Tough Lawyer Lady: No good deed goes unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished
Tough Lawyer Lady, Faye Riva Cohen, P.C. - January 11, 2019

... The story involves a homeless drug-addicted man, Johnny Bobbitt, who allegedly used his last $20 to help a young lady, Kate McClure, when she allegedly ran out of gas near the spot where Bobbitt was panhandling. In turn, McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, started a GoFundMe.com page for the purpose of helping Bobbitt with his drug addiction problems and finding him a home. The public responded graciously and $400,000 was raised to assist Bobbitt.

... This entire story fell apart as a court appointed lawyers to protect Bobbitt’s interests, and an investigation began. It appeared that all three of the players were in cahoots with each other from the beginning, spinning a false story, which disintegrated into three separate versions, placing blame on each other.

Read the full article for the details.

It is very sad when criminals pull scams like this. In addition to conning the public out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, many people will see this story and decide that all of the needy poor are scammers. People legitimately in need of charity will suffer because of what these three people did.

Krebs on Security: Tracking a Bluetooth Skimmer Gang in Mexico

Tracking a Bluetooth Skimmer Gang in Mexico

-Sept. 9, 12:30 p.m. CT, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico: Halfway down the southbound four-lane highway from Cancun to the ancient ruins in Tulum, traffic inexplicably slowed to a halt. There was some sort of checkpoint ahead by the Mexican Federal Police. I began to wonder whether it was a good idea to have brought along the ATM skimmer instead of leaving it in the hotel safe. If the cops searched my stuff, how could I explain having ultra-sophisticated Bluetooth ATM skimmer components in my backpack?

The above paragraph is an excerpt that I pulled from the body of Part II in this series of articles and video essays stemming from a recent four-day trip to Mexico. During that trip, I found at least 19 different ATMs that all apparently had been hacked from the inside and retrofitted with tiny, sophisticated devices that store and transmit stolen card data and PINs wirelessly.

Security researcher, Brian Krebs, has been writing extensively about ATM and credit card skimming devices. Typically, these are devices attached to the outside of a terminal - they record card data for later retrieval by criminals. This scam, however, is different. It is installed inside the ATM, and the data is retrieved wirelessly. And it would appear that the crime ring responsible has compromised nearly every ATM in the tourist regions of Mexico.

If you're planning a trip to Mexico, bring all the cash you need in advance. After reading these articles, I wouldn't use my ATM/debit card anywhere in that country. Pay cash where possible. Use credit (preferably with a chip-and-PIN card or something encrypted like Apple Pay) everywhere else. It's clear to me that (at least until this crime ring is brought to justice - which might be a long time) no ATM in the country should be consider trustworthy. (To be fair, part 3 points out that all the compromised machines were standalone machines. ATMs owned and operated by banks appeared to be clean.)

There are currently three parts to this article:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Be sure to read the fine print

Today, while reading my morning comics, I saw an ad for a prepaid debit card with art from the comic strip on the face. I thought, "oh how cute" and that maybe it might be good in a few years when my daughter goes to college, in lieu of traveler's cheques or cash for spending.

Then I clicked on the link to see what the fees are. And OMG, was I blown away by the incredible rip-off this cute card turns out to be:

Fee	Amount
Monthly Maintenance Fee	$5.95 (Waived if you direct deposit $800 every month)
Domestic ATM Cash Withdrawal Fee	$3.00 (per transaction)
International ATM Cash Withdrawal Fee	$3.00 (per transaction)
Over-the-Counter Withdrawal Fee Domestic and International	$3.00 (per transaction)
Balance Inquiry PIN & ATM transactions, Domestic and International ATM	$1.00 (per transaction)
Card Account Closure Fee	$7.00 (Charged if a check is issued for funds on your Card Account and Card Account is closed)
Paper Copy of Statement Fee	$2.00 (per monthly paper statement requested)
CSR Express Delivery Fee	$20.00 (per card; when Card is expedited and reissued or replaced for any reason.)
Foreign Transaction Fee	2.95% (per transaction)
Replacement Card We do our best to protect you. If your card is lost or stolen, contact Customer Support and we'll immediately replace your card and ensure your funds are secure.	$7.50

So, in exchange for holding your money (without paying any interest, of course, you are expected to pay them $6 every month, plus $3 per transaction if you want to get any of your cash back and $1 every time you try to find out how much money is actually in the account. And should your card be lost or stolen, then they're going to charge you $7.50 to replace the card, plus $20 if you don't want to wait a few weeks to receive it.

