Merchant Newsletter - September 10, 2005

BEWARE - Katrina Scams 


Dangerous enough to deserve a dedicated issue.

  
THIS SCAM DIRECTED AT MERCHANTS- BEWARE!
An email and a letter are being sent out to a large number of merchants (probably out of the yellow pages), which looks like a real warning about security for merchants.  It starts out like this:

Subject: Merchant Security Past Due Notice

Merchant,

This email follows a U.S. Postal letter and previous emails sent to you starting on August  8, 2005 regarding the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard established by Visa (R), MasterCard (R), American Express (R) and Discover Card (R).

You were required to identify your compliance requirements and become compliant by September  7, 2005.  For most merchants, this means enrolling in a security-testing program for Annual or Quarterly Scheduled Security Testing of your Internet connections and the completion of a Self-Assessment Questionnaire, with a certified security vendor.

THIS LETTER IS A SCAM.  Calling the number will connect you to a marketing group who will attempt to sell you on their services (which include term commitments, sales commissions, and cancellation fees).

This type of "Scare and Grab" marketing is reprehensible.  This is one of the reasons the merchant service industry is regarded as being somewhere between used car sales and snake oil salesmen.

This letter is carefully crafted, using the generic "merchant services" name, so you assume it is YOUR provider, and specifies 

Rest assured, TransFirst / Payment Resources (your gateway- Transaction Central) is COMPLETELY certified with Visa CISP certification, and PCI Data Security Standards.  



We have a lot of merchants who do art shows and fairs, and one of our merchants recommended this site to us.  After going to the site myself, I was astounded at the depth and detail they have on each show.   If you go to these shows, this site and their book / online service is a MUST. Take a look!

As we warned you last week, bogus web sites claiming to collect donations for Hurricane Katrina victims, phony e-mails pretending to solicit money from well-known charities, and online auctions of Internet domain names with Katrina-related addresses, such as "katrinaourtsunami.com." have already started.

Several Web sites have emerged, promising to forward money to relief workers. Bearing such names as Katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com and katrinarelief.com, the sites ask for money to be sent through Paypal, but there is no way to verify who is receiving the funds, or what is being done with them.

One ploy that really grabs you, is the offer to "Match" your contribution.  You think that your $100 would double if you used these guys, but if they really are legit, their money will get there.  If not, your $100 goes down the toilet.  Not a chance you need to take. This offer usually takes the form of an email, but phone calls could start any day now...

While we recommend STRONGLY that you donate to the the two most respected organizations (who are already there and working) are the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.  They are known to be honest and EFFECTIVE (The money Sean Penn spent to fly his photographer, assistant and publicist to New Orleans could have fed a dozen families for a week).  Merchants using our toolbar can look at a prospective website and see how long it has been operational:



If they just showed up last week, they are PROBABLY a scam.

It's not just solicitations you should worry about. Security experts also caution computer users to remain vigilant against e-mails claiming to contain attached photos of the disaster because clicking on such files could launch viruses or worms.

On the 31st, EBay halted an online auction of several Katrina-related Web site names, such as "ourtsunami2005.com." Bidding was to start at $15,000, and the seller promised to deliver half of the final winning bid amount to the American Red Cross. EBay allows sellers to dedicate a portion of their profit to charities but requires the seller to either sign up for eBay's own giving program or obtain permission from the charity first. Red Cross officials said no permission had been granted, and eBay said it terminated the auction because the seller did not observe rules on charitable giving.

Federal Trade Commission spokeswoman Claudia Bourne- Farrell said people should never click on any link in an e-mail solicitation because they may end up at a site that looks real but is set up by identity thieves to get confidential information. "If you get an e-mail from the Red Cross, close the e-mail and go to the Red Cross Web site as you otherwise would," through a search engine, phone or regular mail, she said.

Identify possible scam sites with our Free Merchant Toolbar!  Our Toolbar will take you directly to the Merchant Control center, as well as provide many other powerful web searching and information features.  To see all of the powerful features of our toolbar, or to download your own free copy, click here.  

ORDER FREE MERCHANT MATERIALS HERE!!!

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