There is a new Credit Card scam that is being promoted by scammers. This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information, except the one piece they want – your CV number. Please read the information very carefully:

The callers do not ask for your card number; they already have it. This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA & MasterCard Telephone Credit Card Scam works, you’ll be better prepared to protect yourself. One of our employees was called on Wednesday from “VISA”, and I was called on Thursday from “Master Card”. The scam works like this: Person calling says, “This is (name), and I’m calling from the Security and Fraud Department at VISA. My badge number is 12460. Your card has been flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and I’m calling to verify. This would be on your VISA card which was issued by (name of bank). Did you purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497.99 from a Marketing company based in Arizona?” When you say “No”, the caller continues with, “Then we will be issuing a credit to your account. This is a company we have been watching and the charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500 purchase pat tern that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the credit will be sent to (gives you your address), is
> that correct?” You say “yes”. The caller continues – “I will be starting a Fraud investigation. If you have any questions, you should call the 1- 800 number listed on the back of your card (1-800-VISA) and ask for Security. You will need to refer to this Control Number. The caller then gives you a 6 digit number. “Do you need me to read it again?”

Here’s the IMPORTANT part on how the scam works. The caller then says, “I need to verify you are in possession of your card.” He’ll ask you to “turn your card over and look for some numbers.” There are 7 numbers; the first 4 are part of your card number, the next 3 are the security Numbers’ that verify you are the possessor of the card. These are the numbers you sometimes use to make Internet purchases to prove you have the card. The caller will ask you to read the 3 numbers to him. After you tell the caller the 3 numbers, he’ll say, “That is correct, I just needed to verify that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you still have your card. Do you have any other questions?” After you say, “No,” the caller then thanks you and states, “Don’t hesitate to call back if you do”, and hangs up. You actually say very little, and they never ask for or tell you the Card number. But after we were called on Wednesday, we called back within 20 minutes to ask a question. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA security Department told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a new purchase of $497.99 was charged to our card. Long story – short – we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA account. VISA is reissuing us a new number. What the scammers want is the 3-digit PIN number on the back of the card. Don’t give it to them. Instead, tell them you’ll call VISA or Master card directly for verification of their conversation. The real VISA told us that they will never ask for anything on the card as they already know the information since they issued the card! If you give the scammers your 3 Digit PIN Number, you think you’re receiving a credit. However, by the time you get your statement you’ll see charges for purchases you didn’t make, and by then it’s almost too late and/or more difficult to actually file a fraud report.

What makes this more remarkable is that on Thursday, I got a call from a “Jason Richardson of Master Card” with a word-for-word repeat of the VISA scam. This time I didn’t let him finish. I hung up! We filed a police report, as instructed by VISA. The police said they are taking several of these reports daily! They also urged us to tell everybody we know that this scam is happening. Please pass this on to all your family and friends.

You can read more about this at Snopes.com.

In keeping with my desire to continually provide updates of the latest scams on the internet, I have another one for you. This one claims that I have won a lot of pounds in a fraudulent and non-existent promotion by the Pepsi company. Here is the message exactly as I copied it from my inbox

Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 9:59:24 -0700
From: “PEPSI BOTTLING GROUP PLC. ANNOUNCEMENT”
Subject: YOUR EMAIL WON £750,000 IN 2007 FA CE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO

13/10/2007

Attn: Winner,

The pepsi-Cola Company is on a journey inspired by our simple desire
for sustainable growth, and fueled by our deep conviction that
collectively we can create anything we desire.Our motive this year is not to
be using only well know stars for our advert e.g.Football stars,movie
stars and performing artist.

As part of our appreciation to our esteemed customers all over the
world,the Microsoft,Yahoo and Aol company decided to randomly select
distinguished customers for the 2007 FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO
which we are happy to announce to you the draw (#921) of the online
selection held on wednessday 10th of Oct, 2007.Your e-mail address attached to
TICKET NUMBER: 1322-4712-640 with SERIAL/BATCH NUMBER: 2177-16 drew
the LUCKY DRAW NUMBERS: 21-18-8-28-05 (bonus No. 20), which subsequently
won you the promo i the 2nd category i.e match 5 plus bonus.

