Press

In the Press: Top 5 Phone Scams 0

We have been in the press a lot recently discussing how there are five phone scams that are catching people out around the USA. The same five are responsible for luring people into parting with their savings and hard-earned wages. Below click the links below to see what we had to say when it comes to protecting yourself. 

Click on a media outlet below to read the story. 

In the Press: Top 5 Phone Scams 0

We have been in the press a lot recently discussing how there are five phone scams that are catching people out around the USA. The same five are responsible for luring people into parting with their savings and hard-earned wages. Below click the links below to see what we had to say when it comes to protecting yourself. 

Click on a media outlet below to read the story. 

Exporting Excellence Awards 2017 - WINNERS 1

At CPR, we're really proud to be making waves at home as well as internationally as a consistently growing Welsh company. We were thrilled to be shortlisted for the UK Export Awards in the Innovation in Exporting Category. A large amount of our business comes from exporting to the USA and serving our customers at home, as well as abroad, is part of our ongoing strategy to create a growing company.

On the 15th of June, a small part of the team travelled up to London to attend the awards and listen to its key speakers discuss the future of exporting for the business in Britain. 

The event took place at The Grange Hotel at Tower Bridge and was hosted by Global Trade Review and The Manufacturer. It was wonderful to see a range of notable sponsors back the event, including the Institute of Export and International Trade, UK Export Finance, Falcon Group, Wells Fargo and Santander to name a few. The Awards Speaker was Graham Cole, with a wealth of experience in the motor industry and has been a member of both the CBI Chairman's Committee and the International Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce, there are fewer people who would speak with more authority on exports than him. His speech focused on the positives of exporting as well as reflecting on his long and illustrious career and the growth and changes that he has seen in the industry. 

After a stunning three-course meal and Cole's wonderful speech, the awards took place. Having seen the other contenders in our category and the general quality of all the finalists it was difficult to know where we would sit. With a vast variation in industries and companies the export it was a proud moment to have gotten that far through the process. We are thrilled however to have won in our category of Innovation in Exporting and are incredibly proud to be one of the quickest growing companies in Wales. Exporting plays a large part in our success and our approach to gaining an international market has always been part of our strategy. 

We'd like to thank the Export Excellence Awards and Natwest for sponsoring our category. We are also very grateful to the judges who unanimously thought we were deserving of the accolade. 

Costa Rican police arrest U.S. men suspected in $9 million scam 0

Five men have been detained as part of an operation to stop phone scams on retirees. Judicial Investigation Police agents have detained five U.S. men who are suspected of running a scam that has robbed U.S. senior citizens of $9 million. The scam took place through a call centre and is sadly not the first of its kind.

The suspects were arrested as part of simultaneous raids on Wednesday on the West side of the San Jose area. The Judicial Investigation Police believe the suspects ran the scam through a San Jose call centre and deliberately targeted vulnerable individuals. Calls were made to residents of the USA and victims were told they had won a sizeable cash prize which they could then claim once wiring a refundable fee to a bank account in Costa Rica.

The detainees have been identified by their last names, Dodt, Jordan, Fink, Nastasi and Sniffen. It is believed that there was a sixth member of the group, a woman, and she remains at large.

The victims were all believed to have been over 55 and retired citizens of the USA. After being conned into paying the initial fee the targets were then told that the prize had been increased and they would need to wire additional refundable money. This money was supposed to cover higher taxes and larger insurance before they received their prize.

The con dates back to 2010 and transfers from the USA into the scammer's account lasted until 2014. The sums paid ranged from $500 to $1850. The extradition process could take up to six months, commented the Judicial Investigation Police.

HSN features the V2000 Call Blocker 0

How the FCC hopes to curb those annoying spam calls 0

Calls from “spoofed” numbers have disturbed countless Americans at dinner time and deceived millions into turning over money or their personal information to scammers on the other end of the phone. 

Q: What is a spoofed number? 

Scammers spoof another phone number when they use that number to hide their identity or the origin of their call. A spoofed number could be one a phone company has not yet assigned, a number from an invalid or nonexistent area code, or a number from a line that does not dial out. 

Sometimes the call is made by an actual person, but usually it is an automated call. 

Robocall scams have long been a pain in regulators’ sides. But the proliferation of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones, which use a broadband internet connection to dial out instead of a traditional analog phone line, has enabled the number of robocall scams to explode. Complaints about robocalls violating the National Do Not Call Registry, an opt-in list that prohibits telemarketers from calling consumers, doubled from 2010 to 2015, according to Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. Today, unwanted calls including robocalls and telemarketing scams are the No. 1 consumer complaint the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) receives, with about 200,000 filed annually.

These scams have also had economic consequences for Americans. Of the 13 percent of US adults who have been victims of a telephone scam, nearly half of them have lost between $100 and $10,000, according to a study released in December by CPR Call Blocker, a company that sells devices that block unwanted calls. 

Q: Why have existing regulations been useless? 

The simple answer is scammers ignore them, often because they illegally operate overseas or are otherwise out of law enforcement’s reach.

Spoofing is generally illegal in the United States, although Congress’s Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 grants exceptions for political campaigns, charities, debt collectors, pharmacies, schools, and other providers of information. 

Additional federal measures targeting telemarketing abuse include the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 as well as the National Do Not Call Registry, which the Federal Trade Commission opened in 2003. The problem with these regulations, explains Consumers Union policy analyst Maureen Mahoney, is that scammers disregard them. 

Regulators have tried to put up other roadblocks, such as banning robocalls to cellphones without prior written consent. But spoofers have found their way around these, too, says Margot Freeman Saunders, senior counsel to the National Consumer Law Center. 

“Spoofers are often judgment-proof,” she says. “The current laws just apply prohibitions to the spoofer, but you never know who they are, and you can’t find them even when they are in the United States.”

Q: What does the FCC plan to do now? 

The commission is both proposing new rules and asking for help. In a shift away from its long-standing policy of never allowing phone companies to block calls, the FCC is proposing allowing providers to do so if it appears the call originated from a number that is unassigned or invalid or is one a subscriber previously requested be blocked because of concerns that his or her number was being spoofed.

But the FCC is also asking phone companies and the public to come up with ideas to ensure that legal telemarketers aren’t also blocked. The commission is seeking public comments through the spring, and the final rules aren’t likely to come into force before late this year. 

Q: Will this plan work?

Yes and no. Consumer advocates say it is no panacea, but it’s a good start. They point to the success of a test that phone companies and the FCC recently conducted. Providers reduced scam calls purportedly from the Internal Revenue Service by about 90 percent in the third quarter of 2016 by blocking numbers on a list associated with government, bank, and other lines that do not dial out, according to the FCC.

But Ms. Mahoney at Consumers Union urges phone companies to do more and for more technology to be made available to consumers to block or stop calls. Although a coalition of 33 companies already formed the Robocall Strike Force to develop new scam-fighting tools, Mahoney says companies should also offer consumers free tools to, for example, identify numbers that have been spoofed by using caller ID. 

Q: What scams should people watch out for in the meantime? 

“Rachel,” from Cardholder Services, is just one caller consumers should be wary of. She has already duped countless Americans by promising to lower their credit-card bill. Another popular scam asks a question such as “Can you hear me?” to trick people into saying “yes.” Don’t. A one-word answer can be edited later to make it sound as if the person authorized a major purchase. A third scam is a phony fundraising call, often from politicians. People whose voices have been used include Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Original Article Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2017/0503/How-the-FCC-hopes-to-curb-those-annoying-spam-calls