IRS Phishing Scam

Captain America here, keeping you aware of fraud and scams. CNN money and most media outlets are carrying warnings about IRS phishing scam. Phishing is criminal internet scam and fraud. Web manipulators try to trick the unsuspecting public into believing something that simply isn’t true. One of their favorite tactics is to steal credibility of a real authority, in this case the US Government’s IRS office, and suck you in for their own purposes. The criminal sets up sites that are not what the public believes, them to be when they click a search engine or email link. The perpetrators tend to choose names similar to the valid sites.

CNN reports: The Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers about a so-called "phishing" scam in which criminals are attempting to steal money by sending fraudulent e-mails purporting to be from the IRS.

The agency says that the Treasury Inspector General for tax administration has reported that it found 12 separate Web sites in 11 different countries hosting variations on this scheme in which a site that appears to be run by the IRS asks taxpayers to turn over confidential financial information in order to claim a refund.

The agency said the fraud begins with e-mails claiming to come from tax-refunds@irs.gov, admin@irs.gov or other variations on the irs.gov theme. The agency said that hundreds of thousands of fraudulent e-mails have been sent to potential victims advising the recipients that they are under investigation by the IRS or that they have a refund pending from the IRS.

The e-mails generally contain a link to a fraudulent Web site, which the recipients are told to visit.

"The site, a clone of the IRS Web site, displayed an interactive page similar to a genuine IRS one; however, it had been modified to ask for personal and financial information that the genuine IRS interactive page does not require," the agency statement said.

The agency warns that as "a general rule, the IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal information. Additionally, the IRS does not ask people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts."

ALERT: What Drives These Faceless Webmasters?

So far I have been explaining what happens to these faceless google frauders, but lets dig a little deeper. What makes these webmasters do what they do? It’s my mission to ALERT you when I see web sites and people behaving very, very badly.

First let’s imagine what kind of person would try to manipulate Google’s system. Since Google does not specifically say how they rank pages, and further more, because Google’s spiders may only visit a webpage only once or twice a month. They attempt the site fraud and then wait. This is an enormous time investment.

Another quality of these Google defrauders might be that they are bright. They would have to be to out think Google’s best think tanks. I am sure there are many other qualities of these webmasters, but for this example, these two points are the only ones we need. Money motivated and bright.

The way I see it is that any webmaster of this caliber would only become an expert in defrauding Google if there was serious money behind it. If there wasn’t serious money behind it, these people would spend their time chasing another venture that could pay as well.

So this leads me to believe this type of person would only be hired or do something like this if he was either …

A) Trying to sell a product and using a search engine to find customers

B) Bashing other products or services to boost image of another brand, but in order for him to bash a product or service and for his webpage to actually stand out, he would have to write from a ‘concerned citizen’ standpoint and in actuality have a hidden agenda of his own.

C) Or even steal personal information

I have seen countless examples of both all over the internet. It’s funny how so many people believe what they read just because it is written on the web. And they never guess there is a reason for it all.

A google example of google fraud and someone who clearly appears to be carrying out a hidden agenda is at “Lets Get the Word Out”. I say, Let’ Get The Word Out About what this site is doing to Google’s reputation.

Fraud Example: Key Word Stuffing Let’s Get The Word Out

Fraud Example: Link Farm Let’s Get The Word Out

Fraud Example: Scraping content: Let’s Get The Word Out

The intent is to manipulate the search process when innocent and interested people are attempting to find accurate information. They are using deception, bluff, scam, dirty tricks, misdirection and cheating. These actions defraud the public and Google. And this is the exact reason for this site.

We provide what we see and our perspective. The decision is yours. Captain America’ content is protected under the First Amendment.

Google Fraud Alert Contest!

Fraud Alert: Internet Scams Fraud Trends

Another public service of this site, Captain America will alert you to internet fraud trends. Did you know that the average loss to fraud victims last year totaled $895.00? This is up from $527 the previous year.

Auction Fraud Alert: 51% of consumer complaints due to internet fraud and scams are Auction Sites. Scam takes your money and then either never delivers your merchandise or misrepresents the merchandise. The average consumer loss from Auction fraud is $765.00

Merchandise Fraud Alert: Second most prevalent Internet scam or fraud is in the General Merchandise category. This represents 20% on consumer complaints. Be alert. Scam or Fraud involves misrepresented Goods or Services that are not sold through an auction site.

