You must be living right. An unexpected $2,500 check with your name on it just landed in your mailbox.

Come on. You know it’s too good to be true. You’ve never even heard of the company that sent it.

But a greedy little part of you wants to make a run for the bank and deposit it — and wire a portion of the money back to the sender as the accompanying letter requests.

We really shouldn’t have to tell you this, but yep, it’s a scam.

Hundreds of check scams — and plenty of other cons such as telemarketing fraud, investment fraud and Internet auction fraud — take place nationwide each year.

But some fake check scams can be particularly worrisome.

“This is a pretty bad one because the checks look really real,” said Molly Butters, a spokeswoman for the Indiana attorney general.

Butters said her office receives complaints “all the time” on check scams. Here’s how it works:

A check comes in the mail with the U.S. Bank logo on it. It matches the exact logo of the real company.

With it is a letter from HR Consult Financials that tells receivers they were electronically selected from an Internet database and have won $80,000.

It then gives instructions for proceeding with the first portion of the winnings — that $2,500 check.

Deposit the check in the bank. Then call the telephone number provided to activate the winnings. At that time, you will be asked to wire a processing fee of $800 and an administrative fee of $700. Those can only be made through Western Union or MoneyGram.

Once you send that money, the letter explains that the rest of your winning check will be sent to you in the amount of $77,500, delivered by FedEx or DHL.

“People forget if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is,” said Lisa Clark, spokeswoman for U.S. Bank.

To read the full story: USA Today

The White House is considering a plan to beef up national home loan modification efforts to the tune of $30 billion in credit to struggling homeowners (it wants big banks to pay for it, but that’s another story).

If the government gets its way, expect loan modifications to rise exponentially, but homeowners should temper their enthusiasm – more loan modification cash means more scammers and fraudsters out there looking for a quick score.

The evidence shows that there is no shortage of loan modifications already out there. A year-long study by the National Fair Housing Alliance shows that loan modification scams are widespread. The study examined 80 loan modification outfits and uncovered some startling conclusions:

• 55% required an upfront fee to start the loan modification process, sometimes requiring a fee to conduct only the minimal first step in reviewing loan documents.
• 43% guaranteed they could secure a loan modification, even before learning about the homeowner’s financial limitations.
• 24% advised or encouraged homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments or to stop contacting their lenders.
• 16% guaranteed a new, much lower interest rate ranging between 2% and 6% on modified loans.
• 12% discouraged homeowners from seeking free help from government-approved housing counseling agencies.
• 8% encouraged homeowners to give fraudulent information to their lenders.

To read the full story: MainStreet.com

The Better Business Bureau and federal authorities are warning consumers to be on their guard against fake charities trying to scam money in the name of Mississippi flood relief.

While neither the BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance nor the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team released specific details on possible scams, but both issued general warnings for consumers. US-CERT — which keeps tabs on computer and online crime — said in its alert that it would release more information as it became available.

The federal US-CERT issued an alert this week to watch out for potential e-mail scams and phishing attacks linked to the Mississippi flooding disaster. The agency reminded consumers to ignore unsolicited web links or attachments and to make sure their antivirus software was up to date.

The Wise Giving Alliance said to keep the following in mind before making a donation:

• Check out the charity by reviewing its website or investigate it through another group to help determine if it’s legitimate.
• Identify what stage of relief the charity will provide. Flood relief has three basic stages — emergency response, disaster relief and recovery — and each stage has its own needs. The charity should be able to tell you which stage it gears itself toward.
• Determine if the charity is giving direct aide or raising money for other groups.
• Be wary of any charity that claims 100% of donations go to relief victims. While this sounds good, the reality is, every group has administrative and fundraising costs.
• Verify the charity is registered to ask for donations within your state. Groups usually have to register with the state’s attorney general’s office or secretary of state.

To read the full story: Walletpop.com

If you receive an email claiming to contain photos or videos of Osama bin Laden’s death, delete it immediately.

The FBI is warning computer users to be on the alert for virus-laden emails that trick consumers into opening them by promising to show images or video of bin Laden’s recent shooting by U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan.

And President Barack Obama’s decision not to release photos of the slain terrorist’s corpse should make users doubly suspicious of any such emails.

These mails, the FBI warns, may contain a virus that could take control of your computer and steal sensitive data, including your name, address, Social Security number, tax records, passwords, and bank account and credit card information.

Malicious software, also known as “malware” or “badware,” embeds itself in computers and spreads itself via email contact lists, infecting the machines of friends, colleagues and family members.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), urges computer users never to open unsolicited emails or click on links in these spam emails — even if the sender is familiar.

In order to protect themselves against badware such as the bin Laden emails, the IC3 says consumers should make sure they’re running updated firewall and anti-virus software on their computers.

The IC3 recommends the public also do the following:

• Adjust the privacy settings on social networking sites you visit to make it more difficult for people you know and don’t know to post content to your page. Even a “friend” can unwittingly pass on multimedia that’s actually malicious software.
• Never download software to view videos. These can infect your computer.
• Read your emails carefully. Fraudulent messages often contain misspellings, poor grammar and nonstandard English. Report emails you receive that purport to be from the FBI. Criminals often use the FBI’s name and seal to add legitimacy to their fraudulent schemes. It’s important to note that the FBI does not send unsolicited e-mails to the public.

If you receive unsolicited messages featuring the FBI’s name or seal or that reference a division or unit within the FBI, report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Story from WalletPop.com.

