Snippings

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One report by the U.S. Treasury published in September 2022 cited the Free Press and Journal-Constitution reporting to classify the proliferation of crypto ATMs as an example of financial service companies targeting “vulnerable communities, especially low-income communities and communities of color … using deceptive sales tactics and marketing.”

From Bitcoin ATM Companies Are Preying on the Poor – Truthout:

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Millions of people in the United States rely on services like those offered by the laundromat because they don’t have enough money to open bank accounts, with the potential for monthly fees to snowball into overdraft fees bleeding their modest income dry. But their reliance on stores like the Hyattsville, Maryland, laundromat leads them to incur up to thousands of dollars in additional costs every year. It’s the result of a phenomenon described by analysts and policy makers as people being either “unbanked” or “underbanked,” and it might be the most clear example of how, as the saying goes, it’s expensive to be poor.

From Bitcoin ATM Companies Are Preying on the Poor – Truthout:

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“I think cash is limited,” said Andrew “Andy” Kartiganer, president at Professional Vending Services Inc., a Deerfield Beach, Florida based convenience services operator. “Credit is about 75% of our sales, 25% is cash. It’s a double-edged sword; there are different problems with both, but I would never eliminate cash. If your (card) reader goes down, that’s the only way you’re going to collect.”

On the digital side, Kartiganer added that card readers have hidden costs and headaches, equipment failures or expiration (e.g., the sunsetting of 3G) and losing a percentage of each sale to credit card transaction fees. Also, there can be human errors in paperwork and configuration or even deposit routing, like when a machine sends transaction profits to the wrong business. Auditing is also much harder with these transactions thanks to sheer volume.

On the other hand, there are fees for processing and counting cash, Kartiganer said.

From Cash is not dead — it’s in transition | Vending Times:

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A judge on Friday sentenced a Chula Vista man to more than 11 years in federal prison for the bombing of two ATMs in 2017 that netted him and an accomplice just $3,420.

From Man who bombed 2 San Diego ATMs sentenced to 11 years – The San Diego Union-Tribune:

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By no later than December 2023, firms must be monitoring the payments that they are receiving to help them identify suspicious inbound payments and accounts that might be being used by scammers.

From Take back control: Its like asking a fox to guard the henhouse:

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Ofcom and UK Finance set up the DNO database in 2019. It worked with telecoms companies, government agencies and other public-sector bodies to list their public telephone numbers. These are inbound-only – and never used to call customers.

The idea is that any outgoing calls appearing to originate from one of these inbound-only numbers must be spoofed. This list is then shared with telecoms providers, their intermediaries and call-blocking or filtering services, which block calls from these numbers before they reach the intended recipient.

All of the major current account providers have previously told Which? they are signed up to the DNO list.

We made calls to a test phone, spoofing the prominent numbers of 14 bank account providers. We focused on the numbers most useful to scammers – those printed on the back of debit cards and listed as fraud helplines.

While most calls couldn’t be connected, suggesting the DNO list is effective, we could successfully spoof at least one phone number belonging to HSBC, Lloyds, Santander, TSB, Nationwide and Virgin Money.

From Is it really your bank calling? How some banks are failing customers on fraud protection – Which? News:

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Barclays is being probed by the UK financial regulator for suspected persistent failings in its compliance and anti-money laundering systems, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

From Barclays probed by UK regulator over anti-money laundering systems | Financial Times:

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With the massive amounts being lost to money laundering, fraud and identity theft

 

What actually happens in practice though it that the criminals continue unmolested while law abiding citizens (eg, me) are inconvenienced. And it’s going to get worse as the banks are forced by the regulators to compensate customers who send their money to criminals.

 

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Let me start by saying that I believe the answer to Authorised Push Payment Fraud is Request to Pay.  Your most vital asset in payments is trust and Request to Pay allows a recipient of a payment request to trust the originator of the request is who they say they are

From Opinion: Mobile operators aren’t to blame for payment fraud:

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We need to make request-to-pay (R2P, or “customer-is-present” push payments) and variable-recurring-payments (VRP, or “customer-was-present” push payments) the naturally way for consumers to expect transactions.

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Users will be able to identify and authenticate themselves online via a European digital identity wallet without having to go through commercial providers.

Amendments were also proposed by the MEPs, including making the wallet a tool that can also read and verify electronic documents, and allowing for peer-to-peer interactions. They also proposed measures to strengthen privacy and cybersecurity.

From European Parliament Members back plans for digital identity framework:

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Overall, the proposed new framework will “ensure universal access for people and businesses to secure and trustworthy electronic identification and authentication by means of a personal digital wallet”, by requiring member states to “issue a digital wallet under a notified eID scheme, built on common technical standards, following compulsory certification”,

From EU takes next step towards approving legislative framework for European Digital Identity Wallet • NFCW:

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When the publisher of Sports Illustrated and Men’s Journal announced that its magazines would start to publish AI-generated articles, its CEO assured readers that the practice wouldn’t result in a decline in quality. The very first article the bot published in Men’s Journal, on “What All Men Should Know About Low Testosterone” (with the byline “Men’s Fitness Editors”) contained a variety medical claims on a serious health issue.

Like most AI-generated content, the article was written with the confident authority of an actual expert and contained the claim that it had been “reviewed and fact-checked by our editorial team.”

Bradley Anawalt, the chief of medicine at the University of Washington Medical Center pointed to 18 specific errors he identified in the article. Some were flagrantly wrong about basic medical topics,

From Magazine Publishes Serious Errors in First AI-Generated Health Article:

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Private digital identity providers are set to benefit as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) picks up the tab for a “substantial proportion” of the costs for digital identity in the country, according to responses to a consultation on the trust framework. It will also seek legal changes to make digital ID as valid as physical credentials.

From UK government to subsidize private digital ID schemes | Biometric Update:

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