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On the trail of the dotcom queen: how Julie Meyer left a pattern of unpaid bills, missing funds and broken dreams in her wake
Investigation: The entrepreneur was once the toast of London’s tech scene, a ‘global leader of tomorrow’ who starred on Dragons’ Den and promised untold riches for the startups she championed. But people she worked with in the last decade, from Malta to Switzerland, describe a very different reality Julie Meyer is sitting in a starkly lit…
Booking.com warns customers of hack that exposed their data
Undisclosed number of names and contact and reservation details accessed in latest cybercrime attempt Business live – latest updates The accommodation reservation website Booking.com has suffered a data breach with “unauthorised parties” gaining access to customers’ details. The platform said it “noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of…
‘Your photos will be deleted’: Apple users warned over ‘nasty’ iCloud storage scam
Fraudsters send emails claiming storage is full or nearly full, then trick people into clicking on links that can expose bank and personal details For a while you’ve been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full”. They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up,…
World’s oldest tortoise caught in viral crypto death scam
Fake X account posing as his vet sparked global false reports of Jonathan’s death while soliciting crypto donations At 194 years old, Jonathan the giant tortoise was a youngster when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne – and has now lived long enough to fall victim to a crypto scam. News outlets including the BBC,…
I was paid to write fake Google reviews – then my ‘bosses’ tried to scam me
Undercover reporter gets a taste of the sprawling fraud industry in which cryptocurrencies play a crucial role Five firms including Autotrader and Just Eat investigated over fake review failings The holiday flat near(ish) the Roman ruins of Pompeii was “disgusting”, and smelled of “a mix of dampness and sewage”, according to one reviewer on Google…
Fake rooms, props and a script to lure victims: inside an abandoned Cambodia scam centre
Sprawling compound, including mock-up banks and police offices, uncovered by Thai military during border clashes It is as if you have walked into a branch of one of Vietnam’s banks. A row of customer service desks, divided by plastic screens, with landline phones, promotional leaflets and staff business cards. A seated waiting area and a…
‘Convincing’ AI scams drove UK fraud cases to record 444,000 last year
Criminals using artificial intelligence tools to take over mobile, bank and online shopping accounts, says Cifas Criminals are increasingly exploiting AI technology to take over people’s mobile, banking and online shopping accounts, the UK’s leading anti-fraud body has warned. Last year, a record number of scams were reported to the national fraud database, fuelled by…
Deepfake fraud taking place on an industrial scale, study finds
AI content for scams can be targeted at individuals and ‘produced by pretty much anybody’, researchers say Deepfake fraud has gone “industrial”, an analysis published by AI experts has said. Tools to create tailored, even personalised, scams – leveraging, for example, deepfake videos of Swedish journalists or the president of Cyprus – are no longer…