Addicted to Koch: Part 6
Posted by Michelle Moquin on August 25th, 2014
Good morning!
In case you thought I forgot about the Koch Brothers, I haven’t.
From Politico:
Koch Fact Number 6: The Kochs are trying to dismantle our public education system.
For right, Common Core fight prelude to bigger agenda
Common Core supporters have struggled to counter the critics. | AP Photo
National advocacy groups powered by the Koch brothers and other conservative megadonors have found a new cause ripe with political promise: the fight to bring down the Common Core academic standards.
The groups are stoking populist anger over the standards — then working to channel that energy into a bold campaign to undercut public schools, weaken teachers unions and push the federal government out of education policy.
The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in 45 states plus the District of Columbia, are meant to guide rich and rigorous instruction in math and language arts. They have substantial bipartisan support. But they have also drawn sharp bipartisan criticism as Big Government overreach.
What started as a ragtag opposition led by a handful of angry moms is now a sophisticated national movement supported by top donors and strategists on the right. Conservative groups say their involvement already has paid dividends in the form of new members and troves of email addresses.
But that’s just the start.
A draft action plan by the advocacy group FreedomWorks lays out the effort as a series of stepping stones: First, mobilize to strike down the Common Core. Then push to expand school choice by offering parents tax credits or vouchers to help pay tuition at private and religious schools. Next, rally the troops to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Then it’s on to eliminating teacher tenure.
“This is going to be a huge campaign,” said Whitney Neal, the group’s director of grass-roots activism. She plans to kick it off within weeks with a series of videos that will “connect the dots” between killing Common Core and enacting other conservative priorities.
The campaign will build to a march on Washington this summer, perhaps in partnership with radio host Glenn Beck. “This is definitely an institutional priority for us in 2014,” she said. “We’re putting a lot of time and resources into it.”
Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers, is pressing similar themes in town hall meetings across the country.
A key battleground: Missouri, where conservatives are pushing to get measures promoting vouchers and ending teacher tenure on the fall ballot. Increasingly, the issues are being linked to Common Core. Concerned Women for America held a conference outside Kansas City, Mo., this weekend that opened with denunciations of Common Core and built to an address by state Sen. Ed Emery, a voucher proponent who has compared the current public education system with slavery because it traps students in government-run schools. Concerned Women, which is part of a Koch-backed network of conservative organizations, will hold additional seminars across the state this month.
The libertarian Show-Me Institute in St. Louis is also fighting Common Core — and sponsoring policy breakfasts in both St. Louis and Kansas City this month on the virtues of expanding school choice. Meanwhile, the institute’s president, retired investment manager Rex Sinquefield, has poured $850,000 of his personal fortune into promoting the ballot measure to end tenure. Missouri will also host a two-day conference devoted to attacking Common Core at the end of the month.
Supporters of the Common Core standards have plenty of resources to fight back. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $170 million to develop and promote the standards. The Obama administration has pushed them hard. Big Labor and Big Business both back them.
Still, supporters have struggled to counter the critics. They have had trouble even understanding the contours of the smoldering opposition.
“We don’t know who’s funding the other side, and to what purpose,” said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, a nonprofit that helped write the standards. “It’s really murky.”
Such dark suspicions tickle Sean Fieler, the hedge fund manager who chairs the American Principles Project, another conservative think tank on the front lines of Common Core opposition.
“I wish the money stream were more murky here,” Fieler said. At least at APP, he said, “most of the funding is from me.” Fieler, a prominent social conservative who has spent big in the past to fight gay marriage, said he has directed his organization to spend $500,000 organizing the Common Core opposition and connecting it to his think tank’s long-standing drive for school choice.
“The grass-roots support for this is stronger than for anything else we work on,” Fieler said. “This is an issue with great political promise.”
That same political calculation is evident in FreedomWorks’ draft plan for an Educational Freedom Campaign. Picking up the mantle of parental rights “casts a passionate and caring light on our activists — different from the image currently portrayed by media,” the draft states. The campaign also offers a rare chance to attract new members from outside the tea party — “especially minority communities.”
Already, the strategy is paying off. FreedomWorks started the year in contact with a few dozen stalwart foes of the standards; it now holds weekly strategy sessions with more than 200. “Common Core is bringing in people who are brand-new to activism. They’re coming out of the woodwork,” Neal said. “That’s huge for us.”
Americans for Prosperity’s state chapters also report membership growing because of the issue, even in states like Texas that have not adopted the standards.
