Internet complaint boards have been busy and credit card fraud departments are scratching their heads. Thousands of customers across the country are reporting small (about 25 cents to 1 dollar) charges mysteriously appearing on their monthly statements. The Boston Globe carried the story here.

The charge shows up on statements as coming from “Adele Services” in Melville, N.Y. Of course, there is no business by that name in Melville, or anywhere in New York. According to The Boston Globe, “Two theories of what is going on have advanced on message boards and among consumer advocates: Someone is trying to find out whether an illegally obtained credit card number will work before making a bigger charge, or they’re trying to rip off tiny amounts from tons of people.”

So far, most reports indicate that no larger charges have appeared yet. However, the Better Business Bureau estimates the number of victims to be in the millions. It has not yet been determined how the card numbers became compromised. It has been mostly successful since most people are likely to overlook or ignore a small charge. As former Massachusetts assistant attorney general Edgar Dworsky, told The Boston Globe, “It’s easier to steal $1 from a million people than $1 million from one person.”

This is a great reminder of why it is important to examine your monthly statements closely, and to always question charges you do not recognize no matter how small. If you let it slide, that is exactly what they are hoping for. If you have one of these charges, call your financial institution and notify them of the disputed charge. Then file a complaint with the FTC (www.ftc.gov) and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov). It is important to lodge a complaint, even if the charge is small, as a large number of similar complaints can launch a federal investigation.

Recently, I was contacted by one of our members regarding some frightening email he received. We all have received spam and phishing attempts in our inboxes, but this message is much more sinister. This scam comes in the form of a death threat, resembling an assassination notification.

This email scam has touched many people, including Florida State Rep. Rob Schenck. You can find the article about it here. Schenck’s commented; “When you read something that disturbing, for a moment you do get concerned. No matter whether it’s fake or not, if someone talks about killing your family, it’s unsettling.”

The message warns of certain death unless the reader sends in large sums of money. The email also states that contacting anyone, including the authorities, will extend the death contract to your family. Some versions of the message even indicate that they will provide you proof of the person who hired the assassin to kill you once you provide them with the money.

This is just scam, if a very frightening one. The sheriff’s office reminds people that “you have to be a willing victim to fall victim… this is just a new scare tactic to get money out of people.” Authorities recommend that you do not click any links or respond to the message, and simply delete it entirely from your mail.

This is a reminder to us all how aggressive and clever identity thieves are. We must remain vigilant, and always scrutinize messages we receive by email, phone, text message, or mail. Trust your instincts and if something doesn’t feel right, listen to that feeling.

Rachel James- Intake Specialist

By Rachel James

A new method of scams, as described by this article, from IT World, called “Why you can’t trust ‘friends’ on Facebook”, is another example of the risks that social networking exposes us to:

Step 1: Request to be “friends” with a dozen strangers on MySpace . Let’s say half of them accept. Collect a list of all their friends.

Step 2: Go to Facebook and search for those six people. Let’s say you find four of them also on Facebook. Request to be their friends on Facebook. All accept because you’re already an established friend.

Step 3: Now compare the MySpace friends against the Facebook friends. Generate a list of people that are on MySpace but are not on Facebook. Grab the photos and profile data on those people from MySpace and use it to create false but convincing profiles on Facebook. Send “friend” requests to your victims on Facebook.

As a bonus, others who are friends of both your victims and your fake self will contact you to be friends and, of course, you’ll accept. In fact, Facebook itself will suggest you as a friend to those people.

(Think about the trust factor here. For these secondary victims, they not only feel they know you, but actually request “friend” status. They sought you out.)

Step 4: Now, you’re in business. You can ask things of these people that only friends dare ask.

“Let’s meet for drinks — bring your new car!”

“I’m in Nigeria on vacation, got robbed and need $500 to get home!”