Two Los Angeles area men were charged in Contra Costa County Wednesday for allegedly using “skimming” devices to steal people’s ATM and PIN numbers from gas pumps in Martinez, Benicia, Livermore, Hayward, Oakland, San Mateo and Sacramento, Martinez police said Wednesday. David Karapetyan, 31, and Zhiraya Zamanyan, 30, have each been charged with 32 counts…
Author: Dissent
CIBC to compensate customers for disclosing data
Joe Schneider reports: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the country’s fifth-biggest bank, agreed to compensate customers whose personal information was sent by mistake to businesses in the U.S. and Quebec. The agreement, approved by a judge in Toronto, settles a class-action, or group, lawsuit filed by the customers over the disclosure of their names, social…
Auctioning off patient records
What stops a storage company from auctioning off the contents of abandoned storage units or units that are in arrears when the contents are medical records? Maybe nothing.
Texas behavioral counseling business owner charged with health care fraud
The owner of a Houston, Texas behavioral business was charged on Wednesday with 17 counts for a scheme to defraud Medicaid for more than $1 million, prosecutors announced. Edward Birts, 51, the owner of Courage to Change, is accused of aggravated identity theft for allegedly unlawfully acquiring Medicaid beneficiaries’ information. He used the names, addresses…
Authorities bust 3 in infection of 13M computers (update 2)
Authorities have smashed one of the world’s biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs. The “botnet” of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to…
St. George Bank printing gaffe fuels fraud fears (updated)
Jessica Johnston reports: A serious bank blunder has threatened the financial security of 42,000 people after their statements were mailed to strangers. A former bank manager and a business owner are among the Gold Coast victims of a major fraud scare after private details were distributed during a St George Bank printing mistake. The error…