“It’s been exhilarating” to watch momentum gather and allies come aboard, Fieler said. “I would characterize this as a tipping point.”
The opposition movement is even starting to draw in conservative Christian groups that in the past have mostly focused on promoting home schooling.
Parents who teach their children at home aren’t directly affected by the new standards but fear they will face pressure to follow them when most textbooks, not to mention the SAT, are aligned to Common Core. Homeschoolers also sense an opportunity to grow their ranks by fanning anger at the public education system.
The Home School Legal Defense Association is putting the finishing touches on a documentary painting the Common Core standards in ominous terms. FreedomProject Education, a Christian homeschool group affiliated with the John Birch Society, is promoting an hourlong video on the “threats to American liberty” posed by the standards. Even the evangelical group Focus on the Family has chimed in with a video that pivots from the perceived dangers of Common Core to the need to push for expanded school choice.
All of this has left supporters of the standards reeling.
“There’s no doubt it’s going to be a brutal legislative session,” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Petrilli has spent the past year traveling from statehouse to statehouse, attempting to shore up support for Common Core. He expects to earn many more frequent-flier miles trying to keep the standards on track as protests mount, especially in wavering states such as Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Michigan.
The Common Core State Standards were written by nonprofit education advocacy groups with input from state associations and funding from the Gates Foundation. The Obama administration gave states financial and policy incentives to adopt the standards in 2010; most quickly did, often with little public debate.
In the past year, as the standards have begun rolling out in classrooms nationwide, the opposition has picked up steam.
Tea party activists angry about federal overreach have joined forces with liberals who object to the new standardized tests and worry that Common Core asks too much of some students and too little of others. Conservative organizations — including think tanks connected with the Koch brothers, such as the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation — have dedicated the most resources to fighting the standards, but liberals have been highly active on social media and at public hearings.
And they’re not happy that conservative political strategists are seeking to harness the opposition to their own ends.
“I would be very concerned if opposition to Common Core became a vehicle to promote vouchers and charters,” said education historian Diane Ravitch, a prominent critic of the standards.
The politics of the debate are so tangled that education policy analyst Frederick Hess said he doubts groups like FreedomWorks would be able to mold the opposition into an effective lobbying force for bold goals like expanding vouchers.
“How do you take a whole bunch of disjointed criticism from left and right and use that to mobilize people for a policy agenda?” said Hess, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
But strategists leading the fight are convinced it will work.
The anti-Common Core movement so far has been about saying “no” to the standards, “but at some point soon, we’ll have to define what ‘yes’ is — and school choice is a perfect ‘yes’ for people to galvanize around,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank.
Exhibit A: North Carolina, where the wealthy and influential conservative strategist Art Pope funds a think tank that has mobilized strident opposition to Common Core.
That think tank, Civitas Institute, also backed a successful drive in the Legislature last year to eliminate teacher tenure and enact a voucher program to pay private school tuition for low-income students. Lawmakers stipulated that voucher students will not have to take the same state tests as public school students — a huge win for Common Core foes, who want private schools to feel free to teach what they want, without pressure to prepare students for exams aligned to the new standards.
Bob Luebke, education policy analyst for Civitas, said the voucher bill may well have passed in North Carolina even without the Common Core fight stirring up parent demands for school choice. But his colleague Terry Stoops, who works on education for another Pope-funded advocacy organization, said linking the two issues is helpful and would likely give a boost to voucher legislation in other states.
In addition to Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas are likely battlegrounds.
In Kansas, a voucher bill failed to pass in 2012 — but Americans for Prosperity spent the fall holding town halls across the state, in part to prod anti-Common Core activists into pressing the issue anew in the coming months. “It’s one of our key talking points,” said Peggy Venable, AFP’s state policy adviser.
As they take up the fight against Common Core, conservative groups are injecting a dash of professionalism into a scrappy mom-and-pop campaign.
They have the money to fly prominent Common Core foes to testify before state legislatures and speak at public forums. They’ve helped rookie activists set up websites and recruit allies. They’ve drafted model legislation.
Their battle-tested political strategists have even drawn up game plans for key states — including how to secure meetings with key lawmakers and which talking points to stress.
“For a mom like me who has spent the last 14 years raising children, buying groceries and cleaning house, having those type of groups to ask questions of, … it’s been invaluable,” said Debbie Higginbotham, a mother of six in Orange Park, Fla., who sees the standards as a federal power grab. “They’ve been a huge asset.”
