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INFORMATION IS POWER. This is the page to come for the latest scams, frauds and crime that could effect you. Armed with this knowledge, you can take steps to protect yourself and your loved ones.

If you know of any scams in your area, please send us the details and we will post them up here. Let's give everyone a 'heads up'.

Email here

For those of you who can afford to stay in a Hotel, this may be of interest.

Ever wondered what is shown on your Hotel keycard?

A. Customer's name
B. Customer's partial home address
C. Hotel room number
D. Check-in date and out dates
E. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!

When you turn them into the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner.

An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.

Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee re-issues the card to the next hotel guest.

At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process.

But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, it usually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT !

The bottom line is:

Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them.

NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them into the front desk when you check out of a room.

They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device card reader.

For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in an airport trash basket.

Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip!

You can also carry along a small magnet and pass it across the magnetic strip several times, then try it in the door. It will not work. It erases everything on the card.

 Information courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department

Follow this link to read Louise Wilkinsons report on a holiday scam that
cost her and probably many others dearly.

Be carefull out there - there's some mean and nasty weirdos about.. and most of them look 'normal'.

Body: A woman at the nightclub Crobar on Saturday night was taken by 5 men, who according to hospital and police reports, gang raped her before dumping her.

Unable to remember the events of the evening, tests later confirmed the repeat rapes along with traces of Rohypnol in her blood, with Progesterex, which is essentially a small sterilization pill. The drug now being used by rapists at parties to rape and sterilize their victims. Progesterex is available to vets to sterilize large animals. Rumor has it that Progesterex is being used together with Rohypnol, the date rape drug. As with Rohypnol, all they have to do is drop it into the girls drink. The girl can't remember a thing the next morning, of all that had taken place the night before. Progesterex, which dissolves in drinks just as easily, is such that the victim doesn't conceive from the rape and the rapist needn't worry about having a paternity test identifying him months later. The drugs effects are not temporary- They are permanent! Progesterex was designed to sterilize horses. Any female who takes it will never be able to conceive.

The b@stards can get this drug from anyone who is in vet school or any university. It's that easy, and Progesterex is about to break out big every where. Believe it or not, there are even sites on the Internet telling people how to use it.

Stay Safe
Tx

Emails with pictures of Osama Bin-Laden hanged are being sent and the moment that you open these emails your computer will crash and you will not be able to fix it!

If you get an email along the lines of "Osama Bin Laden Captured" or "Osama Hanged" don't open the attachment.

This e-mail is being distributed through countries around the globe,  but mainly in the US and Israel. Be considerate & send this warning to whomever you know. 

PLEASE SEND THIS WARNING TO FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS:

You should be alert during the next few days:  Do not open any message with an attached filed called  "Invitation" regardless of who sent it.

It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which "burns" the whole hard disc of your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this warning to all your contacts.

It is better to receive this message multiple times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called "invitation", though sent by a friend, do not open it and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus.

This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

We have just been notified of a new computer virus that is being circulated. This one is particularly nasty as it claims to contain the identity of a rapist and asks people to keep an eye out for him. It occurs to me that as community spirited individuals we would all be only too willing to identify a rapist if we could and so could be particularly susceptible to opening an attachment that allegedly contains a photograph of one. 

The  Troj/Stinx-N Trojan horse spams out email messages, which can have a subject line for example "CCTV still of Rapist", "Do you recognise this person?", or "Campus Student Raped" and contains the following message:

Hello

During the early morning of January 25 2006, a campus student was the victim of a horrific sexual assault within college grounds. Eyewitnesses report a tall black man in grey pants running away from the scene. Campus CCTV has caught this man on camera and are looking for ways to identify him. If anyone recognises the attached picture could they inform administration immediately

Regards,

The attached files contain the Trojan horse including "Suspects Photo.exe", "suspect image.exe", "CCTVstill.exe", "CCTV-footage.exe", and "suspicious photo.exe"

Anyone unfortunate enough to run this program is running the risk of allowing hackers to gain access to their computer and consequently the network.

If you receive a card through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel  Delivery Service) saying that they have a parcel awaiting delivery instructions and can you contact them on 0906 6611911

DO NOT call the number, this is a mail scam originating from Belize

If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £15 for the phone call.

If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 0207 239 6655 or ICTIS at http://www.icstis.org.uk or  your local  trading standards office.

We know that Tax Season is in full swing and April 15th is right around the corner. Tax scammers are on the prowl and looking for ways to steal your identity. The article below describes what to look out for this tax season.

Tax Season Scammers Go Phishing

The Internal Revenue Service released what it calls its "Dirty Dozen" list of tax scams for 2006 this month. The scams range from tax filers making frivolous claims that income tax is illegal, to misuse of trusts and offshore transactions. While most of the top twelve involve fraud perpetrated by taxpayers, number three on the list is phishing, a scam whereby an identity thief attempts to take advantage of an innocent taxpayer and obtain personal financial data.

