FRAUD PREVENTION

As Western Union agents, we have people coming through our doors wanting to send money off for some purpose or another. Unfortunately, sometimes they are going to be ripped off by some crook or con man out there. We frequently refuse to send money because we do not want to contribute to our client losing their money. Our experience with shipping with FedEx, DHL/Loomis and Canpar also gives us an insight on the costs and restrictions of sending things around the world.

We ask certain questions about where the money is going, how well you know the person the money is going to and other such questions. We are not doing this to be snoopy, but to try to protect our client, YOU, the person sending the money. When we as an agent or Western Union feel that you may be about to be ripped off, we can and have refused to send your money. We make a small commission on the fee that you are charged to send the money, but we would rather not make that and have you protected from fraud. Our hope is that when you have a legitimate transaction, we will be your first choice to use our services.

Whether you are sending money via Western Union or a package via a courier, you are responsible for your actions, whether or not you have been informed of possible fraud or not. If you have been informed about possible fraud with your transaction and you insist that it be sent, it is sent totally on your responsibility.

There is only one person that is truly interested in protecting you from others and that is yourself. If you don't care if you are ripped off, then no one else will be either. The BEST way to protect yourself is to ensure that you are aware of various resources that can help you learn how to protect yourself. A number of links that we find useful and informative are located further down this webpage.

Fraud can take many forms, from the Nigerian money scam to someone selling something over the internet that they misrepresent or never deliver. We can not protect you from every scam out there, but we can assist where we can. Our clients have appreciated that we are looking out for them, and that is how we have built our business. Trust is a big issue out there, and when the trust is suspect, it is good to have someone you can ask for their opinion on whether the transaction looks okay or not.

Protection is a habit, including covering the pin pad when using your debit card. We try to remind our clients, sometimes to the point where it seems like nagging, but a reminder about the dangers that lurk out there in the world will hopefully keep our clients vigilant in their defence of their money, property and identity.

Fraudulent/Suspicious Transactions Telexperts-The Ship Centre Has Helped With

These transaction examples are a few of the ones we have helped our clients with, in some cases preventing the client from being defrauded, in others simply confirming that they had and giving advice on what they should do next to protect themselves as best as possible. While we are not able to protect everyone, we do try to ensure fraud is limited through our location. We would rather lose the small commission fee we would receive for sending your money than to see you ripped off. Our attitude is that you will remember us and we hope to see you back in our shop when you have a legitimate transaction to make with Western Union or for one of our other services that Telexperts-The Ship Centre offers.

2005 November 30 - A lady comes in to send money to Russia and she tells us that it is part of her new job, since the company is unable to receive funds directly. We are a bit leary of this and enquire further about this and she says that she is protected since it is the companies account not hers, but she was the person who set up the account, albeit with certification provided by the company. We pointed out that she should ensure that she is protected by asking the bank abot this and also give her the phone number for Phonebusters and our website to look for additional information. We received a phone call a couple days later saying that when she got home, she checked the account online and found the account frozen by the bank. Calling them, it was indeed a fraud and had she sent the money with us, she would have lost it.

2005 May 13 - We received a phone call from someone who was buying a computer and wanted to make sure that he would get it. He had email from DHL saying they were holding it for him, waiting for confirmation of payment sent via Western Union. In talking to him, he was relieved to hear that he had talked to us but was still enquiring about ways to be able to have the computer sent to him and pay for it after he received it. This is how these frauds keep going, when people have "hope" that they will get a great deal from someone, and some people are very disappointed and keep insisting that it is a good deal. We can tell you so many times it is fraudulent, but some little spark still wants it to be true, and ZAP! they have you if you follow through. We were given permission and the user name and password for this persons hotmail email account and in checking it out, it was definitely fraudulent. We sent a copy of the fraudulent email to DHL and sent this person an email from our account with links to show that it was indeed a fraudulent transaction.

2005 March - A person comes in to send money to someone in Spain. After comleting the send form, he shows us the paperwork instructing him where to send the money and it is for fees for a lottery win. This is clearly a fraud and we tell him this. He has already faxed his identification to them to prove who he is. We refuse to send his money and instruct him to contact PhoneBusters and the credit bureaus and his bank to protect his identity from theft. In his papers, he had a letter telling the crooks that he hoped the deal was legitimate as he would be in trouble financially if it was not. Ensure you do not expose yourself to identity theft and financial loss to these crooks.

2004 December - A person comes in to send money via Western Union for a computer he is buying from the UK. He has an email from DHL saying that they are holding the computer awaiting confirmation of payment before they will be sending it to him. We refused to send the money, telling him he was about to be ripped off. He didn't believe us, so we called DHL and talked to them about it. They suggested that we refuse to send it and as we were talking to the person after hanging up on DHL, we received a phone call from DHL's security department. They confirmed that it was a scam and we faxed the email and what information we had to them. You can see a fraud warning on DHL's website at http//:www.dhl.ca.

