Fraudsters impersonating your Internet Service Provider are sending urgent malware warnings that urge you to call straight away to “resolve” malicious spyware on your computer. If you follow through on that request, they will maliciously resolve to remove money from your bank account.

“Malvertising” has become a multi-million dollar industry, and nothing is more profitable than claiming to remove malware from your personal computer that isn’t there in the first place. A review of your spam folder or voicemail messages may show a number of messages and calls claiming to come from Microsoft or your Internet Service Provider informing you they have supposedly discovered illegitimate software running on your computer that needs to be removed urgently.

These schemes have become very sophisticated, with warning warnings appearing in your web browser (as an embedded, pop-up or pop-under message) that identifies your general location and ISP as part of the malware alert. To enhance credibility, these messages include your ISPs logo and a professional-sounding audio message that warns your credit cards, passwords, and personal information are at risk.

Malwarebytes Labs, a legitimate fighter of all-things-malware, recently investigated these warning messages and dialed the toll-free number to see what would happen next.

[Our call was] handled by a tech support company out of India that goes by the name of Credence Incorporation and operates a website at: support-samurai.com.

As always, the technician that took remote control of our machine found many “infected files”, using outrageous (for anyone tech savvy) tricks:

Many people won’t know the difference, but the above command is by no means a way to scan a system for malware. Sadly, this sales pitch will still prove effective and those crooks will be able to extort several hundred dollars for non-existent computer problems.

At the time of writing this blog, we noticed that all the fraudulent websites had been shutdown. They had been registered under disguise with the following identity:

Registrant Name: Elizabeth Gonzalez
Registrant Organization: Sky-IP
Registrant Street: Addison House Plaza, street 57
Registrant City: Panama

The scam relies on your IP address to show your ISP and general geographic location. After calling, they’ll take your credit card number and bill up to several hundred dollars deleting non-existent malware while getting your permission to take remote control of your computer. Non-tech savvy users will probably never suspect a thing.

In addition to using a legitimate anti-virus program, it doesn’t hurt to have a second malware detector working for you. We found a promotion today for Malwarebytes Premium (1 year subscription for up to three computers), through Newegg.com for $12.00 (free shipping) using promo code: EMCEHGF27 

(Stop the Cap! does not receive any commission or any other benefits from Malwarebytes or Newegg. It was simply the cheapest price we could find for the software and is subject to expire after today.)

Rural Vermont residents relying on a wireless Internet provider experiencing service problems appear to be collateral damage after a series of scandals and criminal investigations may have prompted the alleged owner to flee to a middle eastern country with no extradition treaty with the United States.

Houston native Homero Josh Garza, 30, had his hands in as many as a dozen business ventures in Vermont, Delaware, and Massachusetts, including Brattleboro’s Great Auk Wireless. But the wireless ISP founded in 2004 apparently is no longer high on Garza’s list of priorities after the entrepreneur discovered the prospect of big profits mining Bitcoins.

GAW’s 1,000 wireless customers are trying to maintain their Internet service, which is experiencing a growing number of service failures. Recently, customers began having trouble sending and receiving email, with nobody answering a support line to help. Last week, the company’s website appeared to be down for several days. Vermont officials considered it another example of why they believe GAW has proven itself a subpar provider with troublesome service.

That could be worrisome in underserved areas like western Massachusetts, where wireless ISPs like GAW have been promoted as less costly alternatives to fiber to the home service. In 2012, Garza gave up on building broadband access in Ashland, Mass., despite being offered a $40,000 government broadband grant, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Platterpus Records proprietor Dave Witthaus suggests residents and businesses might want to think twice about firms like GAW. Witthaus told Coindesk businesses dependent on the wireless service provider encountered “routine issues with connectivity and customer service.” He told the online publication some businesses switched providers after a two week phone outage in February.

“They could have done well in this area but the customer service has just been awful,” Witthaus said. “And now, two weeks without phone is just unacceptable.”

Garza’s performance in the Bitcoin world has been given similar reviews after his mining venture rose to prominence and then collapsed, leaving investors and regulators looking for answers.

