I was reading a story from earlier this summer about some folks who did not pay close attention. The victims in this story were duped into believing that there were searching for jobs on Craigs List when, in fact, they were transacting instead with sophisticated identity thieves from Latvia.The scam succeeded in getting the victims to divulge their Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other personally identifying information. The victims were told that the hiring company required this information in order to perform background checks.
Once the scammers had the information, they then wired money from russian bank accounts into the personal accounts of the victims. The victims, once funds were received, were instructed to wire the funds into specific accounts (which corresponded to the brokerage accounts the scammers had established). The scammers then proceeded to manipulate the prices of some thinly traded securities and make a handsome profit.
This was a sophisticated attack in that the victim was not the target of the attack but rather a means to the end. The real goal was to manipulate the price of securities. The identity theft victims provided the mechanism of generating apparently legitimate securities transactions. In some cases, the victim was attacked directly as the victims identifying information was used to tap funds the victims had in existing brokerage accounts.
Finra suggests six things to help keep yourself safe. They are:
- Be suspicious of anyone asking for your personal information
- Know who you are doing business with
- Don't Respond to Emails Requesting Personal Information
- Ask questions
- Order a copy of your credit report
- Review your account statements
We support these suggestions as prudent and wise. We further suggest that you get your credit report copy from Merchants through our SmartIdentity program. Where you'll not only get a copy of your credit report, but also a credit score and monthly monitoring of your credit profile.
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