Over 10 billion robocalls have been placed to U.S. phones since the start of 2016, according to YouMail, a provider of cloud-based telecom services including call blocking. Complaints to the Federal Trade Commission about them are up nearly 50% since last year. Tax scams like the one I received are also up this year, according to the real IRS, and have netted the bad guys over $40 million since October 2013. The real reason for the recent robocall barrage? Technology. It’s so easy—and cheap—for scammers to dial thousands of numbers that they’re simply hitting more of us. They plug lists of phone numbers into software and fire off calls over the internet. The software also makes it easy to “spoof” numbers, falsifying caller-ID information so callers, even out of the country, can disguise their identity or location. Tax fraudsters even spoof the IRS’s own toll-free number.

Read the full WSJ story here.

Wells Fargo & Co. began using new software for detecting abuse in some seniors’ wealth-management accounts during the first quarter of 2016 and is gradually rolling the technology out to more accounts. The technology closely tracks the investing behavior of the individual who owns the account and starts to recognize his or her unique habits, said Jimmie Lenz, the chief technology risk officer for Wells Fargo’s wealth investment management division. Elder financial abuse often has its own set of signs, according to a report issued by the CFPB in March 2016. These include suddenly insufficient funds or overdraft fees, activity in previously inactive accounts, change of address on an account, opening a new joint checking account or adding a joint owner to an existing account, an increase in total monthly cash withdrawals compared with historical patterns and electronic bill payments to new vendors. The Wells Fargo software can pick up on fraudulent or unusual behavior, even for small deviations in investing behavior, Lenz said. That can be particularly useful for detecting elder abuse, since abusers often try to make small withdrawals from a senior’s account over time, Lenz said. A thief who steals a credit card, in contrast, is more likely to make large withdrawals or purchases to steal as much money as possible before the card is canceled.

Read the full article on MarketWatch.

Scam artists are known for targeting a society’s most vulnerable, such as the elderly and the disabled, but fraudster Kenneth Wayne McLeod was different. His victims were men and women that many assume would be the least vulnerable to scams: federal law enforcement agents. McLeod, a broker and investment adviser from Jacksonville, Florida, spent some two decades luring dozens of unsuspecting investors, many of them federal agents, including agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to invest $34 million in a Ponzi scheme masquerading as a bond fund.

Read the full story here.

For more than a decade, the scheme has preyed on sick, elderly and vulnerable Americans. Here’s how it worked: Millions of people received letters promising that psychic guidance and talismans from the French clairvoyant Maria Duval were the secret to turning their lives around. All they needed to do was send in money. And the payments that victims sent in really added up. In the U.S. and Canada alone, investigators allege that the operation raked in more than $200 million in the last two decades.

In a recent five-part investigation, CNNMoney found that this has been far from the work of one woman — exposing the massive business network that appears to be keeping the international scam alive. In fact, we even went to France and spoke to Duval’s son, who claimed his mother is a victim herself and that she lost control of the use of her name long ago.

Watch Part 1 here.

Getting your wallet stolen is stressful and scary enough, but did you know that there is now a way for would-be thieves to steal your ATM information without even laying hands on your card? No, this has nothing to do with online scammers. This threat is present in any grocery store, pharmacy or anywhere with a keypad for debit card PINs. Jet propulsion laboratory engineer Mark Rober explains this new threat, and most importantly, the simple way to keep yourself and your ATM code protected.

Watch the video here.