MySpace Scams

PUNTA GORDA- A 34-year-old man who set up a drug deal with undercover police on MySpace.com was arrested Tuesday, officers said.

James Brian Johnston, of the 500 block of Myrtle Street, was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, a felony. Through the popular networking Web site, Johnston contacted an undercover officer posing as a 20-year-old woman and agreed to meet him at The Pines of Punta Gorda with several marijuana cigarettes, according to a Punta Gorda Police Department arrest report.

When detectives spotted Johnston’s red Oldsmobile, they conducted a traffic stop and found one marijuana cigarette inside, the report states. Johnston admitted he was attempting to deliver the drugs.

Johnston was being held at the Charlotte County jail with bail set at $2,500.

We have seen the same scam over and over with people trying to sell there cars online. If you ae trying to sell your car and someone says they are from another country or far away and says that their “client” is interested in buying your car, Beware ! This scam has seen many variances but here is the latest:

I am Wayne Blair,Internet manager for
Classical Auto Contractors, 7-8 Cavendish Row Upper O’connel
Street , Victoria Garden,Ireland.We specialise in
purchase of Autos for customers here in Europe,and we get
paid in commission,after payment has been confirmed by the seller to the
buyer.I write you on behalf of our client to contact
you and arrange for the buying and shippment of your
1972 ford bronco 4X4 which our client saw on the
internet,we would like to know the conditions of the said 1972 ford bronco
4X4 and probably arrange for payment to
get to you and shippment. My customer is interested
in purchasing your 1972 ford bronco 4X4 for
the sum of $7,000 and we will arrange for the pick
up of the 1972 ford bronco 4X4 once payment is
confirmed cleared by you. Please acknowledge the
offer and we will inform the buyer of your confirmation of
acceptance to sell and have the funds remitted to you as soon as
possible ,and i’ll like this transaction to be kept in utmost trust.I hope
you can understand. Our office is located in Ireland,asstated above.
Thanks,
Wayne Blair
Tel:+447040109

If you are trying to sell your car and are receiving messages like this, let us know.

Thanks to Kevin for the update.

Con-men have developed a phishing attack targeting MySpace music fans that highlights the evolving use of social engineering techniques in money-making spam emails.

Junk emails featuring the attack have been spammed out to thousands of computer users around the globe in the last week, to trick them into visiting one of a series of bogus websites that pose as an online music store. The emails typically pose as MySpace contact emails, increasing the chances that prospective marks will be duped by the messages.

The message in the email informs recipients, “You’ve got a new song from on MySpace!”, and invites them to click on a link that directs them to a site claiming to sell MP3 music.

The sites, one example of which only had its domain name registered on 5 October and claims to be based in Lappeenranta in Finland, have no affiliation with MySpace, UK-based security firm Sophos reports.

The goal of the attack is to trick prospective marks into handing over their names and credit card information to fraudsters. In a bid to make the bogus email appear more legitimate, con-men have included fake MySpace boilerplate text in their messages.

MySpace boasts an estimated 43m users, far more than any online bank, so even though their spam emails are being distributed indiscriminatingly they are far more likely to reach users of the targeted service, as net security appliance firm Fortinet notes (http://www.fortinet.com/FortiGuardCenter/advisory/FG-2006-28.html).

Fortinet has recorded more than 50,000 of these spam emails over the past nine days. The attack, which originally targeted surfers in Japan, has spread worldwide and uses a variety of bogus websites. Users foolish enough to attempt to purchase music albums from these sites (offered at $2 or less) will find that their purchases don’t do through. The sites are designed purely to harvest credit card details for subsequent fraudulent use.

Original Article

Q What is the right age for my children to have their own MySpace profiles? How would you recommend monitoring their Web pages?

A MySpace has more than 40 million members and gets about 15 percent of all the Internet hits in the country, so caution is advised. Officially a child has to be 14 to have a private MySpace page - meaning they have to invite ‘‘friends” to join their site. This does offer some control over who has access to your children’s profiles.

