Petty Fraud on the Rise

As the economy dwindles, we're seeing more instances of petty fraud throughout the country. In Omaha, two men shrink wrapped empty Zune (.mp3 players) boxes and "returned" them to a West Omaha Wal-Mart. After they received gift certificates from customer service for the fraudulent items, they went on to buy two more Zune players. And in Florida, a high school teacher has been accused of fraud for lying on Section 8 applications. Six people, including a Palm Beach County teacher, appeared in court Thursday, accused of ripping off a government agency of nearly $137,000, investigators said.

While it seems more salacious to cover the large fraud out there, so much petty fraud abounds. What are you seeing? How is this sort of crime impacting the country as a whole?

Share this article with your social network, just click below to share now!

Share |

Ironic Fraud Case

Authorities in Phoenix booked three men for three counts of forgery and one count of fraud. The men had been trying to return laptops to Wal-Mart saying that they had been given empty boxes with no merchandise included. Store employees were suspicious, and called the police. As it turned out, the men had indeed been sold empty boxes, however, they were not completely innocent. Authorities found that the three men had a total of 19 forged credit cards which had been encoded with valid stolen numbers, as reported here.

Share this article with your social network, just click below to share now!

Share |