Scam artists keep devising new ways to swindle

What would we do without scam artists, those shadowy, often exotic, enterprising rascals who keep us on our toes.

We’ll never have that problem.

A continuing torrent of fraudulent pitches shows that scam artists are here to stay, like lamprey that suck fish and other living creatures dry.

In the past few weeks, The Columbian has received the most complaints about crooks who claim, in phone call recordings, that they can lower the interest rates on your credit cards.

But it’s limited time only!

Press 9, the message says, to speak with an operator.

Once they are on the line, it’s obvious they want your credit-card numbers, but they know nothing about your business.

Clark County residents have asked the clueless operators the simplest questions, and the operators drifted away like wisps of smoke from a cheap cigarette.

A Hazel Dell woman, 73, asked "What credit card are you calling from? I have three."

The phone went dead.

She called the number that appeared on her caller ID and learned it was not available.

Police and the attorney general’s office have confirmed it’s a scam.

Here are a few more recent pitches:

n A woman who lives in Fisher’s Landing was checking out craigslist for a part-time job and found an offer seeking an accounts payable assistant.

When she investigated, she learned she was supposed to move money around and she’d get 10 percent. She knew it was a scam.

The police job title for shuffling money from account to account, i.e., hiding cash for drug and prostitution rings is "money mule."

It’s a lose-lose. The criminals have been known to commit identity theft on their mules, and the police take a dim view of hiding crooked money as well, according to www.scambusters.com, a free service that’s endorsed by police.

n The mystery or secret shopper scam is still being e-mailed to "undisclosed recipients," meaning every e-mail address the crooks can buy from other scoundrels who collect them by the millions.

The senders claim they’ll pay you to shop and then write reports on how friendly and helpful the clerks are. They send you a forged worthless "check," which you deposit in your account and then wire real money to the crooks.

n Someone who claimed to be with The PayPal Team sent Columbian employees a poorly spelled e-mail with the company’s logo copied and pasted onto it, saying an unauthorized person had gotten into their accounts.

"We require that you login to your account and update your billing information and security questions, so that furter [sic] third party access can be prevented. Failure to update your billing information and security questions before 72 hours may ressult [sic] in suspension of your account."

This reporter has no PayPal account, so it’s an obvious scam.

But you have to give the scammers some credit. The e-mail has a section called "Protect Your Account Info" that says "Make sure you never provide your password to fraudulent websites" and "PayPal will never ask you to enter your password in an e-mail."

What bunk!

n "Attention," a recent e-mail said. "Your email ID emerged among 7 lucky ones in the 1st category prize fund of 1,500,000 Euro each. Microsoft submitted Over 50 million Emails used for the online ballot sweepstakes promotion for Internet users. Contact Foreign Transfer Manager for claims."

The crooks apparently still get a bite on clunker lures like this once in a while. Otherwise why do they keep sending them?

And here’s some up-to-date information from LifeLock, a legitimate company that works to protect victims from identity theft.

"Cybercriminals tend to have specialties," Kim Thompson, the company’s corporate communications coordinator, wrote in a press bulletin. "Data thieves, also called ‘harvesters,’ sell people’s personal financial information to brokers who either use the data themselves, hire others to do the leg work to withdraw the money, or sell it to others via IRC channels, private peer-to-peer networks, carder sites and other organized underground marketplaces."

"There is so much stolen magnetic-stripe data available on the underground markets that prices for it have dropped, and credit card data can range in price from 6 cents for bulk quantities to $30, while bank account credentials range from $10 to $1,000, according to a Symantec Internet Security Threat Report released (in April.)

"Most of the stolen credit card data for sale is from the U.S., the report found."

In view of this, it might not be a bad idea to have your credit-card and bank account numbers changed once in a while, to stay ahead of the game.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.