For information on Crime Prevention tips goto BC Crime Prevention Association .

                                                      

Crime Stoppers International is seeking the public’s assistance to prevent crime during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games

 

February 8, 2010 -- Crime Stoppers International is seeking assistance from the public in reporting criminal information that may negatively impact the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, in February and March of 2010. Criminal information received will be relayed to Canadian Crime Stoppers, to complement the security effort for the Games.

 

Crime Stoppers International is an umbrella organization operated by a volunteer board of directors from Crime Stoppers programs worldwide to establish guidelines to assure consistency. There are over 1200 Crime Stoppers programs operating throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Central America, Mexico and many Caribbean and Pacific nations.

 

“We are asking the help from the Canadian public in reporting criminal information deemed relevant to the smooth and safe running of the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games,” says the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association Chair Mr. Ralph Page.

 

“Crime Stoppers International is a global partner in the fight against crime and terrorism. With our world-wide grass roots intelligence base, we are at the forefront with anonymous information that assists law enforcement across the globe,” says Gary Murphy, President of Crime Stoppers International.

 

To report any criminal activity that could potentially impact the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, please call 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or text a message using Keyword "BCTIP" to 274637 (CRIMES) (in North America). You can also report a tip through the website: www.solvecrime.ca.

 

For more information, please visit: www.c-s-i.org.

 

Peter Price

Public Affairs for the South America, Africa, Asia and Asia Pacific regions

Crime Stoppers International

Tel: +61 417 99 66 00

Email: pp.csimedia2010@csiworld.org 

 

Gary Murphy

Public Affairs for the North America, Latin America and Caribbean regions

Tel: 1-888-284-4458

gm.csimedia2010@csiworld.org

 

Michael Gordon-Gibson

Public Affairs for Europe

Tel: +44-1883 731 302

mgg.csimedia2010@csiworld.org

Insecure Facebook pages lead to Interac e-mail money transfer scam

The British Columbia Crime Prevention Association has been advised by the RCMP of a new scam that uses Facebook pages to solicit money from friends of the pages’ owner.

In a recent case, a Langley woman failed to properly set up her pages to ensure that only those in her close circle of friends were privy to her information. As a result, someone accessed her account and assumed her identity before sending off e-mail requests for money to friends whose contact details were listed within those insecure pages. Some of the friends fell for the scam and transferred money via Interac e-mail money transfer to the fraudster and they did not question theauthorship of the e-mail because the victim’s personal information was available to the identity thief to add legitimacy to the requests.

“Account takeover is a common technique used by identity thieves in the world of bank account fraud,” says Valerie MacLean, Executive Director, BC Crime Prevention Association, “but this is a different kind of account takeover - a twist with a personal touch. The shame of it is that this type of scam is preventable by taking advantage of the privacy configuration options offered by Facebook.”

BC Crime Prevention Association provides the following tips for Facebook users:

• Go to the Privacy Overview page and carefully review the options for sharinginformation – use the Edit Settings function to set access parameters to limit your exposure to others.

• Take advantage of the “Block People” and “Limited Profile” tools to allow only selected people to view your pages.

• Do not respond to an e-mail request to transfer money to a “friend” without there being a prior telephone conversation or face-to-face meeting at which the request for money was discussed. If there is no such prior discussion, contact the requestor by phone to confirm that they have requested money.

• Beware of e-mail “spoofing” in which someone purports to be your friend by sending you a message using their e-mail address. Wikipedia defines spoofing as a term used to describe fraudulent e-mail activity in which the sender address and other parts of the email header are altered to appear as though the e-mail originated from a different source. E-mail spoofing is a technique commonly used for spam e-mail and phishing to hide the origin of an e-mail message. The consequences of responding to one of these messages include giving out personal information that could be damaging to you if it falls into the wrong hands.

• General tips on Social Networking Sites including ‘10 Steps to Safe Online Social Networking’ can be found on the RCMP website at: http://www.rcmpgrc.gc.ca/scams/student_guide_e.htm#social

• For more information about Interac e-mail money transfers, visit the Interac website at: http://www.interac.ca/consumers/