Bitcoin, a digital currency, is not issued by any central banking authority. Instead, new coins are issued to those running complex software that verifies the alternative currency’s public ledger of earlier transactions. The process protects the virtual currency from tampering or other illicit acts like re-spending by its original owner. In return for volunteering computer time to help support the security of the Bitcoin, the software pays users transaction fees and a subsidy of newly minted coins.

The prospect of getting “free money” just by running software encouraged the start of a virtual Gold Rush. Instead of mining in the ground looking for precious metals, prospectors eventually sought investors to fund powerful computers dedicated entirely to “mining” for Bitcoins. The Bitcoin system only releases so many coins at a time, and that number has been dwindling by design and will eventually reach zero. As a result, individual enthusiasts running the Bitcoin software during their spare time have seen their awards deteriorate as large-scale “mining operations” capture a growing percentage of the newly issued currency. To combat this trend, mining pools share resources to compete with the larger players and private contractors sell individuals and clubs time and access on powerful computers in return for a “mining contract.”

Enter GAW, which stands for “Geniuses At Work.” Garza’s business depended on a steady stream of clients investing in his enormous mining operation. GAW Miners claimed it has 200,000 customers and $120 million in revenue in just six months. GAW also reportedly collected 28,000 Bitcoins worth over $10 million in just two months.

Garza was never modest showing off his success, appearing in a tuxedo flying around in a private jet, showing off a collection of expensive Ferraris, and living in a $600,000 5,300-square foot stone house outside of Springfield, Mass.

But even as Garza’s company began moving hundreds of “mining rigs” (high-powered computers) into its newly leased 150,000-square foot warehouse in Park Purvis, Miss., some disgruntled ex-clients and investors began complaining Garza’s record was heavy on promises and light on delivery. Bitcoin news sites also began expressing concern about Garza’s operation. At around the same time back in Vermont, Great Auk Wireless customers experienced a very serious service outage that disrupted their phone and Internet service. While the rumor mill swirled about Garza’s ethics, the Mississippi Power Company was investing hundreds of thousands of its dollars to upgrade power to Garza’s warehouse. In return, GAW committed to stay for at least one year. It left after just a few months, folding operations and leaving the utility with $220,000 in unpaid electric bills and over $73,000 in damages and costs. The utility sued and was ignored by GAW.

“Mississippi Power filed a motion for default judgment because GAW failed to answer or otherwise defend the lawsuit,” the power company said in a statement. “We are asking the court to give us a final judgment on the amount that’s owed on this account.”

Collecting any judgment may prove difficult because most of GAW’s employees and management have reportedly fled, resigned, or been terminated.

With GAW Miners largely defunct, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken an interest, questioning whether Garza’s ventures involved unregulated securities, a big no-no with the feds. The SEC is also sharing its wealth of information with the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating GAW Miners for potential false advertising. The Department of Homeland Security also wants to know if Garza was engaged in money laundering, and the IRS is pondering whether Garza reported all of his capital gains for tax purposes.

To get these answers, Garza’s firm was subpoenaed in February to turn over relevant documents. As of late May, Bitcoin traders suspect Garza has left the country and federal investigators behind and relocated to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S.

Taxpayers may also be victims.

GAW Wireless collected $18,018 in state grant money to expand wireless broadband service in 2014. The company never delivered the service, according to Vermont officials. A Maidstone couple also alleges GAW never paid them the $3,000 they agreed upon for leasing property in East Maidstone. Guy and Gail Giampaolo were to receive free Internet service and a $300 annual payment in return for the lease agreement. They reportedly received neither.

The VTDigger reported several other instances of service problems from the wireless venture in a detailed article published earlier this month. Even the state Attorney General has been unable to contact the company after an earlier letter was returned by the post office with no forwarding address. The Department of Public Service is asking customers who use GAW Wireless to call the Consumer Affairs Line at 1-800-622-4496. The department will provide customers with information about alternative wireless Internet service providers.

