CNN and other major news sources are reporting that there is a very new and highly dangerous Facebook scam being employed.  This is a fake e-mail from Facebook asking users to open an attachment to receive a new password. Once opened, this attachment infects the user’s computer with a password stealer, which can give these criminals access to your banking, credit card, and other personal financial information.

The fake email may appear somewhat as like this:

Hey [user's name]:

Because of measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. You can find your new password in attached document.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team.

It is likely that those distributing this scam will change what this message says or use different variations in wording. So be advised, Facebook IS NOT changing passwords. DO NOT OPEN any such attachments. DELETE this message immediately upon receipt!

Here’s a new wrinkle in e-mail scams. It plays on your curiosity to find out who has a secret crush on you. If you click on the care2.com link, you will be taken to a personal message that is shown after this e-mail:

917595 sent you an eCard from Care2! Click on the following link to view your eCard, or paste it into your browser:

http://www.care2.com/send/pickup/1311-62411-134424-2729

This Care2 eCard was sent November 8, 2009 and will be available for 14 days.

Warm wishes,
www.Care2.com
Where spreading love & laughter helps save the world.
Every time you send a FREE Care2 eCard you save a square foot of rain forest. Learn More.

Here is the e-card message you will receive. Note that it informs you that you “may have to use a CC (Credit Card) or a debit card for verification. THIS WILL END UP BEING A SURPRISE CHARGE ON YOUR ACCOUNT. DO NOT SUPPLY ANY FINANCIAL INFO TO THIS TYPE OF SCAMMER. Here’s what the card will say:

The next e-Card message will display this personal message:

n4y7h4r

Hi Barry… This is difficult for me to do because I’m shy..but I have a crush on you. I’ve never been able to tell you for reasons which you would quickly identify as obvious if you knew who this was. With that said I want you to guess who I am and approach me yourself.

To help you out with your guessing I made a few pictures and videos with Barry written on my body. They’re kind of risque photos so I had to make a profile at www.megafriendly.com (copy & paste or type www.megafriendly.com into your web browser). My username in the members area is BarryandME09. It’s a free website but you might need a CC or Debit to verify your age because I had to. Sigh.

But anyway sign up at www.megafriendly.com and once you are inside search for me. I want you to guess who I am and then approach me yourself. I’m shy and this is the bravest thing I’ve probably ever done but you need to do the rest.

Kisses
Secret Admirer

p4b2e0k5q8m1u9e1v8g0

If you now enter the www.megafriendly.com URL into your browser and click search, it will quickly make the scam clear: This is a web cam girl’s site. And their goal is to get your financial info so they can charge you later!!

The thing to remember here is NEVER to provide any further actions. DO NOT fill out the financial info even though it says “$0 charge for age verification”.

JOB SEEKERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT A RECENT DISPATCHER’S POSITION ADVERTISED ON CRAIG’S LIST IS A SCAM. THE COMPANY IS LEGITIMATE (N. Brown Group, PLC) BUT THAT’S WHERE ANY LEGITIMACY ENDS.  IF YOU RESPOND TO THIS AD, THE E-MAIL BELOW IS WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE. THE NOTICE IN RED THAT FOLLOWS WAS SENT TO THE COMPANY TO ALERT THEM TO THIS SCAM IN THEIR NAME:

N Brown Group plc

Griffin House,

40 Lever Street,

Manchester,

M60 6ES,

United Kingdom.

Dear Applicant,

We received your application for the job posted on Craig’s List website.

Thank you for your interest in a position with N Brown Group plc. Our

HR managers have gone through your resume and you have been short

listed for the offer pending final approval. Your reference number is

A116.

Our central Head Office is home to our Marketing, Merchandising,

Finance, IT, and Human Resources. Our Warehousing and Distribution

operations (Fulfilment Logistics) are based at our sites in the Oldham

and Glossop area. Our Customer Service team is based at our new

contact centre, Martin House within the MEN Arena. In addition to Home

Shopping we have a Financial Services Division, First Financial, who

market and sell a range of Financial Products.

