STS: Information Technology

E-commerce

is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet

Auction fraud

is any type of fraud perpetrated on auction websites. This type of fraud results from activities such as misrepresentation of a product that is being offered for sale, fraudulent bidding, or nondelivery of goods that were purchased during the auction.

Disaster Relief Scams

When disaster strikes, so do fraudsters, whether it's a pandemic or weatherrelated. Hiding behind the guise of an actual aid organization, scammers typically use a tragedy or natural disaster to con you out of your money. By thinking you’re donating to an emergency relief fund, you unwittingly provide credit card or other e-payment information.

Phishing Scams

You receive an email from a seemingly familiar enterprise that you deem legitimate, such as your bank, university, or retailer you frequent. The message directs you to a site—usually to verify personal information such as email addresses and passwords—that then steals your information and exposes your computer to attack by scammers.

Grandparent Scams

a fraudster poses as a panicked grandchild who needs cash immediately for some emergency—to get out of jail, leave a foreign country, or pay a hospital bill. The COVID-19 pandemic made it even easier to sell compelling lies: "I'm in the hospital with COVID. Please send money right away."

CRAMMING

is a practice where a company places unauthorized charges for telephone and non-telephone related services on your local telephone bill. Some of these charges may appear on your telephone bill in terms that do not clearly state what service was provided, such as "enhanced services," "access," "activation," or "minimum usage fees.

Pyramid schemes

also referred to as franchise fraud or chain referral schemes—are marketing and investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product. The real profit is earned, not by the sale of the product, but by the sale of new distributorships.

Work-from-home scams

are when deceitful people create fake job postings to benefit themselves. They may use these as a means to steal your personal information or financial assets. As work from home jobs become more popular, scammers are starting to target this market with seemingly lucrative job offers.

Investment fraud

happens when people try to trick you into investing money. They might want you to invest money in stocks, bonds, notes, commodities, currency, or even real estate.

Travel/Vacation Fraud

Victims are enticed, scammers may request upfront payments for the supposed travel arrangements, including flights, accommodations, and activities.

Pay-per-call Scams

These scams entice you to pay to make calls in order to receive information, such as how to save money on groceries or how to receive free credit cards.

Health Care Fraud

can be committed by medical providers, patients, and others who intentionally deceive the health care system to receive illegal benefits or payments.

Double billing

Submitting multiple claims for the same service

Phantom billing

Billing for a service visit or supplies the patient never received

Unbundling

Submitting multiple bills for the same service

Upcoding

Billing for a more expensive service than the patient actually received

Teleworking

A form of work that allows employees to work part- or fulltime at home or at a satellite office.

Keystroke

to determine if quotas are met or employee is on task

Phone

to determine customer satisfaction and proper use of phone resources.

Transactions

to reduce theft.

Badges

to replace worker keys or track down workers

GPS tracking

to locate vehicles; employee driving speed and driving habits.

Computer-Aided Design,

it's a method of using a computer to design things, such as buildings and items.

Computer Aided Manufacturing

is the use of software and computercontrolled machinery to automate a manufacturing process.