2004 November 23 - We receive a phone call from a man who has received a cheque for $35,000.00 from a lawyer who is representing a woman in Nigeria whose family is supposed to have died. His instructions are to send part of the money to the woman in Nigeria, whom he has been communicating with over the internet. Her plans are to come to Canada and put her past behind her. He is unsure as to how he should proceed in sending the money to her and we give him some money saving advice. It turns out the cheque is a counterfeit and he would have lost the money by depositing the cheque and sending funds to Nigeria. The cheque would have bounced and the bank pulled the money from his account, while the money to Nigeria would have arrived fine. Be careful what sad story you hear on the net, for not all of them are true.

2004 November 12 - Customer comes in looking for a payment for someone buying a product from him via an on-line auction. Supposedly Western Union BidPay was sending a money order and he had an email with information on tracking numbers. The customer thought that it was a Western Union money transfer, but the numbers did not show anything. We called BidPay and they said that it was NOT a legitimate email and that BidPay does not send out such letters. The customer had his product packed and a waybill created to send it off. Simply checking on the official status on this saved him the cost of sending the product and losing the value of the product as well. Our experience in many different areas allows us to help our clients protect themselves better.

2004 October 08 - We have told a number of people the last few days to NOT send money to someone. They had received a certified cheque or a cashiers cheque for a larger amount of money and were instructed to keep part of it and send the rest of the money onwards to someone else in another country. Being the honest people that they are, they called us to see how to go about doing their money transfer via Western Union. We told them to be wary of this, as it is a known scam. It is relatively easy to counterfeit a certified or cashiers cheque if you know how. Depending on the location of the bank and holidays, it can take anywhere from two to six or more weeks for the cheque to clear banking processes. If it comes back as fraudulent, your bank will clean your account out to the amount of the fraudulent cheque plus whatever fees it charges to do so. You meanwhile, having sent good money off for bad are the one stuck with a bad debt. - Should you receive a cheque or other such financial instrument, ensure that it is good before you pass along money to someone else. Your money and reputation are on the line.

2004 September 24 - A gentleman comes in wanting to buy a portable computer from someone in Italy who had it advertised on eBay and her ad basically asked for people who might be interested in it to contact her. He did and she responded that she was selling it through eBay's Square Trade program and that eBay would contact him about it. He duly received an email from eBay giving the particulars of the sale and that eBay would stand behind him for any losses, up to 90% of the value of the sale. The person was going to send USD$980.00 for a computer he said would cost him CAD$2500.00 here to purchase, with the seller agreeing to pay for the shipping costs. This had fraud written all over it, from the amount being paid and shipping costs that we looked up. eBay does NOT contact you about sales, as they would be unable to handle the volume of traffic generated, nor does eBay guarantee any sales UNLESS the buyer goes through their processes on auctions for such protection to apply. The seller also had great feedback, but the buyer said it was for having BOUGHT things, not having sold them.

2004 August 06 - A gentleman came in to send some money to pay for the fees required for him to collect his winnings in the ElGordo Lottery in Spain. This was an automatic refusal as 1) you do not send money to collect lottery winnings and 2) there is no ElGordo Lottery anywhere. We called PhoneBusters for this person to let them explain it to him further as he did not believe us. To further mess him him, he had already sent by fax from somewhere else his personal identification information to prove that he was who he said he was and was the identifiable winner, including his drivers licence, social security number, bank account numbers and other identification. We told him to go to the local office of the credit bureau and to file a report with them about identity theft and to be aware of the problems that he could encounter due to identity theft, which can be enormous.

2004 Spring - A lady comes in to send money into the United Kingdom for some alpaca sheep that were under threat of destruction due to the BSE/Mad cow crisis in the UK, and since she raised these sheep, she wanted to buy them for several thousand dollars. She filled out the send form and when we went to send the money, Western Union refused the send, as the person was a known fraudster. This lady came back the next day with a different name of a person who she was given to send the money to. We argued with her for fifteen minutes about how this was not a good idea and that she should do her due diligence to ensure that who she was sending money to was legitimate, but she insisted on sending the money, so we did. We received a phone call the next morning asking us if it was too late to cancel the send. We were able to have the transaction reversed as it had not been picked up yet. She lost her send fee but not the principal amount. She had finally done her due diligence by contacting her telephone and internet supplier and explained that she needed to verify the people she was sending the money to and they were unable to be tracked down by their telephone, email and website addresses given. If the crooks had moved a little faster, she would not have gotten her money back.

