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Return of the “Celebrity Fraudster”

May 12, 2020

In April our post featured “celebrity fraudster” Matt Cox as he described his methods for perpetrating check fraud. He knows of which he speaks; he is the author of the book Shark in the Housing Pool: On the Run With the Secret Service’s Most Wanted (out of 15 Amazon reviews, it has 14 five-star ratings — but let’s remember that the author is a professional fraudster…)

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“Cheque” Fraud: Not Only a US Problem

May 6, 2020

It is important to understand that while check fraud is a significant problem in the US, similar trends are occurring in Europe as well. In Europe, there was a shared view of paper checks as a payment vehicle on the road to the junkyard years ago — only to find out that it remains a popular payment method in many countries.

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Costco is Sending Freebies and Stimulus Checks?!! Nope – It’s a Scam

April 28, 2020

You get a text from Costco offering you stimulus checks or packages because you’re a loyal customer. Great news, right?

The old saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not true” comes to mind…

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Ex-Industry Colleague, Now Actor, Meets ‘Bad Actor’ in Check Fraud Drama

April 21, 2020

The negative impact of check fraud really hits home when it happens to you, a friend or relative. Unfortunately, as we see in the following drama, you don’t get the Hollywood ending if you’re unprepared.

A former colleague of ours, Eric Oliver, used to work for VSoft and Fiserv…

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Con Artist Reveals Details on Check Fraud & Lessons Learned for Upcoming Stimulus Checks

April 15, 2020

We’ve detailed various scenarios fraudsters contruct and provided the profiles of a fraudster, but what does check fraud look like from the vantage point of the fraudster?

Matthew Bevan “Matt” Cox is an American former mortgage broker and admitted mortgage fraudster. Cox is also an aspiring author who wrote an unpublished manuscript entitled The Associates, in which the main character — surprise! — traveled the country to perpetrate mortgage fraud.

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Raising Awareness of Scams with…Bingo?

April 9, 2020

In these days of unprecedented events and protocols related to the coronavirus pandemic, it comes as no surprise that fraudsters of all stripes are taking advantage of any and all aspects of the situation.

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Can Image Analysis Detect Treasury Check Fraud?

April 1, 2020

The check is in the mail Fraud awareness Treasury checks and image analysis The old adage “the check’s in the mail” is somewhat appropriate right now as the government ramps up the stimulus program with $1,200 coming to many Americans. In the OrboNation blog post yesterday, we provided a quick estimate of the number of…

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FTC Report Reveals the Fraud Battleground

March 24, 2020

During 2019, more than 1.9 million consumers cashed FTC checks received as a result of law enforcement cases. When consumers don’t cash their refund checks, the FTC uses that money to send additional mailings to ensure the maximum amount of money is returned to consumers. Any remaining refund money is sent to the U.S. Treasury.

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U.S. Consumers’ Use of Personal Checks: Evidence from a Diary Survey

March 16, 2020

From the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta comes an informative overview of check usage entitled U.S. Consumers’ Use of Personal Checks: Evidence from a Diary Survey. The authors look at 1,600 individual transactions to gain an understanding of what check payments are currently used for—by dollar value, and by payee—and who uses checks (in terms of demographics and income).

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Nice Actimize & OrboGraph Webinar

March 12, 2020

OrboGraph recently co-hosted with Nice Actimize a dynamic webinar entitled Change is Inevitable – How Will You Respond? Along with OrboGraph’s Joe Gregory, Allegra Angus and Nithin Mangalore of Nice Actimize discussed with attendees different aspects of check fraud trends, best practices for combating check fraud, including incorporating machine learning and image analysis.

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