ID Theft information is something that may be beneficial to have posted on your HR website. Feel free to link to this page. Employees will spend countless hours of “tail-chasing” on and off company time if they fall prey to these scams. You might include these tips in your HR periodical to keep employees productive.

Pay Pal Scam

This is real and happened to me and while it was happening to PayPal, it will be another firm next week. (See "phishing" below)
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Recently I received a letter on "PayPal" stationary requesting all my banking info including credit card information. It was a clever letter to get at that pile of money I have stashed in Switzerland. This letter was particularly convincing because it appeared to be a text message with a legitimate Pay Pal URL,(First generation scammers would copy the look and feel of a site and use a similar URL like www.paypal.botswana.com. If you weren’t careful you would end up at a clone site in another country and be providing the locals with enough money to throw the whole town a party. ) Most savvy Internet users would spot this as a fake URL and ignore it. The e-mail that I received was a Java script message designed to look like plain text.

This is the actual “picture” that they sent. It wasn’t a text message at all, but a script that presents you with a picture that appears to have a legitimate URL and may cause you to lower your guard and reply. If you clicked anywhere on the picture (not just the URL listed) you would be redirected to an illegitimate cloned site of Pay Pal just like any “banner ad” would do. Another sign that the e-mail was a fake was gibberish below the gif in white text. Most people (including myself) wouldn’t highlight the bottom of the page with their cursor. However, if you did, you would have seen this;

1885 It's just Gwb I'll get a porter in 1969 No thanks Excuse me WTBLceT ilFHKJUNOjF vi
in 1987 driving at? In short. 051 Get your 7 Are you? 926 Peterson case hometown weather on
I'll call back! in 1902 good days in 1993 Good night! in 1971 PqZ in 1893 be careful Open your hometown weather on Firefighters Dear friends!

Example below; left click your mouse and run your cursor over this blank spot

1885 It's just Gwb I'll get a porter in 1969 No thanks Excuse me WTBLceT ilFHKJUNOjF vi
in 1987 driving at? In short. 051 Get your 7 Are you? 926 Peterson case hometown weather on
I'll call back! in 1902 good days in 1993 Good night! in 1971 PqZ in 1893 be careful Open your hometown weather on Firefighters Dear friends!
I suspect that the gibberish changes randomly so that spam and virus filters can not get the signature. So, if your gibberish was different, don’t breathe a sigh of relief.
I forwarded the e-mail on to Pay Pal and they were responsive and provided this warning;


Dear Chris

Thank you for bringing this suspicious email to our attention. We can
confirm that the email you received; was not sent to you by PayPal. The
website linked to this email is not a registered URL authorized or used by
PayPal. We are currently investigating this incident fully. Please do not
enter any personal or financial information into this website.

If you have surrendered any personal or financial information to this
fraudulent website, you should immediately log into your PayPal Account and
change your password and secret question and answer information. Any
compromised financial information should be reported to the appropriate
parties.

If you notice any unauthorized activity associated with your PayPal
transaction history, please immediately report this to PayPal by following
the instructions below:

1. Go to https://www.paypal.com/
2. Click on the Security Center at the bottom of the page
3. Click on "Report a Problem"
4. Select the Topic: Report Fraud
5: Select the Subtopic: Unauthorized use of my PayPal Account, and click
Continue.
6. Follow the instructions to access the appropriate form

***********************************************************
PayPal and its representatives will NEVER ask you to reveal your
password. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this policy. If anyone claiming
to work for PayPal asks for your password under any circumstances, by
email or by phone, please refuse and immediately contact us via webform
at https://www.paypal.com/wf/f=sa_defaultt

See clever virus scams that are making the rounds.

"Scam" e-mails have gone to great lengths to have the look and feel of the original site by actually linking to the real site's graphics. One way to protect yourself from being scammed is to cut and paste this code into your browser address bar;

javascript:alert("The real URL of this site is: " + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/");

It will tell you where the site is actually located. Many of the scammers use a GIF or "image" of the real legitimate site, but hyperlink the GIF to the scam site.

‘Background check’ used to steal full slate of personal info

By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC

Nov. 4 — It was just the job lead Jim needed: a marketing manager position with Arthur Gallagher, a leading international insurance broker. And only days after Jim responded to the job posting on Monster.com, a human resources director sent along a promising e-mail. We’re interested in you, the note said. The salary is negotiable, the clients big. In fact, the clients are so valuable and sensitive that you’ll have to submit to a background check as part of the interview process. Eager for work, Jim complied — and sent off just about every key to his digital identity, including his age, height, weight, Social Security number, bank account numbers, even his mother’s maiden name.

IT WAS ALL JUST an elaborate identity theft scam designed to prey on the most vulnerable potential victims - the increasing ranks of the unemployed.
Job seekers don't have a lot of leverage when they are asked to jump through hoops by prospective employers - not now, anyway, with unemployment continuing to rise at a menacingly slow, steady rate. October saw the highest rate of job cuts since January, and the national unemployment rate now sits at 5.7 percent.
Online job classifieds seem the like the perfect antidote for those in the job market, like Jim, who began his search in August after he learned his company is involved in a big-ticket merger, with layoffs likely.
So Jim didn't really consider rejecting a request for a background check from William T. Levinski, who identified himself as Arthur Gallagher's human resource director. After all, Arthur Gallagher is a billion-dollar-a-year insurance firm with locations in eight countries.
"I'm sure they have a lot of sensitive client information, so it made sense," he said. Plus, it was a great opportunity. Jim, who requested his identity be withheld for this story, filled out the extensive background check form.
Click here for full story:

New Twist On Identity Theft -FTC warning for employees
How Not to Get Hooked by a 'Phishing' Scam

Internet scammers casting about for people's financial information have a new way to lure unsuspecting victims: They go "phishing."
Phishing, also called "carding," is a high-tech scam that uses spam to deceive consumers into disclosing their credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the emails pretend to be from businesses the potential victims deal with - for example, their Internet service provider (ISP), online payment service or bank. The fraudsters tell recipients that they need to "update" or "validate" their billing information to keep their accounts active, and direct them to a "look-alike" Web site of the legitimate business, further tricking consumers into thinking they are responding to a bona fide request. Unknowingly, consumers submit their financial information - not to the businesses - but the scammers, who use it to order goods and services and obtain credit.

Print a copy the FTC warning and put in your employees mailbox;
Click here for PDF of FTC warning