Michael Gracie

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers is touring the state talking about fraud, privacy and identity theft. His last stop, in Pueblo, was met with something less than enthusiasm - in fact, he was met with nobody at all. The AG was targeting the elderly - the ones you would think would be the most vulnerable. According to Suthers, one-third of fraud victims are seniors.

Hat tip to ColoradoPols for picking this one up, and a bit of a smirk to them as well, for politicizing it. I don’t care who your candidate of choice is, and/or what they are promising. Not a one of them can stop this stuff - new laws, policing, etc. won’t put much of a dent in it. But, education and awareness will. And I’ll applaud Suthers for trying.

And to those sniveling about the poor turnout - you won’t be when someone empties your bank account.

It is a total no-no for a registered investment advisor to “guarantee” an investment return. It is even worse to run sans licensing within your state’s guidelines while promoting a fund that has already lost everything. Unfortunately (and I hate saying this), those actions are what a Colorado-based hedge has been accused of doing.

Investors need to keep an eye out for early warning signs of trouble. “Guarantees” are one reason you should walk away from a particular investment, and suspect dealing in a sector is a big reason to be wary of it all.

You know the rest. If you are sitting on a gravy train, why spoil it? When folks start cutting corners, screwing their customers, and setting up accounts in the Caymans, you should cut and run from business dealings with them. Financial fraud is usually a pretty good sign there are underlying problems with the system. Case in point, REFCO.

Now the housing market may seem fantastic to some, on shaky ground to others. To Jeff Matthews, its a House of Paaaaaaain. I’ll reserve my comments on which way its headed, as I have probably said enough already.

But I have to wonder why brokers in a market full of opportunity are committing frauds.

Nevermind that I am an investor in a Refco futures fund (gulp…hmm…gulp). It is cash that investors in the company need to worry about, as shit has certainly hit the fan over there.
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It seems spam (and I will dump phishing into that bucket too), is starting to have an effect on consuumer behaviour. This is not a good thing. According to a report from InternetRetailer.com, GMIPoll (a market research company) surveyed roughly 20,000 online users across the globe about their online shopping habits and the effect spam has on them. The news is not very good.
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The Guardian just spit out this report which says that email scams which try to separate the recipient from their hard-earned dough effect roughly 50% of all internet users. Now there is a story that warms my heart - one that doesn’t dance around what a serious issue spam, phishing and other internet related fraud really is.
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Ebay has long been a target for fraud. Some of it has to do with the gamey nature of eBay - everyone is looking for a “steal” of a deal, and some simply take it literally. As the market has become more liquid, it is less a place to find basement-price bargains, at least legitimately, but the auction format and reputation are still enough to fool some folks into buying non-existent goods at some ridiculously low price.

But of course, eBay and its cousin Paypal have also been the pawn in many phishing attempts. And like the tracking of a deadly disease, it would be interesting to hear how it got started and why, and what ebay is doing about it. Well now you can.
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Brian McWilliams, author of Spam Kings, has an interesting story over at his weblog. It seems one time newsgroup spammer Roy Giles is now using spam to raise money for a purported religious organization.

I think a couple of points are going to thrwart tangible action against Mr. Giles, so Spamroll is suggesting the online community put the kibosh on it.
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There has been a rash of press lately on data theft, its relation to spam and phishing, and its implications for ecommerce. But was hasn’t been analyzed very thoroughly is the source of these incidents. The general consensus always seems to be it is some internet scammers fault.
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