Nigerian Money Offers Fraud Alert: This scam promises riches if the consumer pay to transfer money to their bank account.

Email Fraud: of frauds initiated by email the top scams include Nigerian Money Offers, Phishing (identity theft), Lotteries, and Fake Check Scams.

It can be dangerous out there, stay safe.

We provide the facts. You decide.

Captain America


Resource: National Consumers League Internet Scams / Frauds

Tell us what you think!

Beware Online Business Owners – Click Fraud Alert

So you finally moved your business online. Now what? You must help your customers find your newly created area in cyberspace. Years ago, you would just list your website with a dozen search engines, and then call it a day. But with over 8 trillion web pages indexed today on major search engines, most companies are finding out that their old techniques are nearly useless.
Here comes google’s “Adwords’ program to the rescue! Basically Google’s Adwords program allows companies as well as personal projects to have advertisements not only on google, but also other participating websites. This program helps create revenue 3 ways:

1. Companies looking to get their products sold, pay google to put out their advertisements via Adwords. The hope to sell more products because more people know about their products because they saw the ad box.
   
2. Webmasters can host relevant advertising via Adwords on their own sites. Google will pay these webmasters every time an ad is clicked on their site.
   
3. Google collects a small amount every time an ad is clicked, no matter if the ad was on google.com or on another website. The webmaster collects more.
   This looks like a win, win for everyone, right? The companies get to connect with their customers, and the web site owner’s advertiser locations get paid when they connect a potential customer to a company.
   

After I completed my Google Spam Sites article, it finally hit me! These webmasters that are using “scraping” techniques to create websites all had Adword ads on their website… But why do I think this is subspecies and a topic for Captain America and Google Fraud Alert you might ask? The answer, I believe, relates why these webmasters created the website in the first place… Evidence indicates the sole purpose is to falsely create revenue by using Adword ads.

If these websites are using illegal techniques to get content, why shouldn’t we think they are using other illegal techniques such as “Click Fraud”? Click Fraud is when webmasters click on Adword advertisements on their own websites, or get other people to do this for them, so they get money from google. The person paying the bill is the unsuspecting company who has a Google adwords box. In my honest opinion, this is even worse than scraping, because now we are talking about actual money STOLEN!

Here are a couple links of webmasters that are using scraping techniques just to fill up space so they can have another page of google’s adwords.

1. GOOGLE ALERT WEBRAW (aka QUIXTAR BLOG) Adwords
   http://www.webraw.com/quixtar/
   
   
   ALERT WEBRAW( aka QUIXTAR BLOG) LINKING MEMBER HUGO – More Adwords
   
2. http://log.hugoschotman.com/hugo/
   

If you look closely, the above links seem to fall inside the same “ring” of websites. Is it possible that some group of webmasters is part of a slimy attempt to operate a google fraud ring?

If the name of this linking hub (link farm) site is webraw.com - as his valid domain indicates- is this person attempting a masquerade? Is he guilty of something other than lack of imagination in domain naming? Is he hiding his webraw identity? I say, "Be proud of your fishy heritage."
Why is he directing his sycophants to call links to his http://www.webraw.com/ site Quixtar Blog? And why is he soliciting donations from an unsuspecting public while participating in what might be seen as questionable business practices? I do see a minor disclaimer. More questionable behavior.

Do we also see an attempted high jacking or cyber squatting on the term Quixtar? Could be. Wonder what ransom amount a ring would have in mind to return a name to its legal owners? I observe. You decide.
Unfortunately this behavior isn’t unique to these two.

Tell us what you think!

Applause! House Passes Spyware Penalty Bills

In addition to protecting you, I also want to let you know when I see something good happening. If I can find something worth awarding an “Alert” star to you’ll find it right here on Google Fraud Alert – keeping searchers safe. Two bills passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming majorities. If passed by the Senate; they will severely penalize spyware makers.





Leading anti-spyware makers and ISPs say that more than 75 percent of consumer (home computers) machines have some form of spyware residing in their systems.

The spyware applications download silently without most home computer users even knowing they are there. By visiting certain malicious web sites, disguised as something benign, the user triggers the download.

