Fraudsters and Identity Theft - you have to be so careful

Fraud - we all know about it. We know about those who make a career out of scamming others, taking identity, money, savings. Those who get loans using other people's details. Those who hack pc's and tablets and take money from bank accounts or sell details to a third party.
It's everywhere.
In this day of an ever-shrinking world of communications the fraudsters and scammers are finding more and easier ways to catch out the unknowing, unwitting providers of their lifestyle.

I'm not going to blast you here with statistics and such - there's no need. Any self-respecting internet user has been bombarded for years about how to stay safe and savvy.

But what if it's not via the internet - at least not directly?

My step-daughter has just come off the phone to me having described what can only be a scam call she got minutes before she called me.
Three weeks ago she told me that someone under the #kingslynn banner on Instagram had put one of her old profile photos up as theirs. She got in touch with a few demanding expletives and the photo disappeared. Step-daughter thought nothing more of this event until a week later she got a message from a buyer on her eBay account asking when she would get the goods. Stepdaughter DOESN'T have an eBay account and was certainly not selling baby items.

We advised her to contact the Police - Fraud Squad. All things done, they advised that she had indeed somehow been hacked and that they would deal with it.

Today, the call she received said that they were calling from the Criminal Justice Service. They asked if she had completed her survey. When she said she hadn't received it they asked for her home address. Luckily, I had lectured her endlessly for about an hour after the Ebay incident and her father followed that up. That was reinforced by the Fraud Squad. NEVER EVER give out details unless you are as certain as you can be that it's legit.
She told said caller that if they were from Criminal Justice (thinking the only contact had been the Fraud Squad) then they would have her address and email etc so she wasn't giving it out over the phone.

NICE ONE GIRL - lessons indeed had been absorbed.

The caller then said that they had her address but needed her to confirm it, and quoted a part address from another place across town. She was unhappy with that, refused to give information and hung up. She then called me.

We investigated the number and it had been logged for a range of things from cold calling to marketing.

The really odd thing is that the address that they had quoted in part was her work address!!

So somehow it's someone who knows her personally, but not well enough to know where she lives

So even though she had been fairly careful and had antivirus on her laptop etc she is now wondering what is next... and currently calling the Fraud Squad to ask their advice after this newer development. Maybe the first thing, the photo on Instagram is the link. That would be my guess.
worth a read even though it's old
Every day we look at, log on, scan through various things from social media to research and every time we do we leave a trail. That trail to a scammer is like a flower to a bee.

So, even if you are vigilant and have lots of protection, stay savvy, stay safe.