All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from over
100,000 unions, associations, corporate bodies and individual e-mail
addresses that are listed online. This promotion takes place yearly.You
have therefore been approved to claim the total sum of £750,000.00{Seven
hundred and fifty thousand Great Britain Pounds} in cash credited to
file and a Contract to be the FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO with a
chance to Travel to any part of the world or country of your choice
for visit or permanent stay.
Your lucky winning number falls within our European booklet
representative office in Europe as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this,
your £750,000.00{Seven hundred and fifty thousand Pounds) will be
released to you by any of our payment offices in Europe.

Our European agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate
the release of your funds as soon as you contact him. For security
reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till
your claim is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever
manner you deem fit to claim your prize.This is part of our precautionary
measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program.
Please be warned.

For your best interest, you are to file in immediate claims upon this
notice To the fiduciary agent allocated to you winning file. He is going
to brief you on the entails to receive your funds. You are advised to
work with his guideline hence he will ensure your winning hits the
designated account to be provided by you within 7-10 working day upon the
receipt of his notification.

To file for your claim, Please contact our Fiduciary Director from the
address bellow:

MR. CHRIST DONALD
Fiduciary Director,Office of Communication,Payment and Legislative
Affair Unit.
Globe House 4 Temple Place
London WC2R 2PG
Official Email: legislativeaffair_unit@pepsibottlingcompanyplc.com
legislativeaffair_office@yahoo.pl
Phone +447011140681

Endeavour to contact him with the following information:

1). Full Names:(2). Contact Address: (3). Telephone Number:(4).
Age:(5). Sex: (6). Nationality:
7). Country:9. Occupation:10. Monthly Income,(11). Annual Income:
Winning information,
(12). Ticket Number.(13). Lucky Draw Number:(14). Serial/Batch Number:

Congratulations from the Controller and members of staff of the PEPSI
COLA BOTTLING COMPANY PLC and WORLD FOOD BUSINESS
ASSOCIATION.Participants are advised to keep their entry details/information from the public
to avoid fraudulent claim pending.Participant under the age of 18 is
automatically disqualified.

Regards,
MRS. Veronica Banks
Online coordinator for FACE OF PEPSI GENERATION NEXT PROMO,
On behalf of the Office of the Controller General.

Remember that it is a scam. DO NOT provide the information requested should you get this same email. Simply mark it as spam and delete it.

Press Release
February 14, 2007

We all, at one time or another, have gotten e-mails from the so-called Paypal website, from the so-called eBay site, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and more. What kind of e-mails am I talking about? The ones that tell you something is wrong with your account and that you need to submit some info about yourself to prevent it from being closed down. We all know, though, that the real sites would never send such a request via e-mail. Well, there is a new one out, this time claiming to come from e-Gold. Below is the message I got over the weekend, which I am asking all to look out for:

To: [my e-mail address]
Subject: Your E-gold account will be suspended
From: “Costumer Service E-Gold” [support@e-gold.com]
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 05:01:05 -0500

[e-gold logo]

Dear E-gold customer

We regret to inform you that your E-gold account could be suspended if you don’t re-update your account information. To resolve this problems please click here and re-enter your account information. If your problems could not be resolved your account will be suspended for a period of 24 hours, after this period your account will be terminated.

For the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are prohibited from using E-gold in any way. This includes the registering of a new account. Please note that this suspension does not relieve you of your agreed-upon obligation to pay any fees you may owe to E-gold.

Regards,Safeharbor Department E-gold, Inc
The E-gold team.
This is an automatic message. Please do not reply.

What is interesting, as usual is that the part that says ‘click here’ never points to the real website. In this particular e-mail, it pointed to a website at http://www.scholarswithoutborders.in/images/egold/index.html (you donnot have to click on the link to see that it goes there. Just hover you mouse pointer over ‘click here’ and you will see it). Beware of this e-mail. It is NOT from E-gold.

