Month: April 2013

Facebook Scammers Getting Bolder

Posted on by shasha insurance

Other times, careless users have left too much personal information on line, including birthdays, addresses, and other information that can be leveraged into identity theft.

More recently, though, another variation on the scam has come to light: Criminals have been trolling Facebook accounts, looking for members who post a lot of details about their own families. They will then locate and contact a vulnerable family member – often a grandmother – and pretend to be a grandchild travelling abroad.

The scammers pretend to be the grandchild, and breathlessly explain to the unsuspecting senior that they’re in jail in Spain, for example, after hitting a telephone pole – and they need her to wire them money to get let out of jail.

In some cases, the criminals don’t just stop with the first couple of thousand dollars. They will contact grandma again, telling her the judge is making her grandson pay for damages to a light pole he hit. Then a deductible to an insurance company. They will call grandma again, saying the police won’t let him leave the country until he clears accounts and hit grandma for a couple more grand.

They keep it up until grandma catches on to the scam or runs out of money – and meanwhile, her grandson is safe at home, unaware that his Facebook information is being used by criminals to victimize his family.

How they do it

To pull off this scam, criminals don’t need to steal birthdays or password information directly. Instead, they’ll go through Facebook accounts, mapping a picture of the victim’s family. They’ll gather so much information about family details and contacts that they can quickly overcome any skepticism about the scammer’s identity.

Burglaries

Criminals will also scan Facebook for information to use against members more directly: They will look for families announcing vacation plans on Facebook, for example, and then break into the house when you’re away. Police have broken up multiple burglary rings in several states, in which thieves used information gleaned via Facebook to target homes where they knew the occupants would be away.

Awareness Is Still A Factor

According to a recent survey from the Javelin Group, a large number of social media users posted information on line on Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, Tumblrs, and other social media sites that criminals could possibly leverage against them:

  • 68 percent of social media users publicly shared their birthday.
  • 63 percent shared the name of their high school.
  • 18 percent shared their phone number.
  • 12 percent shared their pet’s name.

All this is information that criminals could use to bluff their way to access to a bank account – or even to a home, especially where family members are very young, elderly, naïve or easily confused. 

The Psychology of Safety and The Gen Y Worker

Posted on by shasha insurance

Pop psychologists have been talking about the Generation Gap since the 1960s when the term first made its appearance in the vernacular.  As any Baby Boomer can tell you, the phrase developed because at no time in the history of this country were the differences between two generations as significant as they were then.

Well, what goes around comes around.  The generation that made history by rebelling against the establishment now finds themselves on the other side of the fence.  Their children, Generation Y, are now the ones pushing the envelope.  But instead of questioning social policy, Gen Y is redefining communication.  They were the first to grow up with the Internet, instant messaging and cellular phones, and reaching them means using a multi-media approach, whether it’s in the classroom or on the job site.

They are also the first generation to grow up in a society that puts emphasis on worker safety.  Gen Y was raised in the age of OSHA.  They have never experienced working in a pre-OSHA environment, and they take jobsite safety for granted.  And although they might assume safety is a given, it’s this assumption that makes them more receptive to being trained to work safely than their older colleagues.

If you want Gen Y to buy into your safety training, it needs to deal with the immediate – not the long term.  Remember, this is the generation that instantly communicates; they are not about the future, but are all about now.  If safety training doesn’t show them how it affects them in the present, it won’t have any impact.

This is also a generation intensely concerned with the way they look.  The ripped jeans and ragged tee shirts of their parents have been replaced with chic designer labels.  When it comes to Personal Protective Equipment, Gen Y tends to regard style as much, if not more than, the equipment’s safety features.  In a competition between looking cool in the short-term versus protecting themselves from long-term physical harm, looking cool will win every time.  Manufacturers of Personal Protective Equipment are responding with gear that is as much an accessory to work clothes, as it is protective.  Equipment is being designed in bright colors with popular patterns. The emphasis is on making Gen Y workers compliant with requirements for wearing protective gear because it accommodates their sense of style.

OSHA, too, recognizes the need to appeal to this new generation of worker in a fresh way.  Recognizing that the youngest members of the work force face a higher risk of occupational injury because of their limited job knowledge, training and skills, the agency provides employers with brochures, posters and other educational materials that appeal directly to Gen Y.

OSHA has also developed a Web page, www.osha.gov/SLTC/teenworkers, designed to provide safety information to young workers, employers, parents and educators.  In addition, they convened the Federal Network for Young Worker Safety and Health, a group of 12 federal agencies whose goal is to keep Gen Y workers safe and healthy on the job.  Agencies participating in this network include NIOSH, EPA and the Department of Education.