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Readers: What’s on your mind? Lots on mine but little time. Got to run. Blog me.
Peace & Love.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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August 25th, 2014 at 11:32 am
Howie, Irene isn’t the only one interested in you. I haven’t said anything because I didn’t think that you would be interested in having a internet affair.
But if you are, then consider that there may be other better offers out there for you. At least weigh the possibly of having a relationship with women in your own country first. I live in Atlanta.
August 25th, 2014 at 12:16 pm
Israel is not considering the threat of ISIS. They are unofficially a caliphate with land from Syria to Iraq officially under their control.
Unless America puts boots on the ground to stop them, they will take over all of Iraq. The Kurds do not have the sufficient military numbers to stop them.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:40 pm
Common core is more than he is telling. The curriculum replaced real literature with reading of government manuals, it minimizes the role of patriots in American history, leaves out, and in math doesn’t care if you get the right answer to a problem as long as you show how you got it.
That’s higher standard? Also, maybe not a government program, but states were bullied into adopting it or risk losing federal funds. I have a feeling the Kochs don’t really know Common Core at all.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:42 pm
Common Core is trying to do just that, dumb down America. Maybe if he knew what materials were being used in the classrooms he would change his mind. I’m really tired of people who do not teach in the school systems act like they know what they are talking about.
That is what is exactly wrong with America’s School systems. Too many people in it that have no clue what they’re talking about. And yes, I work in the school system!
How can Common Core be so good if so many teachers are against it? How would you feel if your 4th grader was reading about how to euthanize class pets? Or how about the history book on Obama stating that all white voters are racists?
Or how about the one where your 11th grader is required to read a book that talks about incest, rape and molestation? Or what about a student getting Math incorrect, even though they did get it right, because it wasn’t done the Common Core way.
Maybe these people whoare not against Common Core look into it more closely!
August 25th, 2014 at 4:42 pm
If you live in Florida and want to stop common core, elect Adrian Wyllie for Florida Governor and stomp it out for good.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:43 pm
Common Core is a mess and it’s only a matter of time before it will be thrown to the scrap heap of failed experiments. As a parent, I have seen first hand the disaster that is Common Core “State” Standards. The English is bad and the math is worse!
I had the luxury of being able to remove my child from school and homeschool her so she could learn her math facts and how to write in cursive (in addition to many other things we were able to do during our rich homeschool year together).
She now attends a charter school that is somehow not following the standards, which is FINE WITH ME.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:44 pm
I am not totally against Common Core. Common should not be the ONLY program, but it should be allowed as extra study, just like our theories taught to us. There are many ways to solve a problem. ALL the ways should be offered. The way I come to solve a problem is MY choice. It is up to you to show how you solve it, call, “PROVE IT!”
Some things work for some, some different way to others. Same apply for place and time. Things that worked yesterday might not work today, future, vice versa. Same for place. Things may work one place and not the other. Some learn arithmetic thru music, sports, just plain going to grocery-extrapolation, as well as class lecture.
NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL. This fits some, and the traditional ways fit others, and other ways still fits other. I like to try them all. Using all increases the exercise we need to arrive at solutions to problems. I am FOR Common Core as just another way to solve a problem. We practiced that, just like we play video games, another way to educate and increase skills. T
yping Class helped me learn typing in High School. Daddy taught me another way, and guess what? Beside practicing, VIDEO GAMES HELPED INCREASE MY SPEED 200%. Wow! OFFER ALL THE OPTIONS TO LEARN.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:45 pm
Al, I haven’t seen your post. I hope you are doing well. I sense that you may need the caring hand of a woman who cares.
Shall I visit?
August 25th, 2014 at 4:57 pm
I believe this article underscores the need to understand the risk we face as a nation if opposition to the Common Core from the Kochs and affiliated groups succeed in splintering public education into thousands of private enclaves, intentionally blind to the common purposes of schooling for life in a democracy and willfully disdainful of systems designed to ensure and improve quality at all levels of education.
All the more need to be vigilant, I say, that supporters of public education do not become their own worst enemy.
August 25th, 2014 at 4:58 pm
The written words on a page are, in a sense, independent from the play as performed on the stage by actual human beings. But aren’t we talking about the performance and not just the words on the page, and isn’t inspired leadership part and parcel of what counts in the short and long run: the quality of the experience?
Another way to state my concern is that if the Common Core goes awry because of technocratic styles of leadership in its implementation, where does reform go next? Off, off Broadway?