N Brown Group plc is a trading style of J D Williams & Company

Limited, the UK’s leading direct home shopping company, operating over

20 successful catalogue brands. Our catalogues offer a huge selection

of Art, Educational materials, clothing and other products for all

ages and sizes.

All our clothes are designed to provide the best fit

at the best value, and we are specialists in the area of larger size

womenswear.

The company was founded in 1875 by James David Williams, who in 1882

was the first to make use of the UK ‘s parcel post service, to send

his company’s products direct to his customers. The formula of

providing quality, fashionable, value for money clothing direct to

customers proved increasingly popular towards the latter end of the

20th Century and J D Williams enjoyed significant growth. This

continuing growth has ensured J D Williams is the most successful

direct home shopping company in the UK today, with over 2 million

customers and 4,000 employees. For more information about us, please

visit www.nbrown.co.uk

Our Mission

We are expanding to the United States, so we want to reach out to

people in the United States and advertise our new product by

distributing the company’s catalogs to individual, offices, private

and public places. Successful candidates will work either weekdays or

weekends depending on choice and get paid weekly

Job Description

Our duties is to help them manage their finance, see to their daily

spending, pay bills sometimes on their behalf & send out checks on

their behalf. Your own job is to print out the checks whenever we need

you to print it online and drop them off for shipping. We’ll give your

a procedure to set up the online account which you’re going to use for

the printing whenever you need to work. We’ll also provide you the

courier shipping labels (UPS SERVICE) for the drop off of the

check. Below are materials you need to set up to get started as soon as

possible.

*Magnetic Versa Ink

*Versa Printer (Not needed if you have a printer at home already)

*Business size check Paper

*http://www.avanquestusa.com/ check_writing/default.asptr1=

AQ_US_PP_GO_CKS&gclid= CIvB9pTo7JQCFQqdnAod3w1Arg  (Checksoft 2009

Platinum (Premier) ) Version to download

This are what you need to get ready in order to get started. We

understand you will need to pay for all this material, kindly do so and

let us know much it cost you to get everything set up so that you can

have your money back. Concerning your pay per week, we’re offering you

$700 per week for a start & we’ll increase it later in the future

depending on how reliable, dependable and hard working you’re.Your

salary will be sending to you  via western union money transfer or

Money gram money transfer

Your Responsibilities:

* You must be efficient

* Applicant must be self motivated

Compensation

You will be paid $700 per week.

At this time, we will like to know how often you get on the internet

because our job requires much checking of your e-mail.

Await your immediate response

Regards,

Mr. James Scott

Personnel Manager

N Brown Group plc

www.nbrown.co.uk

Company Reg Number: 814103

VAT Reg Number: 148 8796 03

Tel: +442086918225

Fax: +442087112636

The attached e-mail is being disseminated in the USA in response to inquiries from an ad on Craig’s List offering a $700/week dispatcher’s job. It is obviously a scam in your name and using the credibility of your beautiful website. I suspect that their telephone response # is in fact a cell phone. You can read more about this scam at: www.scam.com. The e-mail below is what was sent to me following a e-mail to their ad asking only, “where are you located?”

Intelligence Note

Prepared by the Internet Crime

Complaint Center (IC3 )
Work-At-Home Scams
Consumers need to be vigilant when seeking employment on-line.

The IC3 continues to receive numerous complaints from individuals who have fallen

victim to work-at-home scams.

Victims are often hired to “process payments”, “transfer funds” or “reship products.”

These job scams involve the victims receiving and cashing fraudulent checks, transferring

illegally obtained funds for the criminals, or receiving stolen merchandise and

shipping it to the criminals.

Other victims sign up to be a “mystery shopper”, receiving fraudulent checks with

instructions to cash the checks and wire the funds to “test” a company’s services.

Victims are told they will be compensated with a portion of the merchandise or funds.

Work-at-home schemes attract otherwise innocent individuals, causing them to become

part of criminal schemes without realizing they are engaging in illegal behavior.