The day after the lady with the alpaca sheep came in, another lady came in to send money for alpaca sheep in the United Kingdom. We reused outright to send it before she had completed the paperwork. She called her husband who was the one wanting to buy the sheep and we explained to him what had gone on the previous days. They wanted to talk to the first person so we took their name and phone number and talked to the first lady who then contacted them to compare notes. They knew each other, both raised alpaca sheep and both were on an internet newsgroup where they received an email with the plea about saving these sheep in the UK. Two people saved from being fleeced.

2003/2004 Winter - A young man in his 20's came in who was unable to speak. He was sending money to Nigeria, and when we asked him why using written notes, he explained that his father had died and he was sending money for funeral expenses. He came in a month later to send some additional funds for final expenses for his fathers funeral. Another month or so later when he came in again, we questioned him further saying it was unusual for funerals costs to drag on for so long, and he smiled and admitted that he was going to be getting a lot of money back, that was going to go directly into his bank account from someone who had died. Classic Nigerian Money Scam. We refused the transaction and told him he would not be getting any money from Nigeria, giving him information to contact Phone Busters to confirm it.

Links

One of our favourite sites is http://www.macintouch.com/fraudreports.html - This website is a news and information site concerning Apple Computer's Macintosh computer systems and is updated daily, although the fraud reports are updated only when someone sends in a report. It is simple information of emails comparing notes and including links that documents many peoples experiences and advice with scammers and ecommerce in this section.

The following links provide different information on scams that exist. A number of these sites may have very similar information but may contain information that doesn't exist on other sites. A number of the sites are US based and may contain information that is not directly relevant in Canada, such as information about your rights, who to contact and what the law specifically states. Some services, such as the US National Do-Not-Call Registry are for US consumers only, and do not apply in Canada. Be aware of these differences and use the links to find as much information as you can about the offer you think might be a potential fraud.

While we include clickable links for these websites, the complete website address is also listed, allowing you to copy the website address if you are concerned about the ability to create a fraudulent link. We have no reason to include a fraudulent link, but security mishaps happen and someone could spoof this website. Ensure that you do not expose your personal information wherever possible.

How to recognise spoofed web sites: - http://www.htmlgoodies.com/articles/spoofedurls.html

13 Red Flags For Internet Auctions: An excellent article with 13 things to check before you send money off for your auction purchase. By themselves, these items are not necessarily showing fraud, but when you get more than two or three of them, make sure you do extra examining before you send your money away. -
http://answercenter.ebay.com/thread.jsp?forum=2&thread=810021029

Police Websites

PhoneBusters (established 1993) http://www.phonebusters.com/ and Reporting Economic Crimes On-Line (Recol) - http://www.recol.ca/ - are run by the Ontario Provincial Police out of Thunder Bay with funding provided by the RCMP. If you have been defrauded, these are the groups to report it to, although you may want to report it to your local police service as well. Also has information on different frauds that have been committed and how to inform/protect yourself from these frauds. Both of these websites are available in English and French. Tel: (888) 495-8501 (Call Centre)

Edmonton City Police - http://www.police.edmonton.ab.ca/ - Tel: (780) 421-3333 (Main Switchboard)

RCMP - Royal Canadian Mounted Police - http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ - Tel: (780) 412-5330 (Edmonton Main Switchboard)

While not a police website, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Edmonton Chapter) http://www.ACFE-Edmonton.com/ is the local chapter of ACFE http://www.cfenet.com (established 1988), an organisation that helps to prevent fraud. Certified Fraud Examiners are people that help set policies and procedures within your company or check to ensure that those policies and procedures are effective to prevent internal (staff) and external (customers) fraud from occurring, as well as ensuring compliance with laws, rules and regulations for the company.

Consumer Protection Information

Better Business Bureau - Any site that contains links to the Better Business Bureau you should be suspect of, as their policy is to NOT allow any links of any kind to their website. As such, we do not have a link to any BBB websites, but you can look them up in Google or by calling your local BBB from the phone book. The EDMONTONBBB.ORG anisation has their own site as well as the main USA based BBB.ORG anisation that you can connect to and find out about various scams and information about particular businesses. Government websites are able to link to BBB websites.

BadBusinessBureau http://badbusinessbureau.com and RipOffReport http://www.ripoffreport.com are two identical sites run by the same person who has had bad consumer experiences in the past. An alternative view to Better Business Bureaus and how they operate, this site lists reports filed by people detailing how they were ripped off and naming names. US based although it may contain information on people in other countries.

On 2005 January 08, CTV's W-Five television program did a segment on debit card fraud showing how easy it is for you to be ripped off. Check the two-part video segment out at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1105142446966_16/?hub=WFive and prepare to change how you use your debit card. You may also be angered at the attitude of the Canadian Banking establishment at their attitude about your money and its' security. "According to Peter Hope-Tindall, an expert in computer security, Canada is the perfect country for this crime because Canadian banks are still using a security system that's easy to crack. All that stands between thieves and your money is your pin number and the little black stripe on the back of your bankcard." - Remember to cover up the pin pad when entering your pin at the very minimum or you could become a statistic - 27,000 cases accounting for $44,000,000.00 in debit card theft/fraud in 2003.