August 25th, 2014 at 5:00 pm
just say no to koch
August 25th, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Michelle, thank you for keeping us informed. It is so sad to watch these corporate feudal lords manipulate the electorate so that they can reduce all but the richest Americans to serfdom.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Michelle, this is the third mini documentary on the Kochs that you’ve blogged. I keep hoping for something of quality, and keep being let down. “Why do the Koch Brothers want to end public education?” is the lede…so why don’t you answer the question?
Nowhere in this film is there any substance, nor was there in the films I saw previously. I watched an interview with the film maker wherein he talked of all the research his people were doing….where? any facts? Lots of he said she said. I went to the main website…nothi ng of any substance. Come on! These are critical issues. Please apply some critical thinking.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:03 pm
It is really scary how the fundamentalist christian right wing is gaining momentum. The rise of Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry is really alarming. These people really to want to “take our country back.”
By that they mean take it back to the Jim Crow days of the 1920s – rampant robber barons on wall street and segregation/rep ression in the rest of the nation. It is telling that the hate the Progressvie era which turned America away from the Jim Crow world of the early 20th century.
Fasten your seat belt, folks. This juggernaut cannot be stopped. The amerikkkan fascists have all the money, all the media, and most of the government.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:04 pm
There is enough blame to spread around. In addition to the Koch’s, DeVos and others are spending millions of dollars on statewide races to bring about things like charter schools and vouchers to start with, and then to eliminate free public schooling in its entirety.
While the Koch’s have their own agenda, these other people, and I use the term loosely, are planning to cash in on the private sector and make a bundle of money off private education funded by taxpayers through the voucher system and required support of charter schools.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
An uneducated America is good for the rich, the right wing conservative politicians, the Christian Coalition Bishops, protestant ministers and bigots.
That is what the right wing Christian Conservatives in the Republican party also want.
That way Americans won’t know what hits them from time to time. It worked in Nazi Germany, didn’t it?
When and if most Americans will finally realized that, than the American people will be able to do somthing about it, like putting all the Koch’s, Rick Perry’s, Karl Roves, Bachmanns and Boehners in jail for betraying our democracy.
They are the biggest problems, not only in America, but throughout the world!
August 25th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
Follow the money trail as to who will profit by privatizing (ie.. give to wall st) everything even schools and jails and parks and etc… Time to fight back or leave the country average joe never has heard of these guys WHY?
August 25th, 2014 at 5:06 pm
The Koch Brothers have no interest in seeing a well educated generation of critically thinking individuals grow to adulthood prepared to call business and government into account for their actions. Not at all.
What they want is a scantily educated cadre of docile & compliant worker bees and consumers. It’s about power and control extending into the foreseeable future and when the supporters of the Koch’s front organization realize that they’ve been duped into acting against their own best interests, they will be saddest of all. As the saying goes “…there’s a sucker born every minute,” the Koch’s are counting on it.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:18 pm
John#13, perhaps Michelle will allow me to explain it to your dumb ass.
Americans for Prosperity is the enslaving tool for the Kochs. As addicted as the Kochs are to greed and acquiring $$$, they will spend millions to further secure their co-addiction: power over all.
And, a great way for them to secure total power is to destroy education (particularly critical thinking) for all.
‘Every child left behind’, combined with no ed. coming from a bought out ‘mess’ media that MSD’s (manipulates, spins, distracts) vs. truthfully investigates and informs, is their two pronged secondary insurance policy to keep safe their evil empire.
They use their American for Prosperity company to bribe every buyable politician, and to see to it that hidden and not so hidden mass election fraud stays in place. This is their number one insurance policy.
Evil ‘kochies’, with their greed and power addictions, have been destroyed throughout human history. 1st step: recognize them for what they are, the root of all evil, then revolt and strip them of their wealth and power. It’s difficult but doable. Just read history.
And, thanks to you Michelle, Robert Greenwald and his fellow prophets (Michael Moore, Keith Olberman, et.al.), for helping us recognize Kochs and other evil villainaires.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Sure Michelle, the evil Kochs are a worthy topic, But I’m still remembering when I was a little girl wishing I could play baseball along side my brother.
This article brought it all home. – Mo’ne, sweet revenge for yesterday’s sidelined girls http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/25/opinion/jones-mone-davis-little-league/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
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Oh, thank the Gods for Title IX of the Education Amendments. It gave us women a chance to see our sport dreams come true.