In contrast, the debit card I have from my bank (an ordinary no-fee checking account) has none of these fees. They will propagate the Cirrus network's ATM fee if you use some other bank's ATM, but that's it.

So can someone tell my why anybody other than a complete sucker would ever want this card?

Stupid spam/scam

I noticed this amusing bit of spam in my spam folder today (some headers stripped away. I'm only including those I'm using to make my point):

To: (my e-mail address)
Subject: (first 4 letters of my e-mail address), Notice to Appear in Court
From: "State Court" <support@electricgroovecrusade.com>
Reply-To: "State Court" <support@electricgroovecrusade.com>

Dear (first 4 letters of my e-mail address),

You have to appear in the Court on the February 19.
Please, do not forget to bring all the documents related to the case.
Note: The case may be heard by the judge in your absence if you do not come.

The Court Notice is attached to this email.

Yours faithfully,
Angel Denton,
Court Secretary.

Attached to this mail is a zip file named "Court_notificaton_#####.zip" (where #### is a bunch of digits I can't be bothered to re-type.) I didn't download it, but I think we can be 99% certain that this attachment, when opened, will install malware on your computer.

So let's see how stupid you would have to be to fall for this spam. In order to trust the source and believe it is important to open this zip file, you would have to believe:

• That a legitimate court will issue a summons via e-mail
• That such a summons will not identify which court it is that is issuing the summons
• That a court will issue a summons without your name on it, preferring instead to make up a fake name based on your e-mail address.
• That despite not knowing my name or address, they somehow know my e-mail address.
• That a court is going to send official correspondence from domain belonging to Electric Groove Crusade (a rock band whose web page has had nothing more than a "coming soon" message since 2010) and not from a domain that actually belongs to the court.

Naked Security: Anatomy of an iTunes phish

Naked Security: Anatomy of an iTunes phish – tips to avoid getting caught out

... We often forget that many things are "obvious" only with experience, meaning, in fact, that they're not really obvious at all.

That's why we do phishing walkthroughs fairly regularly on Naked Security.

The idea is to step you through a typical email phish, pointing out the telltale warning signs in the original email and the web pages that follow, so you know what to look for in future.

So, even if you'd back yourself to spot a phish every time, here's a step-by-step account that might help to save your friends and family in the future. ...

The old "we're from windows" scam

Three times this past week, I've gotten phone calls with the "Windows tech support" scam.

For those unfamiliar, you get a phone call from someone (often with a Russian accent) claiming to be an employee of "Windows". No, not Microsoft, they are very clear to point that out. They claim your computer is full of viruses and that you need to install their software to let them clean it up.

If you're dumb enough to do this, their software locks your computer. You then have to pay these people several hundred dollars every months in order to use your computer. When you stop paying, their software bricks your computer.

So far, I've been threatening to report these people to the FBI, but unfortunately, they are using spoofed caller ID numbers (the most recent one is from 474-475-1328 - which is a non-existent area code. As a result, the national do-not-call list is useless, as is Verizon's service for tracking down criminal abuse of the phone system.

Does anyone have a clue what else I can do to find the bastards and nail their balls to the floor? If you know someone in the FBI or other appropriate government agency and can forward this to them, please do so. I'll testify in court. Heck, I'll flip the switch if they can be given the death penalty.

How stupid do scammers think you are?

For some stupid reason, I decided to read a message in my spam folder. You've got to be the dumbest person on Earth to fall for this scam.