Monday, February 08, 2010

Has Anyone You Know Been The Victim Of Identity Fraud


I am sure everyone knows someone who has gotten the call from the bank telling them they need to come into the bank because their credit card number or their debit card number has been found in the possession of a criminal fraud ring.
You get the call and the bank tells you your accounts are frozen for your protection while they investigate the issue. If the accounts were cleaned out the bank insurance kicks in and your money is safe, but it is a huge inconvenience and really scary!

Did you contribute to your friend or family member`s identity being stolen

Yes I am asking YOU!

Why

Because I am really tired of folks blindly passing out my email address in large loops of spammy emails that go out all over the world, alerting me to 100% fraudulent missing person reports.
They are all frauds! ALL!

When you attach a 100 or so of your friends and family to an email that has been passed around by a hundred or so other folks who added a 100 folks to the list you are contributing to the loss of your family and friends identities.

You think it is innocent and with good intentions this is done.
No
It is a way for the originator of the email to get everyone`s identity.
First they get your email.
Then they send you a seemingly innocent email that you open.
Then a cookie attached to the email then sends info back to the originator. The info can be stats on every single web site you look at, your private IP address (which is the doorway to all your personal info including all that is `safely` tucked into your computer under password) as well as the email address of everyone you are in contact with regularly.

With a few easily accessed pieces of info a hacker can get all of your info if your friends blindly send your email out to hundreds of unknown people.

This also happens with chain letters and prayers and hugs and power point presentations. Not to mention that power point presentations are executable and can hide spy programs that can take over your machine.

In this day and age where folks are so paranoid about their privacy I find it really ridiculous that folks send out and generate so much dangerous email without even thinking about the consequences of their actions.

It takes two minutes to search the name of the so-called victim on the web.
Snopes.com has a free service to tell you if something is fraud or not.

If you care about the safety of your children and grandchildren, your friends and family, you will not put them at risk of identity theft by sending their email addresses out in forwarded email attachments in chain letters or amber alerts!

Why are people being so lax and just blindly forwarding stuff! Be responsible and look up the name of the missing person on the net. Google the name. Look at the top three choices in the search sheet and 100% of the time they are fraud alerts. Do one better than that and look it up on the reputable site of snopes.com if you are still blinded by kindness.

Think!

The only one benefiting is the person who is a criminal. Or a marketing company honing their spam focus based on your user stats (what sites you look at, what the content of the email is you share with others etc)

God help you if you find out you cost a person their life because you allowed a criminal into their life because you were too lazy to double check the info you are forwarding in email for fraud!

With 5 min of research on the net I was able to find out that the email address associated with the message that caused this Adam Trembley email to be sent out yet again is also associated with fraudulent email sent to the Orangeville newspaper, plus it is linked to a bogus facebook site which is actually being run by one person who is using the info to get spam lists for their bogus organizations listed below (don`t click the links below or the person will get all your info)

www.cosmopolitan(dot)com/sex-love/sex/sexy-ways-to-go-green-0409
www.angelfire(dot)com/wi/PaperVsPlastic
www.earthday(dot)ca/pub/index.php
www.ehow(dot)com/how_2323861_become-environmentally-friendly.html
www.treehugger(dot)com/gogreen.php
www.masteringthepowerofnow(dot)com
www.hww(dot)ca
www.naturecanada(dot)ca
www.naturecanada.(dot)ca/advocate

All of these sites were linked using hidden html code to different sites that did not have addresses even close to what a person would have thought these sites were for....
I removed the html link codes and broke the links so you and I would be safe seeing this here.


That took me 5 min.

1 comment:

Susan Demeter said...

Yes, I do know two people where this has happened, and what a nightmare! Thanks for an excellent, and informative post!