A group misrepresenting itself as part of Comcast is offering customers substantial discounts on cable and broadband service, if they agree to pay in advance. Customers accepting the offer don’t get any upgrades and lose their money.

Stop the Cap! reader Don Nelson alerted us that a group calling itself the “Loyalty Rewards Department of Comcast” has called residents in Comcast service areas offering huge discounts and upgrades on cable and Internet service for as little as $80 a month.

Nelson was offered Extreme 105 Internet, HD Premier with an X1 set-top box, Unlimited Phone, and HBO, Starz, Showtime & Cinemax for $79.99 for 24 months if he agreed to pay $239.97 to cover the first three months of the promotion in advance. If he was willing to prepay for six months, Nelson would also receive a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablet as a gift. It sounded like a great deal. Comcast’s own website sells the same package for $159.99 a month for 24 months with a two-year contract.

“It’s a very slick operation and they have your personal information and exactly what services you receive from Comcast, so I strongly suspect Comcast’s systems have been breached or some of their employees are involved in the scam,” Nelson said.

When he told the representative it sounded like a deal too good to be true, Nelson was reassured he was speaking with Comcast by telling him his account number and current level of service, including the number and types of set-top boxes already in his home. They knew his street address and had two phone numbers on file, a fact that now bothers Nelson because one of them was an old throwaway prepaid cell phone number he gave Comcast five years ago when he signed up to avoid future telemarketing calls.

“Only four companies had that phone number, including Comcast, and now so do these guys,” Nelson told us. “Something is wrong at Comcast for these scammers to have this information.”

As an extra assurance of good faith, the Indian-accented representative invited Nelson to call him back at 866-694-8573 — the same number displayed on Nelson’s Caller ID.

“Most of these scammers go fishing for your personal information, but the person I talked to didn’t ask me any personal details at all because he already had them,” Nelson said. “When I called back, the interactive system that answered sounded professional and authentic, with options to make a payment and report service problems.”

What started to raise Nelson’s suspicion was exactly how the “Loyalty Rewards Department of Comcast” expected to be paid.

Nelson was told he shouldn’t visit Comcast to make a payment, read his credit card number over the phone, or send a check in the mail. Instead, he was asked to acquire a Green Dot MoneyPak “Scratchable Prepaid Card” at his local CVS, Walgreens, or Kmart and load it with the expected pre-payment. Instead of mailing that card to the “Loyalty Department,” he was supposed to call back and read the numbers off the back of the Green Dot card.

“I was assured everything was okay and this was a co-promotion between Green Dot and Comcast that covered part of the cost of the cable deal I was getting,” Nelson said. “But that sounded strange and I requested an email confirmation to make sure I understood the offer.”

The “Loyalty Department” did, in fact, send an email “verification,” which only further raised suspicion because of its word choices and lack of familiarity with common colloquial expressions. The grammatical errors did not inspire confidence either:

No legitimate company will tell you to buy a prepaid card to make a payment. Scammers cannot afford to accept standard credit cards that can and will be traced back to them eventually.

Dear Customer,

Good Day!

This email refers to the promotion on your current/new services with Comcast Xfinity, this promotion offers you free upgrades in your existing (new services)services of Comcast.

With this up gradation you will be having i.e.

i) Up to 105Mbps download speed. This package gives you liberty to enjoy unlimited uploading and downloading with no fair usage policy applicable.

ii) The upgraded cable package will be Digital HD Premier Package with 260 digital channels with 40 premium movies and 25 sports packages.

iii) The upgraded Comcast voice package will give you unlimited Nationwide and North American talk and text.

A quick review of the available programming is mentioned below:

FAMILY CHANNEL:
ABC Family, Bloomberg TV, A&E, Cartoon network, Disney, Bravo, E!  etc.
MOVIE CHANNEL:
Action Max, AMC, HBO, CINEMAX, STARZ, SHOWTIME, HALLMARK, ENCORE etc.
SPORT CHANNEL:
Big Ten Network, CBS College Sports, ESPN, Fox Soccer Channel, NFL, NHL, NBA etc
NEWS CHANNEL:
ABC News, Weather, BBC, C SPAN, CNBC, FOX NEWS etc.

Green Dot offers this fraud advisory.

Payment Procedure:

This promotion is applicable once you prepay your account for $239.97 (good for 03 months).

As this promotion is brought to you with the Co-operation of Green Dot Inc.

So you have to pay Comcast for the promotion with Money Pak billing card by following 3 simple steps:

i) Go to any of your favorite leading chain store’s checkout counter e.g. CVS Pharmacy, Kroger, Walgreens’ 7/11, Kmart, Circle K, Rite Aid, RadioShack etc, and get Green Dot Money Pak Scratch-able prepaid card (This is a hard paper twofold card without any plastic wrapping in the color green)
ii) Carry enough cash. You can’t use your debit or credit card to buy this Card. ($4.95 Service fee applicable on top of your billing)
iii) Call back the Billing department of Comcast Xfinity at 1-866-694-8573 and pay your bill using that card.

This is a contract free offer for 24 months, with a fix monthly bill of $79.99 after the first three months of Subscription.

Bonus offer: If you are able to clear your billings within 24 hours,  you will automatically will be qualified to earn 100 Loyalty Reward points as good as cash from Comcast Xfinity that can be redeemed by you any time to get one month of extra services.

Bonus offer: If you are able to pay for 06 months of service up front, you will be qualified to receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 tablet free.

Please feel free to contact for further queries from 8am till 6:30pm PST (Operational timings) at 1-866-694-8573.

Regards,
David Clarke
Employee ID LHM
Loyalty Rewards Department
Comcast Xfinity

*  30 Days money back guarantee. No cancellation or recurring fee applied.

This is a service-related email. Comcast will occasionally send you service-related emails to inform you of service changes, upgrades or new benefits. Services and features are subject to Comcast’s standard terms and conditions of service and are subject to change. Copyright 2015 Comcast. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Comcast respects your privacy.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Green Dot BBB MoneyPak Scams What You Need to Know 6-2015.mp4[/flv]

The Better Business Bureau offers its advice about how to avoid Green Dot MoneyPak schemes, which are increasingly common online. (:55)

“That email message convinced me it was all a scam,” Nelson said. “No cable company would write something like this and send it out to customers. They also don’t apparently realize Walgreens and 7-11 have nothing to do with each other. Can you imagine Comcast telling a customer they have to get the ‘green’ prepaid card -without- the plastic wrapping. Most of their customers cannot understand their monthly bill. They are not going to understand the confusing world of prepaid credit cards. It made no sense.”

Stop the Cap! called the “Loyalty Rewards Department of Comcast” and we were disconnected each time we asked a question that did not involve taking advantage of their offer. We called back, trying different departments, and each time we were connected to the same Indian-accented man who had hung up on us before. After the fifth call, they blocked our phone number from reaching them.

We next called Comcast’s security department and got nowhere. They were not interested because we were not Comcast customers inside a Comcast service area and invited us to have our reader call them directly. When Nelson tried, he was left on hold for over 45 minutes and when he finally spoke to someone, they couldn’t be bothered.

“It amazed me how little interest they showed in this operation, which has apparently suckered customers all over the country,” Nelson said. “I asked them to call the number and hear how these people are directly misrepresenting themselves as Comcast, right down to repeating their Xfinity slogans. The representative seemed to have heard the same story before and seemed mostly concerned about telling me Comcast was not responsible for any money paid to the scam artists. They did not even seem to care when I told them they had my personal Comcast account information and suggested the scammers got it off Facebook. Yeah, because I always put my Comcast account number on Facebook, if I used Facebook.”

With further investigation, Stop the Cap! identified several numbers (as well as currently active 866-694-8573) associated with this operation. If any of these numbers call you, hang up: 855-328-7913, 855-859-6946, 800-526-1037, and 800-399-5791.

If you were scammed by these people or have other useful information to share about your experiences with them, please share in the comment section.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWMT Kalamazoo Scam targeting Comcast customers makes appearance in Michigan 6-18-15.flv[/flv]

WWMT in Kalamazoo, Mich. reports the Comcast Loyalty Rewards scam has affected customers across Michigan through aggressive telemarketing campaigns. (2:01)

A conservative pro-business group allied with the telecom industry run by a former top aide for the Koch Brothers is in the middle of a growing scandal over a flood of allegedly phony, identically worded messages opposing Net Neutrality sent to members of Congress.

Politico today reported Phil Kerpen’s group – American Commitment – claimed it had easily found a half-million Americans opposed to the Obama Administration’s support for Net Neutrality and helped funnel 1.6 million messages from them to members of the House and Senate.

But suspicious members of Congress quickly determined that many of the messages originated from constituents who had no memory of sending them and a firm hired to help process incoming e-mail for members of Congress warned many of the messages originated from questionable email addresses and “a vast majority of the emails do not appear to have a valid in-district address.”

The content of many of the emails was exactly the same, with a variant paragraph inserted in the middle opposing Net Neutrality for different reasons, all urging Congress to defund the Federal Communications Commission to prevent the agency from enforcing its new Net Neutrality policies.

When Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) noticed the majority of the anti Net Neutrality messages came from constituents that have never written her before, she quickly reached out to the senders to respond to their concerns. A few replied they had never signed up to send emails criticizing Net Neutrality. Lockheed Martin, which manages many of the email messages resulting from constituents clicking the “Contact Me” button on lawmakers’ websites, notified Congress they were suspicious about the authenticity of the emails as well, and had configured a filter to begin weeding them out.

“The idea that an outside group could use consumer data to impersonate constituents suggests an attempt to hijack the important feedback members of Congress need to truly represent their districts,” Speier said in a statement. “This is identity theft, but instead of impersonating for financial gain, the originators of this theft are striking at the heart of our representative democracy.”

Kerpen maintains close ties to several Koch Brother-funded, pro-corporate astroturf groups. His former work opposing Net Neutrality with Americans for Prosperity, almost entirely funded by Koch Industries, mirrors his continued opposition today.

As early as 2009, Stop the Cap! tangled with Kerpen and Americans for Prosperity after Kerpen appeared on Glenn Beck’s program attacking Net Neutrality. Kerpen nodded in agreement as Beck offered that Net Neutrality represented a joint Marxist and Maoist plot to take over the Internet on behalf of the Obama Administration. Stop the Cap! has repeatedly asked Americans for Prosperity to disclose their donor list, but Kerpen has consistently refused, even after the Sunlight Foundation detailed ties the group maintains with other Koch efforts.

In his new position at American Commitment, Kerpen’s group generated the majority of responses received during the FCC’s second round accepting comments about Net Neutrality. To evade Congress’ ability to sniff out a form letter writing campaign, American Commitment went over the top, designing its form letters with at least 30 different comment variants, many offering wildly different reasons why Net Neutrality was bad for America. When the final letter was created, it appeared original until groups like the Sunlight Foundation discovered nearly exact copies of the different variants ostensibly coming from different writers.

For example, Joe Smith could oppose Net Neutrality because it violates personal freedom — a common conservative view and Marsha Smith could oppose it because it would hurt small co-ops and municipal providers — likely a left-leaning view, but both letters were pre-written by Kerpen’s group. One telltale sign of Kerpen’s involvement is his relentless personal loathing of Robert McChesney, who helped found the consumer group Free Press. Kerpen can’t help himself routinely, almost reflexively accusing McChesney of being a Marxist, extreme leftist, or outright communist. His personal views show up in one of American Commitment’s letter variants:

The ideological leader of the angry liberals calling for you to reduce the Internet to a public utility is Robert McChesney, the avowed Marxist founder of the socialist group Free Press. In an interview with SocialistProject.ca, McChesney said: “What we want to have in the U.S. and in every society is an Internet that is not private property, but a public utility…At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.” In a country of over 300 million people, even an extremist like McChesney can find, perhaps, millions of followers. But you should know better than to listen to them.

Politico asked Kerpen about the matter and he denied impersonating the alleged letter writers and suggested some other group borrowed American Commitment’s idea and potentially ran too far with it.

“We’re aware that other groups used identical language in their campaigns and we cannot speak to those efforts,” Kerpen said. “We verified our data through postal address verification and follow up phone calls. We stand by our campaign and Congress should work to stop President [Barack] Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet at the request of these constituents.”

Kerpen also continued his refusal to disclose what corporations are paying to keep the lights on at American Commitment. No matter, the Sunlight Foundation triangulated donor data and discovered much of the money comes from Koch-affiliated political organizations. Another significant donor is the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the nation’s biggest cable lobbyist and fierce Net Neutrality opponent.

If you want a new iPhone 6 and don’t want to bother paying for it, buy one from an Apple store and they just might bill your purchase to a unknowing third-party with few or no questions asked.

The scam, which first emerged last month, has now spread coast to coast and now involves more than 100 illegally obtained iPhones that victims complain were billed to them with little or no verification by Apple or wireless carriers. Many of those orders, but not all, originated inside Apple retail outlets and AT&T told one Connecticut victim they are being hampered in their fraud investigation by Apple, which is allegedly not cooperating with the wireless carrier.

In Denver, dozens of victims shared their stories with KMGH-TV back in February when the fraud first appeared.

“We have heard from more than 50 customers who said their accounts have been charged for new iPhone 6s, and new service plans or altered service plans, that they never requested,” reporters told viewers.

Verizon Wireless and their customers were the original targets, and Verizon initially blamed their own customers for the fraud.

Denver area resident Terri Olson was livid after Verizon accused her son of ordering new iPhones on her business account.

“He happened to be in the office that day,” said Olson. “We’re like, ‘Wow, he’s here. He’s not on the phone with Verizon.'”

Verizon promised it would drop the charges and tighten security on her account, but two days later, Verizon called confirming they had just accepted and shipped an order for four new iPads.

“She explained to me that she had my son on the other phone line, on hold. Funny thing, he was here with me,” Olson told KMGH. “We proceed, later that day, to get an email confirmation from Verizon that our order is shipping to Henderson, Nevada — (the order) that was supposedly stopped.”

Olson was able to get FedEx confirmation the four iPads were indeed sent to Henderson and signed for by someone, and it was not her son.

“It’s no way to run a business. If I did this to my customers, oh my God, we’d be out of business,” said Olson.

A few days later, more than $2,000 in fraudulent charges showed up on her Verizon bill, and the company was stalling on crediting her account.

“Basically, I’m risking my entire fleet of cell phones and data plans and iPads and everything because I don’t want to pay thousands of dollars ahead, waiting for this supposed credit,” said Olson. “I have already gone up the food chain. I’ll continue to go up the food change. We’re not taking no for an answer.”

Another Denver victim suddenly received news he was the proud new owner of four new iPhone 6 smartphones from Verizon Wireless, despite the fact he was an AT&T customer and had never authorized the purchase of the phones or the two-year contracts that came with them. A Verizon store told him if he didn’t return the phones, he’d be on the hook for their full value — $449 each as well as $160 in service charges.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KMGH Denver More than 50 Verizon customers tell 7NEWS they are victims of unauthorized charges on their accounts 2-10-15.mp4[/flv]

In February, KMGH in Denver reported more than 50 viewers were billed for illegally obtained Apple iPhones charged to their Verizon Wireless accounts. (2:35)

Verizon couldn’t believe the security problem was on their end or at their authorized resellers, so they initially blamed customers in a statement:

As we have stated before, there is no evidence of a data breach at Verizon Wireless that would put our customers’ information at risk. In order for us to look into this further, we will need to work with our customers one-on-one.

In fraud cases, we often find customers have been tricked or persuaded to provide information that allows fraudsters to compromise their accounts. But without the further information you have offered to provide on these particular cases, we cannot determine what has happened.

That triggered a social media backlash.

“For them to suggest that this was phishing and effectively blame the customer is even more appalling,” wrote one victim. “I realize phishing happens too and folks are duped, but that is not the way this happened in my case.”

Verizon Wireless has been the victim of phishing attempts inviting customers to use their Verizon Wireless login credentials and a four digit billing code which many might assume to be the last four digits of their Social Security number to get a one-time credit on their account. The link actually leads to a fraudulent website, where information obtained by the hacker could be used to log into a legitimate customer’s Verizon Wireless account. But a Verizon store representative tells Stop the Cap! that alone would not be enough to complete a purchase at a retail store.

“A phishing fraud victim would be providing the crook login information that could be used to order equipment off Verizon’s website, which seems to be a lot less risky than walking into a retail store to commit fraud,” a Verizon store employee not authorized to speak to the media tells Stop the Cap! “Verizon confirms direct online orders right away with customers, so they would know immediately if there was something wrong with their account. They wouldn’t usually know if a third-party retail reseller billed a phone to their account until the bill or the phone came.”

After the number of fraud reports ballooned, Verizon Wireless evidently tightened its own internal security because by late February, the fraudsters moved on to AT&T.

In Hartford, Conn., Meg O’Brien found out she was a victim when her own phones stopped working.

“Three of our four phones had no service,” O’Brien told Hartford’s WFSB-TV. When she called AT&T, they knew straight away what was happening. “They responded by saying ‘oh – hold on a minute – there’s obviously some fraud…you have three new iPhone 6’s’ and I said ‘ah no we have no iPhone 6’s’.”

AT&T told O’Brien she was far and away not the only victim, and AT&T was concerned because Apple reportedly was not cooperative assisting AT&T in tracking down the Apple retail store(s) where the theft originated. AT&T did confirm the thieves were able to acquire the equipment by charging it to random AT&T wireless accounts.

The Apple store(s) involved allegedly did not need proof of identity or a credit card to complete the transactions, and that leaves O’Brien fuming.

She told WFSB she found it unbelievable Apple stores were handing out phones to customers with nothing more than an AT&T customer’s phone number, and she’s unhappy Apple isn’t being forthcoming.

“So I have no idea what other information has been sold or bought or anything,” O’Brien said. She is filing a complaint with Connecticut’s attorney general.

An Apple spokesperson tells us nobody is supposed to be able to walk out of an Apple store with a new phone without a complete wireless account number, the last four digits of the account holder’s Social Security number, photo ID, and final approval from a wireless carrier. Apple claims the purchase met all four criteria, something O’Brien disputes.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFSB Hartford Hacker charged 6 iPhones to woman ATT account 3-11-15.mp4[/flv]

WFSB in Hartford reports AT&T customer Meg O’Brien was victimized by fraudulent purchases at an Apple retail store Apple is refusing to name. (2:39)

The Fountain of Life Ministries in Elizabeth City, N.C., has been victimized at least twice by a crook using the church’s name to get at least 17 iPhone 6 smartphones for himself, leaving the church with the bill from AT&T.

Church employees first learned they were targets when the thief tried to acquire the phones from Verizon Wireless, which apparently learned its lesson from earlier fraud cases and rejected the purchase.

AT&T was more receptive, authorizing the purchase of more than a dozen phones bought on different days.

“I’m just amazed somebody would do that,” Pastor Preston Pitchford told WAVY-TV.

Church employee Christy Wells was even more stunned when the bill arrived.

“When I saw it was from AT&T, I was like, I know this has got to be him. He probably succeeded,” Wells told WAVY. “I see a charge to Fountain of Life for $10,000, and I knew that wasn’t for us. Who would even think to do something like this?”

The church doesn’t use iPhones and doesn’t have an account with AT&T.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WAVY Norfolk Church billed 10K for fraudulent iPhone purchases 3-3-15.flv[/flv]

The Fountain of Life Ministries in Elizabeth City, N.C. was victimized twice by iPhone 6 fraud. Verizon Wireless rejected the fraudster’s first attempt, but AT&T accepted his second… for 17 iPhones. From WAVY-TV in Portsmouth, Va. (2:12)