Archive | August, 2007
As mentioned in the previous post, Corporate Identity Theft is a growing and serious problem.
Here in the UK the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), estimates that the financial cost of corporate identity theft may be in the region of £30,000 per case.
Such costs are based purely on the impact of direct theft and potential bank charges and fines.
Naturally, the real cost to a corporation is far higher - there will be many issues with regard to their branding, company status, issues of trust with the public, etc, etc.
The following 7 tips may help reduce the risk of a corporation having to endure the above by minimising their exposure to corporate identity theft in the first place -
1. Thoroughly screen and vet new employees - corporate identity theft often relies upon inside help
2. Ensure the details about your company are accurately recorded at Companies House
3. Sign up for PROOF (Protected online filing) with Companies House - this allows for electronic filing of key information
4. Also sign up for the monitoring service provided by Companies House - this generates an email alert to a designated person should there be any attempt to change the registered details
5. Basic security - shredding of bank and credit card statements, company headed letters, etc is a must
6. Ensure company computer systems are secure, especially internally where employees may be prone to writing down passwords or choosing ones that are guessed too easily
7. Buy up all domain names that could be made to look like the one you use, i.e. common misspellings, .co.uk, .net, .org, etc.
The issue of identity theft is a topic that has received a lot of news coverage of late, and rightly so, as it is an ever-increasing concern.
Generally speaking, the media seems to focus it’s attention on personal identity theft but did you realise that corporate id theft is also growing at an alarming rate?
What is corporate identity theft?
Corporate identity theft is the act of gaining personal and/or financial information from a company in order to facilitate the assumption of their identity in order to profit financially from transactions or purchases.
Perhaps the most common form of identity theft comes in the form of phishing emails -designed to appear to be from a legitimate bank, etc, in order to gain access to unsuspecting recipient’s accounts.
Scammers are also targeting corporations directly in order to gain access to bank accounts, arrange illegal money transfers, destroy credit ratings and also, in some cases, to cause harm to the reputation of a business.
What are the effects of corporate identity theft?
Here in the UK, for a business that has not adequately protected itself, a corporate identity thief can change registrations at Companies House, even to the point of registering themselves as a director.
Once they have done this they can then open new bank and credit accounts and even have goods shipped to a new address that they have added to the file, thereby putting company credit ratings at risk.
Of course the financial implications of the above may well pale into insignificance when compared to the damage that may be done to a victim corporation’s reputation and image.
One of the most famous pirates of years gone by was Sir Francis Drake who privateered for Queen Elizabeth I of England. On one of his forays into the Caribbean, on March 3rd 1579, he caught and took control of a Spanish treasure galleon, the Cacafuego. The treasure he found on board included 20 tons of silver and 80 pounds of gold.
Queen Elizabeth I
Despite the fact that Drake is known to have brought the haul back to England and presented it to Queen Elizabeth, one Oscar Merril Hartzell saw an opportunity.
Over a period of around twelve years, beginning in 1921, he discovered as many families as he could with the surname of Drake.
Using his natural charm he managed to persuade them that Queen Elizabeth I had only take a proportion of the wealth and that Drake had in fact left the remainder of the fortune to an heir. Hartzell then went on to explain that no heir had ever come forward to claim the fortune and that the situation was a legal mess.
Hartzell claimed he could sort out the legalities but that it would not be cheap to do so.
He therefore proposed selling shares in the estate, with the promise of a 1000% return on investment for any Drake willing to front the legal fees.
With his smooth talking and outrageous lies, Hartzell managed to scam a total of over $2,000,000 from around 270,000 people, despite the fact that America was, at that point in time, in the midst of The Great Depression.
Here at ScamTypes I have already written about several phony lotteries - you know, those ones where you receive an email saying you’ve won when you haven’t even entered?
Such lottery scams are an attempt to con you by asking for advanced fees in order to release the so-called winnings.
My question today though is - are genuine lotteries as much a scam?
I would hope that most readers are aware of the fact that if something seems too good to be true, and offers you the opportunity to get rich quick, then it is probably a scam.
Why, therefore, do people insist on playing national and other lotteries?
Did you know that your chances of winning a lottery are far less than the likelihood of you being struck by lightning?
When purchasing a lottery ticket are you not hoping to become extremely wealthy, in a very short period of time, without doing any work?
Are you one of those people who hates the standard of living they have and so, by buying a lottery ticket, you are also in a way buying a dream?
Considering that there are reports suggesting that around 10% of the internet population has fallen for a scam online I can’t help but wonder how many of the remaining 90% are guilty of buying into the hopes of the lottery?
Personally, I believe that pyramid schemes are rightly illegal, and MLMs dubious.
Am I right to think that way?
Well, that’s a matter of opinion, but before you make assumptions about those engaged in multi level marketing and such like, perhaps you should consider that a large proportion of the world’s population invests into the hope of a better future every week.
Personally, I think the cost of coffee is a big enough scam in itself.. I mean, come on, some of us have to try and stay awake all night!
But this isn’t about commodity pricing levels. Instead, it is an email that supposedly looks like it came from a reputable company, here in the UK, called Costa Coffee.
This ‘James Williams’, however, is an advanced fee scammer. He wants you to supply ’your informations’ to his ‘cofee’ company so that he can lure you into receiving counterfeit cheques.
He hopes that you will pay them into your bank and wire the value, less 10% for yourself, to him via Western Union. All before you realise the cheques are fake and will be dishonoured of course.
Don’t do it!
My name is James Williams and i just came about your email address through an online email listing.
I am the Employment Manager of Costa Coffee, a quality coffee company based in the United Kingdom. the company has been setup in Lambeth, London since 1971, supplying all local caterers, major Italian and American coffee shops and around the world, with an exciting coffee, slow-roasted the Italian way.
People couldn’t get enough of it and by 1978 the first Costa espresso bar opened in Vauxhall Bridge Road in London. The company is always facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling our products to Americans/Canada because they are always offering to pay with US MONEY ORDERS and US CHECKS which is difficult for us to cash here in the UK since the last person that represents us in the US has just fallen sick and cannot continue the job. (more…)
Friday, August 31, 2007
0 Comments