How mature are your children and do you have a good honest relationship with them? It is important to explain the dangers of putting information on the Internet for the world to see; there are many predators out there. Be sure your children are cautious when setting up a MySpace profile: They will be asked for all sorts of personal information that could be used for other purposes. How about just using a first name or nickname?

    Have your computer in a common area where you can monitor what is being exchanged on the Web site. Give constant reminders that your children’s online friends may not be who they seem. You can be invited onto your children’s sites and periodically ask your children to see their profiles. Of course, your children may set up multiple profiles under different names, so you may not be able to see everything they are doing online.

    Have you actually been to MySpace.com yet? Although people argue that this is a good vehicle for keeping in touch with peers, I am appalled at some of the stuff I’ve seen there. Why not set up your own profile so you can see firsthand what is going on and discuss your concerns and rules with your children.

A Liverpool woman hoping to keep in touch with family members who live outside New York did everything possible to protect her identity when she set up a MySpace profile.  Somehow she still found herself the victim of identity theft and harrassment.

When you create a MySpace account, all you need is an email address.  You don’t even need to verify you’re the person you say you are.  Michelle McGriff found out that with no way to verify who is creating the account, someone can pretend to be you on MySpace.

McGriff is mother of three who has been running a daycare for years.  She started a MySpace account a few weeks ago and a short time later, she found two MySpace accounts with her name and picture on both of them.

One of the accounts was the one she made and it was marked private with no personal information given.  But on the other account, an imposter divulged her full name, unlisted address, phone numbers, and some pretty terrible descriptions about sex and partying.

The person most likely knows McGriff because the fake account holder is handing out her cell number and sending messages to other people online pretending to be her.  McGriff has already received phone calls from men looking to meet her.

Michelle McGriff says she is afraid that the person who is pretending to be her will set up a meeting date and put her, her children or her daycare business in danger.

The Onondaga County District Attorney’s office says web profiles like the ones on MySpace are treated much like free space on billboards. Unless McGriff was facing a real threat, there is no law to protect internet users from that form of embarassment. 

If the fake account holder contacts Michelle McGriff, it could fall under aggravated harassment and that’s when criminal action can take place. If no direct contact is made, then the only thing a person in McGriff’s position can do is sue for libel.

McGriff does plan to file a lawsuits and to demand that MySpace takes down the fake account.  Before that happens, she may have to change all of her phone numbers for protection.

This one appears to be the result of a profile hijack. If you find out that your are posting these, change your password immediately.

MySpace has 100 million members, including celebrities and a few fakes, but two Internet sleuths are separating them out. Irish poet Bryant McGill, 36, discovered a MySpace profile for an author he recognized as an impostor, the Wall Street Journal reported.

MySpace rules forbid impostors, but has no verification procedures. Users must only provide an e-mail address, name, gender, birth date and password. McGill and comedian Jim Karol decided to set their own MySpace page called ‘100% Verified Celebs and MySpace Personalities,’ which checks out profiles at no cost.

Individuals can apply to McGill and Karol for a seal of approval. They are then quizzed to see how easily they can answer relevant questions. The duo has verified 167 celebs so far, from actor Gary Busey to Cher, winner of the television reality show, ‘Beauty and the Geek.’ ‘I am getting obsessed with figuring out who is real and who is fake,’ Karol said. Some celebrities don`t worry about impostors. ‘Fan sites help promote the show virally,’ TV talk host Carson Daly said. His official MySpace profile has 29,000 friends.

Myspace.com and other similar web sites have been in the news a lot lately. The reason that they are in the news is because kids get on these web sites and are able to post lots of personal information, and anyone can get access to that information. You may encounter argumentative teens asking, “What is the big deal mom?” or “What is the big deal dad? I’m just putting a little bit of information out there.”

The problem is this. First of all, when kids start to put information on Myspace, they are often doing so with peers standing over their shoulder or in the same room; their friends will encourage them to put more and more information there.

Secondly, teens are at an age where they trust the people that are on the other end of the computer more than they really should. There is some good research that suggests that kids are very trusting of strangers online when there is no good reason for that.

Finally, kids are at an age where they’re willing to take risks. You can talk to them about this, but they don’t see the risk in the same way that you do.