Job scams often provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity theft when

victims provide their personal information, sometimes even bank account information

to their potential “employer.” The criminal/employer can then use the victim’s information to open credit cards, post on-line auctions, register Web sites, etc., in the victim’s name to commit additional crimes.

If you have been a victim of Internet crime, please file a complaint at

http://www.IC3.gov.

(Excerpted from the U.S. Dep’t of Justice (DOJ)

“But he that filches from me my good name/Robs me of that which not enriches him/And makes me poor indeed.” - Shakespeare, Othello, act iii. Sc. 3.

The short answer is that identity theft is a crime. Identity theft and identity fraud are terms used to refer to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person’s personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain. These Web pages are intended to explain why you need to take precautions to protect yourself from identity theft. Unlike your fingerprints, which are unique to you and cannot be given to someone else for their use, your personal data ­ especially your Social Security number, your bank account or credit card number, your telephone calling card number, and other valuable identifying data ­ can be used, if they fall into the wrong hands, to personally profit at your expense. In the United States and Canada, for example, many people have reported that unauthorized persons have taken funds out of their bank or financial accounts, or, in the worst cases, taken over their identities altogether, running up vast debts and committing crimes while using the victims’ names. In many cases, a victim’s losses may include not only out-of-pocket financial losses, but substantial additional financial costs associated with trying to restore his reputation in the community and correcting erroneous information for which the criminal is responsible.

In one notorious case of identity theft, the criminal, a convicted felon, not only incurred more than $100,000 of credit card debt, obtained a federal home loan, and bought homes, motorcycles, and handguns in the victim’s name, but called his victim to taunt him — saying that he could continue to pose as the victim for as long as he wanted because identity theft was not a federal crime at that time — before filing for bankruptcy, also in the victim’s name. While the victim and his wife spent more than four years and more than $15,000 of their own money to restore their credit and reputation, the criminal served a brief sentence for making a false statement to procure a firearm, but made no restitution to his victim for any of the harm he had caused. This case, and others like it, prompted Congress in 1998 to create a new federal offense of identity theft.

What Are The Most Common Ways To Commit Identity Theft Or Fraud?

Many people do not realize how easily criminals can obtain our personal data without having to break into our homes. In public places, for example, criminals may engage in “shoulder surfing” ­ watching you from a nearby location as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number ­ or listen in on your conversation if you give your credit-card number over the telephone to a hotel or rental car company.

Even the area near your home or office may not be secure. Some criminals engage in “dumpster diving” ­ going through your garbage cans or a communal dumpster or trash bin — to obtain copies of your checks, credit card or bank statements, or other records that typically bear your name, address, and even your telephone number. These types of records make it easier for criminals to get control over accounts in your name and assume your identity.

If you receive applications for “pre-approved” credit cards in the mail, but discard them without tearing up the enclosed materials, criminals may retrieve them and try to activate the cards for their use without your knowledge. (Some credit card companies, when sending credit cards, have adopted security measures that allow a card recipient to activate the card only from his or her home telephone number but this is not yet a universal practice.) Also, if your mail is delivered to a place where others have ready access to it, criminals may simply intercept and redirect your mail to another location.

In recent years, the Internet has become an appealing place for criminals to obtain identifying data, such as passwords or even banking information. In their haste to explore the exciting features of the Internet, many people respond to “spam” ­ unsolicited E-mail ­ that promises them some benefit but requests identifying data, without realizing that in many cases, the requester has no intention of keeping his promise. In some cases, criminals reportedly have used computer technology to obtain large amounts of personal data.

With enough identifying information about an individual, a criminal can take over that individual’s identity to conduct a wide range of crimes: for example, false applications for loans and credit cards, fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts, fraudulent use of telephone calling cards, or obtaining other goods or privileges which the criminal might be denied if he were to use his real name. If the criminal takes steps to ensure that bills for the falsely obtained credit cards, or bank statements showing the unauthorized withdrawals, are sent to an address other than the victim’s, the victim may not become aware of what is happing until the criminal has already inflicted substantial damage on the victim’s assets, credit, and reputation.