Dear ZARC Hereby we wish to notify you that Complaint 520952 (Petsplaceza.co.za) submitted and acknowledged by you on 2024-01-24 has become moot. The scammer decided to abandon this domain six months after being reported to you, sadly also after twelve known victims.
Extract of an update on the alert at https://blog.aa419.org/2019/11/04/the-south-african-tender-scam-za-tender-scam/. 2023 started off with a bang for South African based tender scams. Users were complaining, asking how an official .gov.za could be used on Twitter in response to a Department of Home Affairs alert at https://twitter.com/HomeAffairsSA/status/1624636511617445889.
The US Internet Fraud Complaint Center reported, for January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001: During this same time period, the IFCC has referred 16,775 complaints of fraud, the majority of which was committed over the Internet or similar online service. The total dollar loss from all referred cases of fraud was $17.8 million, with a median dollar loss of $435 per complaint. (…) Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 42.8% of referred complaints. Non-deliverable…
Artists Against 419 has to say this very clearly: There can be no consumer privacy and security while ICANN Registrars are the custodians of trust on the internet. ICANN has allowed a situation to develop that’s had the exact opposite effect of what the European privacy regulators aimed for, the protection of natural consumer privacy. In turn, this has further not only created a situation where consumers may be trivially deprived of privacy, but also security. Let’s look at this situation with quick examples.
In July 2020 Interpol mentioned Non-Delivery Fraud in a Purple Alert. Even puppies are mentioned. People are quick to pass off pet scams as not so serious, so why is Interpol concerned?
While rumors abound of a chap in red clothes sneaking around, silently slipping presents into houses under Christmas trees for the children, other rumors were spreading. Somebody had preceded Santa. Krampus had arrived. He’s been quite busy for a while now doing, of all things, cyber inspections!
The South African tender scam has been targeting businesses in Southern Africa for a while. While it’s a procurement scam targeting businesses, which in itself isn’t unique, the execution of it is and is identifying. It has already led to devastating financial losses, forcing many smaller business to close their doors in South Africa, resulting in job losses. This is at a time when the South African economy can ill afford it. Typically new naive, or unaware business owners, easily…
BEC (Business Email Compromise) has gained more and more attention lately. Most recent statistics show $26 billion in losses the past three years. The sad reality is that BEC could have been avoidable if Advance Fee Fraud (AFF) had been recognized earlier as the threat it is and dealt with appropriately. Inaction on basic levels, despite alerts for the past 16 years from Artists Against 419, allowed these actors to escalate to unknown heights. BEC is the end product of…
Is it Advance Fee Fraud or Advanced Fee Fraud? Or 419 Scams, or simply Scams? Of late the meanings of these phrases are getting lost and causing confusion.
While ICANN, the regulators and the various interest groups are debating the definitions of DNS abuse, what constitutes a security threat and is within their responsibility (or rather not), what’s wrong in this area, fraudsters don’t care about these shenanigans. They’re exploiting DNS to their own advantage in well defined illegal activities. The rules made when the Internet was young, seems unable to keep the steps with current realities. The divide between the ideal Internet in the regulators’ model and…