Fraud Update boggles the mind

Here is a small sampling of the news releases just from today (sorry for the caps; I’m too lazy to reformat them all):

BARRY BRYANT SENTENCING A 64-YEAR-OLD ATLANTA, TEXAS WOMAN HAS BEEN SENTENCED FOR SUBMITTING FALSE CLAIMS TO THE RED CROSS FOLLOWING HURRICANE KATRINA

CARLOS ALBERTO DA VEIGA, OF NEW BEDFORD, HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH ILLEGALLY ARRANGING FRAUDULENT MARRIAGES FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS SEEKING PERMANENT RESIDENT CARDS

ALAN JACKSON SENTENCING A 28-YEAR-OLD LANCASTER MAN HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO 24 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR CONSPIRACY TO POSSESS STOLEN MAIL IN THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MAIL THEFT

COOPER WINS ORDER TO STOP TELEMARKETER FROM TAKING SENIORS’ MONEY [INDIANA]

FORMER INSURANCE COMPANY EMPLOYEE AND THREE OTHERS CHARGED WITH PHONY CHECK SCAM

And on and on and on. Mail fraud, fraudulent marriages, check scams, telemarketing scams. It’s easy to ignore the warnings and call people paranoid who take extreme measures to protect themselves. But the scammers are out there. Fraud Update’s RSS feed delivers something like 50 posts per day. Many of those involve more than one defrauded consumer. And for every fraud reported in the news media, I’ll be 100 are not. It’s a scary prospect, but the scammers are alive and well–perhaps better than ever.