Do Not Be A Victim: High Tech Fraud Crimes To Watch Out For

Having a crime perpetrated against you is always a possibility, but it has never been so easy to do in the past than it is today. It seems that fraud crimes will always outdistance the deterrents put in place to stop them, but with the ever-increasing reliance of the world upon the Internet, these acts have been multiplying at an alarming rate. Thousands of people fall victim to scams and identity theft every single day, and so this does not happen to you, we will outline the most prevalent types of cyber crimes happening, and tips on how to avoid becoming a victim of them.

Common Types of Electronic Fraud Crimes

Identity Theft: Identity fraud is one of the most prevalent, and most sinister of all the cyber crimes occurring today. Every piece of information you put out on the Internet can be linked together to create a cyber identity for you, and if thieves gain access to enough of those pieces, they can use that information in a lot of ways, most of which can cause a financial crisis for you. It can ruin your credit rating, drain your bank accounts and leave you owing money you never even got to spend.

Sadly, because electronic activity can be easy to trace if the thieves are sloppy in their computer practices, some of them will go the extra mile, and do things the old fashioned way, like going through your garbage, or stealing your mail. Always monitor your mail delivery closely, and if you go away on vacation, be sure to stop the delivery. When you want to discard paid bills and other sensitive documents that could give someone your bank account information or your social security number, shred before discarding it.

Phishing: Phishing is the practice of fraud being committed through the use of fraudulent emails. They will come to your inbox on a daily basis, and they will be phrased in one of two ways: verifying secure information or announcing that you have money owed to you. The first type looks and reads, at first glance, like an official document from your bank, your credit card companies, your insurance company, or a government office. Some of these are quite sophisticated, right down to the company logo. One important thing to remember about this type of fraud is that legitimate companies that traffic in secure, personal information on a daily basis, will never just send an email. They have customer service departments that will call you personally if there is an issue.

These kinds of emails, as well as the ones that announce that you have won a lottery or are entitled to a bequest of some kind, are easily detected if you know what to look for. Read through them carefully, and the first thing you may notice is a lack of a personal address in the letter, your name will probably not even be mentioned. Second, the phrasing will seem off, somehow, especially if they are being sent by someone not completely fluent in English. They will often include a highlighted Internet link, and if you run your cursor across it, without clicking, it will reveal the web domain the thieves are using. More often than not, it will have nothing to do with the company that supposedly sent them. Delete it, and forget it.

Bogus Auctions and Sales: With the advent of the Internet, it is pretty easy to dupe someone out of their money by offering items for sale. Several instances have already arisen on sites like eBay, where a picture of the item was sent to the winner of the auction, but not the item. To avoid this happening to you, never deal with anyone whose reputation you cannot verify through the site itself.

Avoiding Prosecution

Sadly, being a victim of fraud crimes will not always stop at you losing money or having your identity stolen. It can also lead to you being prosecuted because of something the thief did while pretending to be you. Hire an attorney at the first sign that you are a victim of cyber crimes.

Want to learn more about how you can protect yourself from fraud crimes like these? The Law Office of Philip Averbuck has successfully defended victims of fraud for years, and can best advise you on how to proceed, call him today. Also check out our new page on Electronic Fraud Crimes.

Criminal Law Information: Fraud, Hate Crimes & Child Abuse

Criminal law is one of the most common types of law practiced in the United States. People make mistakes, and when these mistakes involve the law, it is absolutely critical that if you find yourself on the wrong side of the law that you have the best lawyer at your side to help you protect your rights and freedom. Some of the most common infractions that people find themselves involved with are child abuse laws, fraud, and hate crimes.

Child abuse laws are in place to help protect innocent people, but more and more often these days these laws are used to take advantage of innocent people. Unscrupulous people use the stigma attached with child abuse accusations to force innocent people into situations that they never wanted to be in the first place. Unfortunately, because people often instantly judge people those accused of child abuse crimes to be guilty, it takes the best lawyers to help those wrongfully accused of these reprehensible crimes to see the light of justice again.

Fraud is also one of the most common crimes that people have to deal with in the 21st century. These business crimes include insurance fraud, government fraud, tax fraud, stock fraud, financial fraud, healthcare fraud, and telemarketing fraud, and the technologies available in the computer age can turn simple and innocent mistakes into devastating and life-altering consequences. Without the expert counsel of the dedicated and experienced fraud lawyers at resource4criminallaw.com, you or someone you love could end up in jail without hope of getting the justice they deserve.

Hate crimes are another type of special crime that few people understand unless they are facing charges. What few people understand is that hate crime laws are so hazy and nebulous that virtually any act can be construed as a "hate crime" if the "victims" and lawyer have an agenda to prove or an axed to grind. People accused off these crimes need to be represernted by the best legal minds possible, and the attorneys at resource4criminallaw.com have decades of combined experience in helping people on the wrong side of hate crimes get the justice they deserve.

Resource4criminallaw.com is your one stop shop for all your criminal defense needs. Why should you trust your freedom, your fortune or even your life to secondrate public defenders? Explore Resource4thepeople.com today and see what we can do for you.

To learn more about child abuse, fraud or hate crimes, please visit our website. This article may be freely reprinted as long as this resource box is included and all links stay intact as hyperlinks.

Accounting Fraud and Computer Crimes Create Need For Qualified Investigators

An epidemic of white-collar financial crime has resulted in the development of specialized education programs focused on economic crime investigation and fraud management. These college-level degree programs attract students who are interested in law enforcement and are attracted by the very unique nature of these types of crimes and the special investigative techniques required to solve them.

There seems to be no end to the greed in the hearts of some professional business people. It isn't enough to have fancy cars, vacation homes and other lavish perks of the highly successful. Many selfish individuals have decided to play a risky game of "milk-the-company-for-all-it's-worth" to fuel an unhealthy appetite to acquire more "things" for no other reason than to have them. As a result, books are cooked, balance sheets become unbalanced and finally, as in the case of Enron, there is nothing left to share with the shareholders.

Economic crime is a broad category encompassing a variety of offenses all of which are focused on bilking a private company, government agency or other professional institution out of their financial resources. Individuals at any level of an organization including, as we have seen in recent years, the most senior management, may perpetrate these crimes. And the methods that they use may be highly sophisticated including manipulating computer systems or fudging accounting records.

A fraud investigator must be highly educated and well versed in the financial and technological systems and practices that may have been altered or doctored in some way. Terms like "computer forensics and "accounting forensics" have entered the lexicon of crime investigators as they begin probing a crime scene that does not contain blood evidence, signs of violence or even an obvious victim. But these are certainly not victimless crimes.

Hundreds of major corporations, government institutions and law enforcement agencies are staffing up with economic crime specialists, fraud investigators and fraud management specialists. The need for qualified investigators has prompted colleges to develop specialized curricula devoted to the study of economic crime prevention. Some schools feature Bachelor's and Master's Degree programs in Economic Crime. The courses are usually instructed by faculty members experienced in economic crime investigation and computer crime control. Right now, more than 90% of their Bachelor's in Economic Crime Investigation graduates are working in professional positions relevant to their career interests.

Graduates with these unique, highly specialized degrees are in great demand. A number of colleges are now making these programs available for online study. That means that, no matter what your current commitments or time constraints, these very attractive and potentially lucrative and rewarding degree programs are available to almost anyone. Who knows, at some point in the not-too-distant future you may be instrumental in finding, apprehending and convicting economic criminals that are stealing from us all.

Terry McDermott is the author and administrator of a portfolio of specialized education websites with a primary focus on the category of online education at AccessOnlineDegrees.com. Find additional information about online criminal justice degrees and economic crime degree programs on the website.