Fraud and Scam News

A classic example of ‘The hunter being the hunted’ has recently come up. With scams and especially credit card scams on the rise Visa International Inc. had launched a credit-fraud prevention system, which was aimed at providing protection to card holders shopping online. According to this credit-fraud prevention system (by the name of ‘Verified by Visa’) card users were suggested to establish a password to increase the security of their card whenever they shop online. Under ideal circumstances this would have meant more security and ultimately even more peace of mind for the card holder.

But it seems scammers and con artists always manage to stay one-step ahead in this cat & mouse game. ‘Verified by Visa’-the program designed by Visa is now being used as a golden opportunity by scammers to cash in on this program.

Scam e-mails were sent informing people to sign up for the ‘Verified by Visa’ program. They were then instructed to download a form to their web browser. The scammers have designed the form in such a way that the credit card numbers with their expiration dates had to be mentioned. This bit of information is enough to make online purchases, which the scammers utilized to the fullest. To add finishing touches, scammers made the site look legitimate with all the logos and even a link to FAQ’s.
The fact as quoted by a Visa spokesperson is that Visa will NEVER ask for any personal information from their customers and that too over the internet or phone.
The real ‘Verified by Visa’ program is an optional procedure as stated otherwise in the scam e-mail.
If you should receive any such scam e-mail, contact your credit card company immediately and inform them of such an e-mail. No links should be clicked or anything downloaded under any circumstances from such scam sites.

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4. Busting of Fake Credit Card racket near Toronto makes this a good time to revisit Credit Card Fraud!
5. Fake Documents Sponsors H-1B Visa Scam ,Federal Cracks the theme Nation Wide

April 11th, 2009 | Tags: Anti-Scams, con artists, Credit Card Fraud, credit card scam, credit-fraud prevention, e-mail scam, online scams, scam e-mails, scammers, Verified by Visa program, Verified by Visa scam | Category: Anti-Scams, Credit Card Fraud, Email Scams, Online Scams, Online theft | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL