New York SBDC Research Network

From the Internal Revenue Service : The Internal Revenue Service, state tax agencies and the tax industry will hold a National Tax Security Awareness Week December 3-7, 2018 to encourage individual and business taxpayers to take steps to protect their tax data and identities in advance of the 2019 filing season. The IRS announced steep declines in tax-related identity theft in 2017 following the success of the Security Summit effort. Key indicators of identity theft dropped for the second year in a row in 2017. This includes a 40 percent decline in taxpayers reporting they are victims of identity theft in 2016. Since 2015, the number of tax-related identity theft victims has fallen by almost two-thirds and billions of dollars of taxpayer refunds have been protected. The Don't Take the Bait awareness series is focused on the need for tax professionals to increase their computer security and be cautious of spear phishing scams. Tax professionals must remember that they have a l

Obtained From:   Federal Trade Comission The Federal Trade Commission has charged a business opportunity scheme with falsely claiming that people who buy the defendants’ expensive  “Amazing Wealth System”  will learn “secrets for making money on Amazon” and likely earn thousands of dollars a month. According to the FTC, the defendants, who have no affiliation with Amazon.com, have made false or unsubstantiated earnings claims, such as, “Get started on Amazon and Make $5,000-$10,000 in the next 30 days. . . even if you have never sold anything online before.”  They charge from $995 to more than $35,000 for a purported exclusive “plug-and-play system” that allows consumers to create a profitable online business selling products on Amazon.com. Contrary to the defendants’ promises, most, if not virtually all, purchasers do not earn the advertised income. Many of the strategies and techniques included in the “system,” such as posting fake product reviews, are deceptive and violate

Obtained from: eMarketer If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Online buying scams were the biggest type of consumer fraud in 2017, according to the Better Business Bureau's (BBB's) annual scam-tracking report—up from fourth place a year earlier. The rise of digital shopping and growing comfort with sharing personal information online are factors in this growing category of fraud. At its most basic, consumers pay for something they never receive, which according to the BBB involves pets and clothing more than other types of online purchases. Most cases involve credit card payments. The report broke down susceptibility and loss by age, and very clear patterns emerged.

From:  eMarketer.Retail The rollout of EMV chip cards in recent years may have deterred criminals from making fraudulent in-store purchases, but it hasn’t stopped them dead in their tracks. They simply found a new target: call centers. Call center fraud rates have increased steadily every year since at least 2013 and more than doubled between 2015 and 2016, according to an annual call center fraud study by the research lab of Pindrop, which helps financial institutions and retailers battle call-center fraud. It counts among its investors Google Capital and Citi Ventures. For retailers, so-called chargeback fraud is the most common: Criminals call a retailer, make a fraudulent purchase using someone else’s identity and credit card number, and have the product sent to another address. Loyalty cards also have surfaced as a major area of attack as criminals use them to cash out reward points, said David Dewey, director of research at Pindrop Labs, in an interview. The report, wh

This is a 92-page PDF file recently released by the Federal Trade Commission. It provides all kinds of data for 2007, summarizing the 800,000+ complaints of consumer fraud and identity theft received by the FTC's complaint database (known as the "Consumer Sentinel"). I've often wondered what the Consumer Sentinel contains regarding specific companies. This database exists as a tool available only to law enforcement agencies across the U.S., for use in any investigations that they might be undertaking. Up until page 20, data is presented on a national level for a variety of categories (e.g., "Number of Internet-Related Fraud Complaints," "How Identity Theft Victims' Information Is Misused," etc.). The rest of the report focuses on complaint data broken down by state (New York is on page 53). I've blogged about this before, and, unfortunately, I'll feel compelled to blog about next year, too. Be careful out there.

Who among you haven't had a client who wonders or worries about being taken in an online scam? It's a topic I've written about since we developed this blog. Since e-mail & the Internet aren't going away soon, it might be helpful to you & your clients to read the Internet Crime Report: 2006 . It's a 27-page report issued from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (the IC3), and it provides insights into the current trends being used to con people out of their money via electronic means. (You can just read the highlights here , too.) The report identifies nine broad types of online fraud, including identity theft, investment fraud, phishing, spamming, cyberstalking, and other nasty things. Appendix II of the report offers tips on how to avoid falling prey to perpetrators, too. The report represents just a fraction of the online fraud that goes on. Most crimes don't get reported. If you or any of your clients feel like they've been victimized, have t