According to the IRS, criminals using phishing attacks sometimes pose as IRS representatives to gain the trust of an individual taxpayer. Typically, the scam revolves around a fictitious e-mail correspondence sent out, which appears to be from the IRS. The e- mail tells the taxpayer they have an outstanding refund, and provides them with a hyperlink to click on. The hyperlink connects them to a bogus Web site that has been made to look like an official IRS Web site. Once there, the taxpayer is asked to provide their social security and credit card number.

There are several variations of the scam in existence, and they are continuing to escalate as the tax deadline of April 15 draws near. The online tax scams are growing in number because of the large potential audience, and also because more than half of all tax returns are being filed electronically. One variation of the phishing scam informs taxpayers that they can click on a hyperlink to find out the status of their tax return, another claims that individuals are eligible to claim an unexpected additional refund. In either case, the phishing scam site asks the taxpayer to provide private information, such as social security number, credit card number or bank account number. The phishing scamster then uses that information for identity fraud, and proceeds to drain the victim's bank account or make charges to their credit card.

This is worth knowing!

After we were called on Wednesday, we called back within 20 minutes to ask a question. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA Security Department told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a new purchase of £249.99 was charged to our card. Long story made short - we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA account. VISA is reissuing us a new number.

What the scammers want is the 3-digit PIN number on the back of the card. Don't give it to them. Instead, tell them you'll call VISA or Master card directly for verification of their conversation. The real VISA told us that they will never ask for anything on the card as they already know the information since they issued the card! If you give the scammers your 3 Digit PIN you think you're receiving a credit. However, by the time you get your statement you'll see charges for purchases you didn't make, and by then it's almost certainly to late and/or more difficult to actually file a fraud report.

What makes this more remarkable is that on Thursday, I got a call from a "Jason Richardson of MasterCard" with a word-for-word repeat of the VISA scam. This time I didn't let him finish. I hung up! We filed a police report, as instructed by VISA. The police said they are taking several of these reports daily!

They also urged us to tell everybody we know that this scam is happening. Please pass this on to all your family and friends. By informing each other, we protect each other."

The Office of Trading is running a 'stamp out scams' campaign throughout February

Download their leaflet How to recognise a scam (pdf 500 kb)

Listen out for their radio advert - download and play it in mp3 format (250 kb) using Windows Media player or Real player.

Are you a scambuster? Find out by trying the quiz.

Check out the rest of their pages to make sure you don't get caught by the scammers.

A scam is a scheme designed to con you out of your cash.

There's a scam out there for everyone. If you let down your guard and think that you won't be fooled, then you too could become a victim. 

Scammers are becoming more sophisticated and aim to con us all. Deceptive premium rate competition scams, bogus sweepstakes and lotteries, get-rich quick schemes and fake health cures are some of the favoured means of separating the unwary from their money. And the number of scams just keeps on growing.

You should report scams to groups listed on the contact page. No matter how small the amount of money you have lost. It is important that the scamsters are stopped.

Read the scams pages to find out more about how to protect yourself.

How to recognise a scam - is it too good to be true?

THE CON

How scam artists succeed - they will:

• catch you unawares, contacting you, without you asking them to, by phone, email, post or sometimes in person

• sound pleasant, well spoken and kind (on the phone or at your door) and want you to think they're your friend

• have slick, professional leaflets and letters

• be persistent and persuasive

• rush you into making a decision

• ask you to send money before you receive their tempting offer or win.

New scams from the UK and overseas appear every day - so it's important to know how to spot them.

THE PITCH

They offer you something for nothing - such as:

• you've won a major prize in a draw or a lottery (even though you haven't entered one)

• an exclusive entry to a scheme that's a surefire way to make money

• a way to earn easy money by helping them get untold millions out of their country

• the chance to join an investment scheme that will make you huge amounts of money.

There are hundreds of examples but we can all protect ourselves by being sceptical. Is it likely that someone you don't know, who has contacted you out of the blue, will give you something for nothing?

THE STING

They'll ask you to:

• send money up front - an administration fee or tax, the list is endless but it's always a ruse to get you to give them money

• give them your bank, credit card or other personal details

• ring an expensive premium rate number (all UK premium rate numbers start with 090)

• buy something to get your prize.

They will lie to you and give you what seem to be good reasons why you should do what they say. They will answer all your objections.

Don't send any money or give any personal details to anyone until you've checked that they are genuine, and talked to a professional or family and friends.

If they ask you to do any of these things they're trying to cover their tracks and get your money and it's likely to be a scam.

Other things to look out for:

• they ask you to send money straight away

• they give you a PO box number as their address

• they ask you not to tell anyone about the deal.

Visit the OFT website