HAHAHAHA you suck at fraud!
Phishers jailed for lifting over £300k from student loan applicants
A UK-based phishing fraudster who netted an estimated £300K by targeting students was jailed for three-and-a-half years on Friday, London's Metropolitan Police confirmed. Damola Olatunji, 37, tricked victims into submitting their banking details to bogus websites in response to dodgy emails supposedly related to student loans …
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 14:56 GMT Bc1609
Where does the money go?
Something I've always wondered about this kind of thing, cowdled mommet that I am, is where exactly one transfers money if one has bank details, and how one even goes about it. My bank, certainly, doesn't allow me to transfer money to a new recipient without a phone call and password check. Maybe all students bank with places with papier-mache security, but even then, where does it go? Ukranian PayPal accounts? Can you do that?
More importantly, what happens to it now? If it hasn't been spent, is there any prospect of recovering some of the stolen funds?
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 17:12 GMT Dom 3
Re: Where does the money go?
Money mules. You've probably received spam emails recruiting for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_mule
Many banks still allow relatively small amounts to be transferred to other accounts without further checks once you've logged in.
The 419 isn't really related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 21:41 GMT John Savard
Re: Where does the money go?
My understanding of this is that one makes use of a bank which doesn't carefully check that a transfer from a foreign bank has been properly authorized. Banks in other countries basically have to take the word of a bank in, say, Nigeria that it has received a signed document or other legitimate authorization to withdraw money from a given bank account.
Closing the door on this kind of fraud is, presumably, considered to put too great a burden on legitimate transactions.
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 14:59 GMT Sarev
Something doesn't add up...
Perhaps I'm having a blonde moment, but...
> obtain the login details of 1,300 student accounts
Right.
> with amounts ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 slurped from compromised accounts
OK.
> convicted of fraud worth £304,000 and attempted fraud of £162,000
Erm. And the rest...? Why do I get the feeling that the second quote cherry-picks the biggest numbers and is missing the word "some"?
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 15:20 GMT wowfood
Re: quick, arrest everyone.
Was about to post the same thing
Computers seized from Mwangi revealed he was running numerous computer programs which enabled him to build phishing emails and register fake websites.
So chrome? or IE?
I bet he carefully hid his tracks too (using the incognito window)
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Tuesday 10th July 2012 21:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
fools and money.....
are easy parted.....
Why is it in this day and age are people still falling for this sort of nonsense. Surely the marks are people who passed GCSE's and A'levels who are off to uni to gain degrees is some subject or another, surely this gives them the brains to stop and think for a moment.
I mean ffs, I asked my best mate, who I have known for 40 years to tell me his account number and sort code so I could pay some money into his bank account for some crap I sold for him on feepay. He is proberbly one of the most least technical persons I know, but knew enough not to email it, sms it or private message me it on facebook..... even my missus who sticks to a nokia 3310 because she cant use a newfangled smartphone knows enough to ignore requests for login detail confirmations from official looking emails...
and these people are the the future graduates of this country..... its embarrassing !!
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Wednesday 11th July 2012 12:29 GMT RFC822
There is no risk in revealing account number and sort code
"I asked my best mate, who I have known for 40 years to tell me his account number and sort code so I could pay some money into his bank account for some crap I sold for him on feepay. He is proberbly one of the most least technical persons I know, but knew enough not to email it, sms it or private message me it on facebook"
How wrong he was, then, because there is absolutely no risk involved in send his account number and sort code over any of those routes! The same information is available - along with his signature - on every cheque he has ever written. The only thing that somebody can do with this information is to pay money in to the account.
You are getting Account information (which does not need to be secured) mixed up with Logon information (which most certainly does need to be)!
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Wednesday 11th July 2012 14:32 GMT Banjo M
Re: There is no risk in revealing account number and sort code
"The only thing that somebody can do with this information is to pay money in to the account"
I'm sure Jeremy Clarkson thought this at one point too before he published his account details in The Sun and lost a bunch of moneys. Admittedly there's a lot of information readily available on JC that would make him easier to target but I'm amazed how many of my friends list their DOB and some even their address on their facebook page. Ripe for fraudsters picking.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7174760.stm
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