How not to get scammed (A TTY Warning!)

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A couple of months ago, The Funds Transfer Alliance sent an email (attached below) warning merchants about a scam that targets merchant accounts in specific regions of the country. Since then we've heard several success stories of how the information has helped our merchants catch "scammers" in the act and how you are now on guard because of it (something we love to hear!). So we figured we'd thank you for your efforts and send an update with some of the newest tactics we are hearing about. A merchant of ours that is a medical office recently described an unsolicited request, that sounded more like a threat, demanding that she complete a "Medical Provider Questionnaire" (purposely similar to the PCI Compliance survey). If the questionnaire was not completed, she explained, their office would be fined. They were also sending someone to her location to review her merchant account statements to make sure they were "set up" appropriately as a medical office, yet they never disclosed to her the name of their business or their professional affiliation. Thankfully, while she was initially flustered by the demands and completed their questionnaire, she also remembered the email we sent and decided to call us. Together we figured out the scam and averted the potential crisis!

Now unfortunately not everyone is so lucky. Members of our Merchant Support staff were absolutely devastated to hear from a merchant who explained that they had a suspicious transaction from a person using the internet telephone support system for the deaf (TTY). The card holder lived in Texas but had a Washington area code and a Texas shipping address. Be very wary of such discrepancies. Please don't be afraid to double check the transaction with the card issuing bank by calling the 800 number on the back of the card. If the card is not present, ask the customer to provide the number to you.  If they have a problem with the request, you've caught yourself a bad guy.  In this case, the merchant lost a substantial sum of money as well as the shipped product when the actual owner of the stolen card initiated a dispute. A few days later, another merchant who also had a TTY transaction heard a segment on their local radio station about recent scams targeting business owners using the phone system for the deaf and immediately called us. Sure enough, after a little digging, we've discovered an outbreak of this type of fraud across the country. We're not asking you to discriminate against legitimate customers that need the assistance of a TTY system.  We are simply urging you to be extra thorough in qualifying the customer before sending your product. If you have any questions, my contact info is below. For more information, please read this story on MSN about TTY scams.      

Anatomy of True Scam...

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One of our Funds Transfer Alliance employees just received this warning about how Michael's pin pads may have been hacked by scammers...

Dear Michaels Customer: Michaels has just learned that it may have been a victim of PIN pad tampering in the Chicago area and that customer credit and debit card information may have been compromised.  In the event that this is a more widespread issue, we are taking the precautionary measure of alerting all of our customers so that they may protect themselves.  We recommend immediately contacting your bank and/or credit card company to check for and report any unauthorized charges, as well as seek their advice on how to protect your account in the event that your information has been taken.  Additional information is available on the Federal Trade Commission website at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt150.shtm. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused you, and we want you to know that we are working with law enforcement authorities in every way we can to help in the investigation.  As always, we thank you for being a Michaels customer. Thank you. Sincerely, John B. Menzer CEO, Michaels Stores

Related articles

• Michael's stores report credit, debit card breach (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The Anatomy of a (Non)scam

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The internet is a wild place. Full of promise and pitfalls. The forger of relationships and the destroyer of YouTube dreams. Although people really seem to like that Friday Song by Rebecca Black. One hundred and thirty million views later, God, please bless the United States of America. We need all the help we can get.

Speaking of God, Google sure is used for some interesting purposes. In the latest case, have you seen how savvy web saboteurs use scraper sites in a very bizarre manner, essentially stealing key words to fill their content? The purpose of these sites is to draw users to a site that has no real purpose other than a prayer that you'll click through because you couldn't find any useful information and line their pockets, albeit slowly, with Adsense. But since they're entirely automated, it's not like it's any sweat off their backs.

Why do I bring this up? Well, it's perfectly fine if people want to degrade the user's experience. I mean, most people know better than to click through or love up on these sites. However, when they do this, it's less than ideal.

Now, obviously a scraper site with the Headline "funds transfer alliance scam" isn't the worst thing that's ever happened because if anyone looks at the actual page they realize what it is or at least that it's some weird, automatically generated site. Or is it the worst thing that's ever happened? Riddle me this... I, along with several of my coworkers, have auto searches on key words related to our company. It's important to know if people are having problems. It's an early detection system. We want to be able to respond quickly. And, the disconcerting factor of all of this is that we get these all the time. It's amazing how many times your heart can drop getting a funds transfer alliance scam alert only to find out it's 1) a nigerian funds transfer scam 2) a scraper site.

Here's the question? Do you monitor your company daily and if so do you have any bizarre circumstances that happen over and over and if so what are they and do they have the potential to harm your business?

Related articles

• Bye-Bye, Bottom Scrapers: Google Says You Lack Quality (socialmediatoday.com)
• How Google Creates Black Hats (seobook.com)
• One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves (pzxc.com)
• One Year Later: Changes in SEO (seomoz.org)
• Server Stats Reveal Data Mining (clickfire.com)