Police Issue Internet Fraud Advisory
The Bermuda Police have issued a warning over internet scams, after receiving complaints from members of the public who appear to have been defrauded in such schemes, including two cases in which the victims were “scammed” after paying to purchase puppies which they saw advertised on local online adverts.
The full statement from the Police follows below:
The Financial Crime Unit of The Bermuda Police Service would like to remind members of the public to be vigilant when making any purchases using the internet.
In the past week the Service has received complaints from members of the public who appear to have been defrauded in such schemes. In two of these cases the victim responded to locally based internet adverts hoping to purchase a puppy from an overseas breeder. After contacting the breeder they were asked to send deposits overseas by money transfer. In previous reported cases the alleged breeder has then asked for further money to facilitate vet bills and transportation costs etc. Unfortunately the end result is that the money is stolen and no dog arrives in Bermuda.
We would ask that members of the public be extremely vigilant in responding to these types of internet adverts and be especially wary of responding to any person requesting monies who is using popular free e-mail addresses such as g-mail, yahoo, hotmail etc.
Many of the local websites carrying classified advertisements already display a warning message on their home page in relation to these types of scams.
If you have any questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact the Financial Crime Unit on 295-0011 or e-mail fraud “at” bps.bm.
Surprised the police don’t mention anything about SSL Certificates.
I could sit here and explain it in depth, but it might confuse a few people. Let’s put it this way. On the internet, legitimate companies that deal with any sort of e-commerce (ie. entering in your credit card number) should have an SSL certificate installed on their website. Forget the word ‘SSL Certificate’ as it can mislead a bit to simple users. Basically, it is something put in place that not only encrypts (or rather protects) all of your data between you and the website (which may be located a very, very great distance from your computer at home), but it also provides identity of website and who exactly owns/runs it. Remember: Your data makes makes hops between many computer to get from here to…let’s say California (or where ever the website is located). Each hop is another chance for a hacker to *sniff* (steal) your information. When this data is not protected by these ‘SSL Certificates’ they are displayed in clear text. ’1234′ reads ’1234′ to the hacker.
Want a cool example of an ‘SSL Certificate’? Anyone that does internet banking with HSBC…ever notice that the address bar turns a really cool green? This is that ‘SSL Certificate’ stuff done right. In order to get that ‘green bar’, there is A LOT of stuff that the company that issue these certificates have to do – like check the background of the companies that request them. This kinda means that hackers/phishers/scammers need not apply (nor will they obtain).
It’s all can be VERY complicated stuff, but as an end user…you should definitely know the basics as they are very easy to spot.
Excellent post, thanks for that. An extremely valid point.