The Federal Trade Commission and several other law enforcement agencies have cracked down on spammers in an effort to fight online fraud.
The initiative includes 30 law enforcement actions, including three FTC civil complaints, and four settlements in existing cases.
In one new case, the FTC charged that an unnamed defendant used the logos of financial institutions like Radian Bank, Prudential Fannie Mae in a scheme to pry sensitive financial information out of consumers. The purpose was to sell purported financing and refinancing loans.
The defendants in the sealed case also forged e-mail headers so that undeliverable messages were not connected with them, according to the FTC. An unaffiliated third party received 30,000 bounce-backs.
The alleged culprits were charged with unfair and deceptive practices, violations of the FTC Act, and with “pretexting”—posing as entity to get sensitive financial information.
In another case, the FTC alleged that NetSource One and James R. Haddaway, doing business as WorldRemove, of using spam to sell a bogus spam-elimination service. They were charged with violations of the FTC Act.
Brian Silverman, doing business as BES Systems, Electro Depot, Dallas Tech Surplus and New York Tech Surplus, was accused of failing to send computers he had sold via Internet auction houses like eBay. He was accused of violating the FTC Act and the Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule.
Meanwhile, four alleged spammers who promoted chain e-mail schemes have settled FTC charges that they promoted chain e-mail schemes. The four, Jessica Drees, Heide Freitas, Rosaline Leahy and Nancy Merrill, accepted payments sent by undercover investigators, according to the FTC. The four have agreed not to participate in future chain letter schemes.
Joining the FTC in the sweep were 12 federal, state and local enforcement and consumer protection agencies. As part of it, ten enforcement agencies sent letters to roughly 100 spammers warning them of possible legal action, the FTC reported.
In addition, ten agencies participated in the FTC’s “Spam Harvest,” an effort to determine the actions that consumers take online that put them at the most risk.
Investigators “seeded” 175 Internet locations with 250 undercover e-mail addresses and monitored them for six weeks.
All of the addresses posted in chat rooms received spam, the first piece arriving eight minutes after the address was posted. In addition, 86% of the addresses posted at newsgroups and Web pages were spammed.
Spam was also sent to 50% of the addresses at free personal Web page services, and 27% from message board postings.
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