Prepaid cards useful for crooks

As the popularity of prepaid money cards has risen, so have the number of reported scams associated with them.Green Dot MoneyPak cards can be a convenient way to pay bills and to add money to PayPal accounts. Your Better Business Bureau warns that the cards are now among the favorite tools used by scammers seeking access to your money. Fortunately, there are a few rules that card users can abide by to protect themselves from the unscrupulous.

In this variation on an old theme, a caller or emailer will notify you that you are the lucky winner of a fabulous prize in either a lottery or a sweepstakes. Only problem is, you first need to pay a fee in order to claim your money or merchandise. But, no problem, they say: you can use a MoneyPak card to quickly and conveniently pay the fee and then receive your winnings. All you have to do is go purchase the card for whatever amount they specify, then give them the 14-digit code found on the back of the third party merchant account.

One recently reported scam involved an online “quick loan” scheme in which the borrower was told to load more than $100 onto a prepaid debit card with the assurance that the loan company wouldn’t take the money off the card. Instead they claimed to only be looking for proof that the applicant could make payments on the loan in the future.

The loan company did end up taking her money and fraudulently claimed that the Better Business Bureau had put a hold on the funds, telling the person she would need to deposit yet more onto the card. The BBB, of course, doesn’t and couldn’t engage in such a practice. The loan applicant had fallen victim to a variation in the old advance-fee scam. The applicant’s money wasn’t recoverable.

It is bad enough when crooks use the name of the BBB in their schemes. But another popular prepaid debit card scam goes so far as to use the name of the FBI in order to steal from victims. In this scheme, malware is installed on a victim’s computer. The program locks up their computer and displays a message purporting to be from the FBI. The message is formatted with official-looking FBI logos and letterhead, and claims the computer owner must pay a fine or else be subjected to criminal charges for “violating federal copyright laws,” and accessing child pornography.

Helping mobile users navigate their way through this, Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, has come up with an innovative mobile payment guide, 2013 Gemalto Netsize Guide, aimed at providing insight for users, mobile operators, banks, credit card companies and merchants.

"Mobile billing revenues worldwide are expected to rise by $13bn per year by 2017," said Mohamed Anis Chemli, Business Director, Telecommunication division at Gemalto Middle East.

"The popularity of the smartphone depicts the rise in mobile usage. This is why the guide explores the big picture of mobile security, identity, privacy, and social commerce, while focusing on mobile wallets, in-app micropayments and money transfer, operator billing and messaging, as well as Near Field Communication (NFC)."The popularity of the smartphone and the accessibility of data connections have established mobile devices as being invaluable for consumer purchases, personal banking, merchant transactions, and peer-to-peer payments.

Customers use mobile phones to enjoy services offered by businesses and data providers, thus giving mobile operators an additional opportunity to monetize their network services. According to Juniper Research, 11, 9 million mobile users in Middle East and Africa made transactions through mobile in 2012 and figures are expected to reach 71,9 million users by 2017.

Once you get past the hilarity of Senator Pana Merchant being selected to sit on an international board that advocates for greater global financial transparency even as her name is mentioned in media reports about an offshore tax haven, it appears the longtime Liberal has stoked a growing fire of public anger over the Senate.

Back when the former teacher/volunteer worker was appointed to the third party payment gateway house by Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien almost 11 years ago, there might have been some public tolerance for such matters. But what once might have been considered harmless political amusement very much seems to be something else today.

Consider the reaction to a Postmedia story that the senator from Regina was selected in May to be a director of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund - an organization that provides politicians from all over the world an opportunity to "advocate for increased accountability and transparency in international.