In some cases, the computer starts displaying ads for products almost non-stop. In others, the user's visits to sites get tracked and reported to the spyware companies. Users get stuck with sluggish and non-functioning computers crippled by the extra load.

In more criminal uses, spyware logs the keystrokes a user makes, capturing information like usernames and passwords to financial sites, and passes that along to a collecting site.

Greed is a powerful motivator. In the US it is a $2 billion market for these stealth services. It's too much money for some to ignore, and they all too easily toss aside any ethical considerations in favor of the payoff.

Two bills passed by the House prohibit a host of activity committed by spyware makers. Two examples are key logging and phishing (pronounced fishing).

Key logging: Key logging changes browser start pages would be prohibited
Phishing: Phishing identity theft scams also fall into the prohibited category.

Penalty: Violators face jail time of up to 2 years for nuisance spyware, and risk having an additional 5 years tacked on for criminal acts like identity theft.

Each incident could generate fines of up to $3 million per incident. Both of these bills passed the House last year, but the Senate adjourned before they could be presented there. If you want them passed in the Senate you might want to contact your Senator and let them know.

Discuss this Google Fraud Alert article on the forums!

Google Spam Sites

Worthless sites are cluttering up your search for real information on Google. The driving motive is the usual one - greed. These slime-ball site owners, steal content (this is called scraping) or they fake what the site is about to trick you into clicking on it, just so they can have Google text box advertising on their site.

 Here are 2 examples of these sites:




 Scraping Example One
 Scraping Example Two
 Scraping Example Three
 Scraping Example Four

 Scraping Example One
 Scraping Example Two
 Scraping Example Three

Why would they do this? Why would they waste your valuable search time? They do it so someone will click on the advertising boxes.

Why do they want this? They make money from Google and cost the advertiser money.

All too often they are clicking the boxes on their useless site themselves.

When they click to earn revenue from Google, this is Google Click Fraud.

The advertiser is being defrauded out of their advertising dollars. The visitor is being tricked into vesting the site.

This is so obviously corrupt, why isn’t Google overly motivated to stop this? It defrauds the public and the honest advertisers.

Because Google makes money every time the ad is clicked. The advertiser if carrying the load and they don’t even know it is happening.

Captain America’s tip for the day: When tracking deception and fraud – follow the money.

Discuss this Google Fraud Alert article on the forums!

Spam email, who likes it?!

Email spam is communications that you don’t want that arrive in your in box. Do you remember the first time you received spam unwanted email? I bet you opened up the message and read it through a time or two like most everyone else. You might have believed what they were saying or maybe you forgot all about it. Then another spam email came and then another.

More than a half of all emails being sent out are spam…. Spam emails are communications that you don’t want and they try to trick you. Now you are pretty good with detecting spam emails. Or maybe you have software filter out spam for you. Spammer-type people are keenly aware of this decline in spam acceptance over the last couple of years, and they have been searching into new ways to put their products and personal agendas in front of us using deceitful and deceptive practices. Just like some politicians they try hide what they are really doing by blaming others.

Spammers’ latest craze is spamming their message through search engines using their web sites or other people’s web sites. You ask how? Imagine you are interested in finding balanced information about Purina dog food. You would probably log onto a search engine, type in the dog food name and press submit. And nearly instantly, you would find thousands and thousands of pages full of links.. But what one would you click? Probably the first one, because you think this one would be the most relevant, right? Not necessarily true any longer.

Spammers over the last couple years have found out how to manipulate search engine rankings and where their websites appear on your search page. The first URL might be the most popular and have the best information about Purina products but it might also be the person who “cheats the best”. The cheater’s, deceivers reward for cheating is getting your attention. That is the reward for email spammers/cheaters too.

For the most part their websites look just like non-fraud web sites. Because of Google’s popularity, it is the prime candidate for manipulation. I believe the behavior of these unethical people jeopardizes the fabric of Google’s search integrity. These people are tying to trick an unsuspecting search public. Their intent is to manipulate the search process when innocent and interested people are attempting to find accurate information. They are using deception, bluff, scam, dirty tricks, misdirection and cheating. These actions defraud the public and Google. And this is the exact reason I am starting this blog. It’s my mission to ALERT you when I see web sites and people behaving very, very badly. Welcome to Google Fraud Alert.

Discuss this Google Fraud Alert article on the forums!