Want to work as an undercover spy fighting government misconduct?

Just strap on your iPhone.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz yesterday unveiled an iPhone app that allows citizens to report fraud or government misconduct directly to the controller’s fraud unit.

“Our Philly WatchDog app allows citizens to play a crucial role in protecting their tax dollars by reporting fraud, waste and abuse,” Butkovitz said during a news conference.

Using the application, available for free through iTunes or the App Store on the iPhone, residents can report sightings of fraud or city workers goofing off and send in pictures or videos. Messages can be sent anonymously.

Butkovitz said that the app, which the office developed for $5,400, is the first of its kind in the nation. Butkovitz and his staff said that residents might capture examples of bribery by city workers, or city workers napping on taxpayers’ time.

The office gets between 75 and 100 such reports from citizens each year, but the app certainly could boost that number.

Butkovitz credited aide Brian Dries with devising the idea.

“It was another idea of ‘how can we get citizens in Philadelphia to report fraud?’ ” said Dries. “Right now, iPhone technology is the way to go.”

Dries said that the office would look into developing similar applications for other types of smartphones.

Are city workers quaking in their boots? Cathy Scott, president of District Council 47 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents city white-collar workers, said that she hadn’t heard of the app but that she thought that citizens could already report fraud easily with cellphone cameras.

“There’s all kinds of mechanisms in the city to report if people think there’s something improper going on,” Scott said. “I don’t see this as any different from any other method people can use to report waste or fraud.”

Still, Zack Stalberg, president of the watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said he thought the app was a good idea.

To read the full story: Philly.com

Top banks, retailers and service companies have begun warning consumers to be on high alert for spoofed e-mails that may attempt to coax them into clicking on viral attachments or harmful Web links.

This follows the theft of potentially millions of individual customer names and e-mail addresses from Epsilon, a Dallas-based firm that provides e-mail marketing and other services for some 2,500 large companies.

Loss of clients and even lawsuits could result, says Kevin Lee, CEO of online marketing firm Didit. “Epsilon has a huge way to go to earn back the trust of its clients,” Lee says.

Epsilon has alerted Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, Barclays Bank, Best Buy, Hilton WorldWide, Marriott International, Disney Destinations and The College Board, which runs the SATs, among others.

The companies, in turn, have been sending e-mail warnings to their respective customers. “When one reports, the others feel pressure to do the same,” says Richard Mackey Jr., of consultancy SystemExperts.

By correlating specific names and e-mail addresses to information about where a person banks and shops, cybercrime gangs can fine-tune so-called spear-phishing attacks. In such attacks, spoofed messages can be customized to trick specific individuals into clicking on a viral attachment or harmful Web link. The intruder can then take full control of the victim’s PC.

The infected PC is then used in scams for worthless software or drugs or to steal from the victim’s online accounts. Elite gangs can use infected PCs as footholds to probe deep inside company networks.

“The next time you get an e-mail from your favorite store with an amazing offer, you may want to think twice,” says Marcus Carey, community manager at penetration-testing firm Rapid7.

Epsilon said on Monday that just 2% of its clients were affected. The incident is one of a spate of similar disclosures.

RSA, the security division of EMC, recently disclosed that intruders gained access to the technology behind RSA security tokens, small devices that issue one-time pass codes generally used for accessing sensitive corporate accounts.

To read the full story: USA Today

Could playing video games give someone access to your credit card? It happened to one local family thanks to a hacker.

In the wake of Japan’s quake crisis, many Americans are eager to help. But they must be aware of scammers seeking to take advantage of them.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said they are already investigating one potential scheme where fraudsters misrepresent themselves as the British Red Cross and seek donations in the form of wire transfers.

“I hadn’t heard about this yet, but sadly this has happened previously,” said Penny Sims, spokeswoman for the British Red Cross. “After a major disaster there are some unscrupulous people that try to use other people’s misfortune to their own end.”

So far this is the only scam the FBI has received complaints about, but “agents are looking for more of those types of appeals,” said Jenny Shearer, a spokeswoman with the FBI.

After the earthquake in Haiti, more than 350 complaints were filed about fraudulent activity, she said.

“Anytime something comes into your inbox asking for money, rather than answer, call your local Red Cross yourself,” FBI’s Shearer advised. “Anytime someone comes to you asking for money, you should be suspicious.

“In my experience, the Red Cross has never emailed me, never,” she added.

To further protect those eager to make donations, the FBI has issued the following guidelines:

• Do not respond to any unsolicited incoming emails.
• Be skeptical of individuals claiming to be surviving victims or foreign government officials asking for help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts.
• Go directly to recognized charities’ and aid organizations’ websites instead of following a link from an email or another site.
• Attempt to verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations by checking their status with Guidestar.org.
• Be leery of emails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.

To read the full story: CNN Money

Anonymous, a hacker group sympathetic to WikiLeaks, plans to release e-mails obtained from Bank of America Corp early Monday morning, according to posts on the group’s Twitter feed.

The group, unrelated to the document leak website founded by Julian Assange, said it plans to release documents exposing “corruption and fraud” at the largest U.S. bank by assets.

A representative of Anonymous said the documents relate to the issue of whether Bank of America has improperly foreclosed on homes. The representative added that he had not seen the documents, but he has been briefed on their contents.

A Bank of America Corp spokesman said the documents were non-foreclosure related clerical and administrative documents stolen by a former Balboa Insurance employee.

To read the full story: The Huffington Post