DataVisor Global Fraud Watch June 2021
Organizations of all sizes and across all industries can benefit from knowing the potential types of fraud they face. DataVisor creates this monthly Global Fraud Trends report because getting better at identifying fraud begins with achieving greater fraud awareness.
This month’s global fraud and risk report demonstrates the need for advanced fraud solutions to reduce vulnerability and improve your overall fraud detection and prevention efforts.
Children Can Be Targets of Identity Theft, Too
Detecting stolen identities is a goal for any fraud prevention solutions, but what about when those identities belong to children? This was the case for one Tacoma woman who stole and used the identities of 13 American Samoa children, along with the identity of her deceased ex-husband, to claim benefits to which she wasn’t entitled. The amount totaled $276,000 over the course of seven years. The women used the identities to open bank accounts and credit cards as a form of “free money.”
The Takeaway: Knowing more about a customer’s profile, such as age and birth date, can help to detect fraud involving children’s identities.
Elderly Citizens are Targets of Fraud
The elderly are among the most vulnerable population, which is why fraudsters conduct scams to target them directly. In one recent case, more than 10 people were caught, tried, and sentenced in a large-scale scheme to exploit elderly citizens.
The group conducted robocalls using a call center in India, claiming the elderly victims had a legal matter that required their immediate attention. What’s more, the calls claimed that the victims faced severe consequences if they failed to act.
Once the victims accepted the call, they were transferred to another individual impersonating the FBI, DEA, SSA, or other official group. The goal was to have the victim wire or transfer money to the fraudsters. The estimated sum of the damage was roughly $152.9 million, but may be larger since not all elderly victims report all of their losses.
The Takeaway: Suspicious spending or money transfer patterns from elderly citizens (or any customer, for that matter) may indicate potential fraudulent activity.
Coronavirus Fears Open the Door to Fraud
Any time of uncertainty will lead to fear of that uncertainty. Fraudsters are quick to take advantage of this fear, which was the case with one phishing scam when many were working remotely.
Fraudsters circulated an email that looked as though it came from the CDC, claiming to show the viewer a list of updated COVID cases in their city. The link, however, opened an Email Reply box with the sender’s email domain as “@cdc-gov.org,” with the goal of collecting personal information about the email recipients. A similar email scam was sent requesting money to fight the coronavirus.
The Takeaway: Consumers should be their own advocates against fraud by looking for inconsistencies (e.g., misspellings, etc.) that indicate fraud.
Fight fraud proactively. Get a demo to watch DataVisor’s AI-powered fraud prevention platform in action today.