August 25th, 2014 at 5:26 pm
Great story. These libertarian assholes want to destroy everything that is good about public education, and take away the decision making powers away from professional educators. Would it be too extreme to call the Koch Brothers domestic terrorists?
August 25th, 2014 at 5:26 pm
My question is how long will these two be allowed to campaign to destroy what is best in America before being declared enemies of the state?
August 25th, 2014 at 5:27 pm
My roomate and I think the Kocks..er, Kochs, should call it the Neighborhood Integrity Greater Good Educational Realignment program.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:32 pm
Linda, if you only knew, you may be a tad psychic yourself. I am in a bit of a pickle. But then isn’t everybody?
Al
August 25th, 2014 at 7:42 pm
Scotty#23. Oh, wow. The best crafted euphemism ever. Though it might get you killed, that can’t be topped. That might as well be their motto, the heartless bastards. I hate social darwinism.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:43 pm
Scotty#23, I should add, that is satirically wicked.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:46 pm
Al, if I could be of any help. This Irish girl would be happy to help. You are so ready to help others with kind words and understanding concern for their dilemmas, I’m sure many here would be glad to reciprocate.
Let us help.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:46 pm
Thank you one and all. I’ll be here all week.
August 25th, 2014 at 7:58 pm
Just so you know. Ebola is a white manufactured disease designed to thin our Africa.
But, like their shot with AIDS it is about to get out of hand. Many countries responsible for contributing to the manufacture of many of the lethal viruses designed to kill most of the blacks in southern Africa will not take kindly to being invaded by a strain that has mutated to whites.
The news media has yet to ask why there was an antidote for the one white person infected with it but suddenly they need to go back to testing it on monkeys before they can give it to dying blacks in Africa.
Beware clever boys, you will be dead meat if this gets loose in white countries.
August 25th, 2014 at 8:03 pm
Mike,TM, but the official story will be this:
The entire outbreak in West Africa likely started with only one person, who caught the virus from a sick animal. Maybe a bat. Or another animal that had been infected by a bat.
“So we think that there was only one introduction [from animals] and then from that it went from human to human to human to human (as long as they were black).
August 25th, 2014 at 8:05 pm
Mike,TM#29, yeah, but they will convince us that Ebola has been hiding out in animals in West Africa for years now.
And it was waiting for just the right moment — and the right person (black) — to launch an outbreak.
August 25th, 2014 at 9:00 pm
apes = ebola – that hypothesis has been out in news for a week at least
August 25th, 2014 at 11:19 pm
I have seen with my Eyes
The beauty that lies between your thighs.
I need a peak before I sleep
If only you would facebook me.
To give me a little Peep.
Oh god, I know, then I could sleep
August 25th, 2014 at 11:26 pm
It looks like the cure ZMapp, only works on white people.
———————————————
Dr. Abraham Borbor, deputy chief medical doctor at Liberia’s largest hospital, received one of the few existing doses of the drug, made by a San Diego company, The Associated Press said, quoting Liberia’s information minister.
The two Americans who received ZMapp, both working for the charity Samaritan’s Purse, survived after treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. When the two were released last week, their doctors said they did not know whether the drug — a cocktail of mouse antibodies grown in tobacco plants — had helped them, had no effect or perhaps even slowed their recoveries
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Now isn’t that wonderful for white people!
August 25th, 2014 at 11:43 pm
Where is AnonZ when he is needed most? In every arena — in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Libya, even what happened in Egypt — this regional polarization, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, or U.A.E., on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other, has proved to be a gigantic impediment to international efforts to resolve any of these crisis.
I remember when AnonZ used his connections and military acumen to advise President Obama concerning the region.
The officials said the U.A.E. — which boasts one of the most effective air forces in the Arab world, thanks to American equipment and training — provided the pilots, warplanes and aerial refueling planes necessary for the fighters to bomb Tripoli out of bases in Egypt. It was unclear if the planes or munitions were American-made.
August 25th, 2014 at 11:59 pm
Why are some white women so against being for female pride?
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A school superintendent in Noble, Oklahoma allegedly asked female students to bend over during a dress code check on the first week of school and claimed, “If you’re not comfortable with bending over, we might have a problem.” http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/23/3475057/school-superintendent-asks-female-student-to-bend-over-during-dress-code-check/?elq=~~eloqua..type–emailfield..syntax–recipientid~~&elqCampaignId=~~eloqua..type–campaign..campaignid–0..fieldname–id~~
August 26th, 2014 at 8:27 am
Why Your Name is on the Cybercrime Hit List
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Around 40 million Americans are now falling victim to identity theft every year and the total global annual cost of cybercrime could now be as high as almost $600 billion – yes, “billion.”
