming check from a crook as payment for something with instructions to wire a portion back. The scam has many variations, but the common thread is the wiring of money from a check that appears to be good but ultimately isn’t. We were involved in a massive educational effort<\/a> on these scams last year.<\/li>\n
  2. General Merchandise.<\/a> <\/strong>Scams involving items purchased online that either never show up or aren’t as they were described.<\/li>\n
  3. Auctions. <\/strong>Problems in online auctions, as reported by buyers, including items never being delivered, being a grossly different product, etc. Online auction fraud has been at or near the top of the list for years.<\/li>\n
  4. Nigerian Money Offers.<\/strong><\/a> These “419” scams originated as letters but now commonly happen via email.<\/li>\n
  5. Lotteries.<\/strong><\/a> Congratulations! You’ve won a foreign lottery and millions of fabulous dollars. All you have to do is pay us up-front for some processing fees.<\/li>\n
  6. Advance Fee Loans\/Credit Arrangers.<\/a> <\/strong>Con artists target consumers who may have bad credit and are vulnerable to sketchy loan offers.<\/li>\n
  7. Prizes\/Sweepstakes\/free gifts. <\/strong>See “lotteries” above.<\/li>\n
  8. Phishing\/Spoofing.<\/a> <\/strong>We have an entire Web site<\/a> devoted to this scam, wherein phishers seek personal financial information from consumers in order to perpetrate ID theft.<\/li>\n
  9. Sweetheart Swindles. <\/strong>We blogged about this one recently. When Cupid strikes consumers in these scams, they end up with a broken heart and empty wallet; criminals pose as lovebirds, cultivate relationships, and make a plea for financial help.<\/li>\n
  10. Internet Access Services.<\/strong><\/a> Scams surrounding email, Web site building, or Internet connection services.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Future blog: Top Telemarketing Scams of 2007<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    by National Consumers League staff We’ve been working with NCL’s Fraud Center staff lately to crunch some data on fraud complaints from consumers in 2007, and what we’ve found is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19488,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions\/19488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}