Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, kicks off the holiday shopping season. Retailers advertise Black Friday bargains in order to lure you through their doors. As far back as I can remember, police have been warning of thieves who target cars in parking lots, smashing windows to steal shopping bags left in plain sight. Then,…
Gearing up for the holidays, consumers are getting ready to pull a Wilma Flintstone and, “Charge it!” Many don’t realize that you cannot protect your credit card number. Every time you use a credit card, you increase the chances of that card number being used fraudulently. When handing your card to a clerk or cashier,…
Online dating websites are aware that scammers use their platforms to defraud men and women looking for love. With the holidays around the corner, many unsuspecting people will be used and abused by scammers, who will break their hearts, their bank accounts, or both. Many of the stories of heartbreak and fraud look like this:…
To my horror, old man winter is knocking at my door. There is snow on the ground in Boston accompanied by a howling wind with a wind chill of wicked, wicked, wicked cold. Did I say it’s wicked cold? It’s only 37 degrees but feels like 10 below. Frankly, I should live on an island…
In Rochester New York they are being “plagued” by burglaries which rose by over 13 percent in the last year. As a result they organized a Burglary Prevention Clinic to teach homeowners how to better secure their homes. WHEC reports one of the residents was quoted saying “It’s so easy to forget that maybe I…
WE DO NOT SELL DUMPS. DO NOT EMAIL OR CALL US. WE DO NOT SELL DUMPS “Carders” are the people who test and sell credit card details (most likely phished) to other individuals who carry out the actual credit card fraud. Carders are the most visible of criminals who distribute and sell stolen data to…
In what is considered “the largest identity theft takedown in U.S. history,” 111 individuals were indicted for “stealing the personal credit information of thousands of unwitting American and European consumers and costing individuals, financial institutions and retail businesses more than $13 million in losses over a 16-month period.” The five different identity theft and forgery…
Whether you like it or not, whether you’re ready or not, the Christmas machine has arrived—well before Thanksgiving—at least as far as stores and advertisers are concerned. And there’s no question that scammers, identity thieves, and criminal hackers have already begun setting traps for holiday shoppers. So whether they’re using PCs, Macs, or mobile devices,…
At least weekly some stressed out victim of a Facebook hack a.k.a “account takeover”, contacts me to help them get their account back in order. While I do have a connection or two at Facebook, I’m not in a position to send an email or flip a switch and make it all good just like…
The PCI Security Standards Council is an open global forum, launched in 2006, that is responsible for the development, management, education, and awareness of the PCI Security Standards, including the Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), and PIN Transaction Security (PTS) requirements. Now, after five years of pushing standards out to merchants and retailers,…