PRESS RELEASE:
January 1, 2007

As part of my ongoing drive to find persons and so-called opportunities that are out there to trick you, I recently joined two paid-to-read websites based on the notion that I would receive $10 into an e-gold account. The email I got read as follows (grammar and spelling is exactly how I received it):

(HELLO, THIS IS NOT SPAM. YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS MESSAGEBECAUSE YOU ARE A MEMBER
OF SMART-LIST. IF YOU WISH TO BEREMOVED FROM THIS LIST, PLEASE TYPE REMOVE IN
THE SUBJECTBOX OF YOUR REPLY.)

Hi,

Thanks For Taking Time. I Know You R Looking For Making Money.

I m giving $10 egold for being my free referral in 2 ptr’s.
i.e. Just Sign-up Thru The Links given below.

http://tinyurl.com/y8m8ch

http://tinyurl.com/y4fqly

After signing up send an email at itsmokin#hotmail.com with
your username you used to sign-up and e-gold account no.
I will send $10 to your egold account in 24 hrs. and e-mail you payment batch number.

If you don’t have an e-gold you can get it here.
Its free to join
http://www.e-gold.com/

Best Wishes,

Rocky

It was from email address riyaj.sac@gmail.com and it has been well over five days since I responded and till this day I have not received any money. Both accounts have the name ‘riyaj’ as the upline. So, look out for this email or even others similar to it. You will not get any money if you sign up. By the way, I cancelled both accounts.

Press Release:
November 30, 2006

The following is an email I received on the 29th of November. I saw right away that it was a scam. The sender did not even know my name and my email address was not in the “TO” line. Notice the poor grammar and spelling as you go along (please note that I cut and pasted the email as-is, i.e. exactly as I received it):

DATE: 11/29/06 7:42 PM [ SIZE: 3.672KB ]
FROM: African Development Bank
TO:
SUBJECT: Re Your Fund Release

African Development Bank,
(WWW.AFDB.ORG)
Ecowas Building Matama
Federal Territory
Abuja Nigeria
Official Email:mrdonaldkaberuka@presidency.com

Subject: You’re Fund Release

I am Mr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development bank, I am writing this message to inform you that my office has Taking over all the money Transaction originated from any part Of Africa and Europe counties as Contract payment, Fund Inheritance or Lottery Winning due to excessive demand of up Front payment by corrupt officials of Apex banks and some Security companies as reported by the International Community,

Subsequently, the World Bank Group has Mandated the African Development bank via my office to release funds to approved Fund beneficiaries through a certified International Cashier’s Bank Draft, Hence Your Name/Email address appears as one of the approved fund beneficiaries whom their fund was Successfully cleared recently from Terrorist and Money laundry, therefore your money will be Released to you through An International Cashier’s Bank Draft on Your contact to our Account Officer, Rev Kampson Lars through his Telephone Number: 234 8055760492 ext 212 Email revkampsonlarsaccan@accountant.com

On this process you are advised to forward your direct telephone numbers, complete name and mailing address to Rev Kampson Lars for immediate release of your money to you, Note that Ten Million Dollars Only (US10,000,000.00) was allocated to you, Be also informed that the Fund Approvals and authorization document Including Antiterrorist Clearance Certificate was issued in your name and has been handed over to Rev Kampson Lars to Authorized him Issue the International cashier’s bank
Draft in your name and send to you through a faster courier company Preferably DHL,

Finally, You are advised to dissociate from any way you may have been working to receive this money no matter your commitment to avoid Mis information and excessive demand of upfront payment, The account officer Rev Kampson Lars is standby to receive your communication and release your fund to you through International Cashier’ Bank Draft without further Delay, Make your contact directly to Rev Kampson Lars through
Telephone Number: 234 8055760492 ext 212 mail:revkampsonlarsaccan@accountant.com
Thanks for Your Cooperation.
Mr. Donald Kaberuka (President)
www.afdb.org

Anytime you see an email like this, please disregard and delete it. In most cases, you will be asked to send money for them to release your “funds” to you. It is a scam and you will only lose your money. You will never see the ‘Ten Million Dollars’ they claim to have for you.