Fraudulent escrow escrow service to act as
services. an intermediary for the
sale of the item. The
Please be aware that seller knows that
there are criminals at suggesting an escrow
large claiming to offer service in most cases
escrow services will instill a sense of
owned/endorsed by either trust by the buyer.
e-gold Ltd or G&SR. 3. The seller and the
Neither e-gold Ltd nor person operating the
G&SR offer escrow fraudulent escrow site
services nor endorse any are the same criminal.
existing escrow service. 4. The victim visits the
Please perform your own fraudulent escrow site
due diligence before and signs up for their
using any escrow services.
service. 5. The criminal emails
the victim phony escrow
How escrow fraud works: transaction information
and gives the victim
1. The victim finds the detailed instructions on
deal of a lifetime at an how to open and fund an
online auction site. e-gold account.
Laptop computers and 6. The criminal
luxury cars seem to the instructs the victim to
most popular items. send an email as soon as
2. After the victim has the e-gold account is
won the auction the funded.
seller suggests using an
7. The victim emails the information is a good
criminal to let them warning sign, but a
know their new e-gold clean complaint record
account has been funded. doesn't guarantee that
The criminal then your transaction will go
creates an e-gold smoothly.
account and emails the
account number back to Beware of "shills." The
the victim with seller may try to raise
instructions on how to the price artificially
make an e-gold spend. by making bids under
8. The victim makes the fictitious names or
e-gold spend and never recruiting other people
hears from the escrow to make bids. Using
service again. bogus bidders is illegal
and a violation of
Auction fraud online auction policies.
Always check out the
seller before you bid. Get the name and contact
Some auction sites have information of the
feedback forums with seller. Don't do
comments about the business with anyone who
sellers based on other refuses to provide that
people's experiences. Be information! You should
aware that positive get the name, physical
reports may have been street address, email
"planted" by the seller address, and phone
and negative comments number from the seller
could be from a and you should verify
competitor. Negative the information.
There are many varieties exchange, not knowing
of auction fraud. Here that the individual who
is an example: remitted payment is not
the person who placed
1. Criminal claims to be the exchange order.
selling a highly 5. Since e-gold Spends
desirable object (laptop are non-repudiable, the
computers, motorcycles, exchange can't be
and cars seem to be reversed once fulfilled.
popular) for a price This ultimately means
that seems too good to that:
be true. - If Remittance was also
2. Criminal obtains non-repudiable (like a
sufficient information wire transfer), the
about victim to place an victim loses his entire
InExchange order Remittance.
(National Currency to - If Remittance was
e-gold) in victim's name repudiable (like credit
using a legitimate card, check, and ACH
exchange service. payments), the victim
3. Victim unwittingly typically attempts to
remits payment believing evade taking
the exchange service to responsibility for his
be the entity selling own actions, meaning
the [laptop, car, that the legitimate
motorcycle, whatever]. exchange service is at
4. Exchange service risk of taking the loss
unwittingly accepts instead.
remittance and fulfills
Fake Emails purporting limit, you have received
to be from e-gold fraudulent funds, your
account will be closed
PLEASE BE ADVISED E-GOLD for inactivity, or that
WILL NEVER SEND YOU AN e-gold is paying monthly
HTML EMAIL WITH A interest payments.
HYPERTEXT LINK ASKING
YOU TO CLICK ON THE LINK Regardless of the
TO ACCESS YOUR subject line of the
ACCOUNT! fraudulent emails, they
always have one thing in
There are numerous common. The hypertext
fraudulent emails in link in the email will
circulation spoofing appear to be to the
e-mail addresses in the e-gold website, but if
e-gold.com domain. These clicked, it directs the
emails direct you to log victim to a fraudulent
into your account to website, designed to
verify information or ensnare the careless by
update information and mimicking the appearance
they usually operate on of the real e-gold
greed or fear in order website. The technique
to entice victims to used to obscure the true
click a hypertext link. destination of such
hypertext links is via
the use of HTML
These emails may say formatted e-mail.
your account has a value
The ultimate goal of the starts with:
criminal is to entice https://www.e-gold.com/
his victims to enter
their e-gold account - Verify the site is
number and passphrase secure (look at the SSL
while on the fraudulent Lock icon at the bottom
website. Once the of your browser
criminal has gained this window)
information, he has - Verify that the site
everything he needs to certificate is issued by
log in to the victim's VeriSign to
e-gold account on the www.e-gold.com
real e-gold website and
divert the value. e-gold Shopping Cart
Interface (SCI)
We urge Users to:
Merchant sites using the
1. Never click hypertext e-gold SCI will pass you
links in HTML formatted to the e-gold website at
e-mail to access your checkout to authorize
account. payment. The e-gold SCI
2. Confirm that you are will pass you back to
on the e-gold website the Merchant's site
before entering your after you have received
e-gold passphrase into confirmation of your
either a logon form or a e-gold Spend. All of the
payment authorization above criteria for
form (see note below verifying you are on the
about e-gold shopping e-gold website also
cart interface): apply to Spends made via
- Verify the the e-gold SCI.
address/location/URL