These are just a couple of the shock statistics from security firm McAfee in a recent report on worldwide cybercrime.
And, just for the record, $600 billion is more than the value of the economies of most countries in the world — and the total number of ID records stolen worldwide could be around 800 million a year!
Cybercrime doesn’t just cost us money; it depresses economies and costs jobs. For example, the McAfee report says the U.S. alone is 200,000 jobs down on where it might be because of the effects of this crime.
And things are predicted to get worse.
“The cost of cybercrime will continue to increase as more business functions move online and as more companies and consumers around the world connect to the Internet,” says McAfee.
The report is mainly aimed at businesses, most of which, McAfee suggests, don’t realize just how big the threat is. But it also sounds an alert for all of us, showing that anyone and everyone will most likely be targeted within the span of just a few years.
3 Million Complaints
As proof of that, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported a few weeks ago that it had received its three millionth cybercrime report since it was established in May 2000.
IC3, which we featured in an earlier issue, is a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, with the support of a number of other agencies including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
http://www.scambusters.org/scamcomplaint.html
Most recently, the name of the organization itself was used in a scam that is still going around.
An email, pretending to be from a law firm, claims that the recipient is entitled to money from a $480 million compensation fund supposedly set up by IC3.
The message is convincing, including phony case and file numbers and compensation amounts.
The scam is either a phishing attempt to get bank account details or an advance fee scam in which victims are asked to pay a fee upfront to receive their compensation — both among the most common types of cybercrime.
Fraudulent online sales are another frequent scam. Incidents reported to IC3 this year include the sale of synthetic “human” hair masquerading as the real thing.
“The demand for long hair, new hair styles, or hair to conceal a medical condition associated with hair loss is nothing new,” says IC3. “However, it does appear the exploitation of human hair is on the rise.”
Based on analysis of recent targets, it adds, there seems to be a fairly consistent overlap in the sale of supposedly human hair on websites that also sell fake apparel.
IC3 identified more than 130 Internet domain names associated with these counterfeit sales from just one organization in China.
Last year alone, the verifiable amount of money lost by consumers in scams reported to IC3 was over $800 million.
But that, of course, is likely just the tip of an iceberg, reflecting only those crimes reported to them.
Americans Lose $1.6 Billion
So, for example, the FTC says in its recent annual report that it received two million complaints in 2013 alone and that American consumers lost over $1.6 billion to fraud.
As we have consistently reported in the Scambusters annual Top 10, identity theft remains the most common scam.
http://www.scambusters.org/topscams2013-14.html
Within that category, the most frequent type of identity theft was related to phony tax claims and wages. And young adults, age 20 to 29, were the biggest single age category of ID theft victims.
But “Americans of all ages are vulnerable to identity theft, and it remains the most common consumer complaint to the Commission,” says Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
“We urge consumers to visit FTC.gov/idtheft for tips to prevent and mitigate the damage from identity theft.”
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/feature-0014-identity-theft
Readers can also visit the Scambusters Identity Theft Information Center for more useful resources.
http://www.scambusters.org/identitytheft.html
Other major scam categories highlighted in the report included bogus debt collection, lotteries and, of course, advance payments.
None of the statistics in the reports featured this week makes for encouraging reading.
As McAfee says, cybercrime is relatively easy to commit, while tracking down the crooks, who operate globally, is tougher than ever.
In fact, in the IC3 compensation scam mentioned earlier, law enforcement organizations know exactly who is behind it but the alleged mastermind is out of reach in Russia.
So, the message for all of us is that since we can’t avoid being targeted by cybercrime we must redouble our own efforts to identify and resist it.
Alert of the Week: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re about to get a free $100 Amazon gift card, thanks to an offer that’s just popped up on your Facebook page.
This “offer” has nothing to do with Amazon. By clicking on the link or sharing it with your friends, you won’t get the gift card but you’ll be spreading a scam that phishes for personal info or plants malware on your — and their — PCs.
August 27th, 2014 at 9:01 am
[…] Letty: This was in my queue too. Even though you already posted the topic, I’m going to give it more blog time because I think it’s such an awesome story and so worth a blog write. This one’s for you, Letty. […]