We received this ATMBeware.pdf file that shows the SIZE of the skimmers that are attached to an ATM machine. You have to look carefully to ensure there is NOT a skimmer installed on the ATM machine you are using. Whether you think there is a skimmer there or not, you should always cover the pin pad when you enter your number to access your bank/debit/interac card.

An Edmonton-based organisation talking about fraud prevention. Downloadable brochures available: http://www.heads-up.ca/

Canada Post link on recognising a scam: http://www.canadapost.ca/common/help/fraud-e.asp

Financial Consumer Agency of Canada - Government website: http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/default.asp

Telus (Telephone company) website page for consumer protection: http://about.telus.com/publicpolicy/scamsandfraud.html

An ATT (US Telephone company) website for consumer protection: http://www.consumer.att.com/consumertips/

A Qwest (US Telephone company) website for consumer protection: http://www.qwest.com/about/protection/index.html

Scam-O-Rama - Lots of information on different scams, & funny scamming the scammers reports: http://www.scamorama.com/

An article from escrow.com on how to spot a fake escrow website. https://www.escrow.com/fic/ficspot.asp

An article on MSN about fake escrow services: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3078510/

How to spot Fake Escrow Services: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/scams/20040517b1.asp -

How to Avoid Credit Scams: http://credit.about.com/library/howto/htcr_scam.htm

Identity Theft & Phishing Information

Phishing - Fishing for information about you, don't get hooked - http://www.antiphishing.org/

Take the phishing test and see if you can spot the fakes from the real sites - http://survey.mailfrontier.com/survey/quiztest.html

Identity Theft - What to do if it happens to you - http://cmcweb.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/incmc-cmc.nsf/en/fe00078e.html

Identity Theft - http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/

Identity Theft - http://www.idtheftcenter.org/index.shtml

Seattle Times Article on Identity Theft - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001842776_ptgett24.html

Beware: visa-secure.com website is phishing for your data - http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/10/08/cardholders_targetted_by_phishing_attack_using_visasecurecom.html

Counterfeit Currency

The currency of a country is what keeps the economic lifeblood of the country active. Some criminals try to debase the currency by counterfeiting the currency to gain the advantage over the consumer. The rules of most countries is that whomever is the last one holding the counterfeit currency is the loser, the one who eats the value of the counterfeit currency, unless you can prove who gave you the counterfeit. When asked, we have shown our clients the basics of detecting counterfeit currency. The following websites are for Canadian and United States currency information, including how to detect counterfeit currency, for additional information, downloadable brochures and video about currency. A google search should bring up other nations currency information if you require it. We only list the Canadian and US websites as this is the only currency that Telexperts-The Ship Centre accepts.

Bank of Canada - http://www.bankofcanada.ca/ - Available in English and French. Videos available showing how to detect counterfeit currency in QuickTime, Real or Windows Media.

US Department of the Treasury - http://www.treasury.gov/topics/currency/ - English only.

Other Information

The Peter Warren radio show (Corus Radio Network - 630 CHED in Edmonton) has a regular guest named Bruce Bowie (former RCMP officer, not the Bruce Bowie of Edmonton radio station fame) who does a segment on fraud. Bruce Bowie is scheduled to appear on the radio every second Sunday of the month. You can check Peter Warrens website at http://www.peterwarren.com for more information or exact scheduling.

Be aware of spyware that might be running on your computer. Windows is especially vulnerable to these spyware programs, which is why I try to avoid Windows computers wherever possible. Check out a freebie (for personal use) program called Adaware, downloadable at http://www.lavasoftusa.com. You can check for this and other programs like it on Google by searching for spyware.

Be aware that the Windows operating system is particularly vulnerable to spyware, viruses, trojans and worms that can affect your privacy and security. Ensure you have the latest patches and bug fixes for your computer and have the latest versions of anti-virus software available. A good hardware firewall helps in keeping these programs off your computer, but be aware that there are all kinds of undiscovered holes that may need patching in the future due to how complex computers actually are. If you do not keep your computer system up to date, (whether Linux or Macintosh but especially Windows), you increase your risk of falling victim to viruses, worms, trojans and spyware.

Telexperts-The Ship Centre is unable to comment on the validity of or take action in regards to a specific site, and can not guarantee the accuracy or completemess of any information presented. This information is not a validation of, refutation of, or a recommendation for specific services or sites, even if such sites or services are indicated by name. You should make an independent determination of the legitimacy of any online service you use. If you have suggestions for this page, or if you believe any information here is outdated or incorrect, please contact us here.