[E-trademarks] Spam caller

Mon Dec 11 20:14:04 EST 2023

You’re assuming that the person taking the information is processing it like a vendor. They may just be stealing the information to buy a bunch of MacBook Pros or Nintendo Switches before getting shut down.

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Laura J.            Winston

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        347.589.8536<tel:347.589.8536>

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        917.270.5811

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From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> On Behalf Of Carl Oppedahl via E-trademarks
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2023 7:12 PM
To: For trademark practitioners. This is not for laypersons to seek legal advice. <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: Carl Oppedahl <carl at oppedahl.com>
Subject: Re: [E-trademarks] Spam caller

What baffles me about this particular scam is that it differs in kind from the usual patent or trademark scam where the target is asked to drop a check into the mail.

For this scam to make money for the scammer, the only choice is for the scammer to ask for and receive a credit card number.  And then the scammer must actually process a transaction with a credit card processing service provider.

For the patent and trademark scams where the target is asked to drop a check in the mail, it is pretty easy for the scammer to do the duck and run.  You open a bank account someplace, deposit a few hundred checks, transfer the money someplace else, and then shut down the bank account after a month or two and high-tail it to some other state.  When we see these scams popping up again and again like a whack-a-mole, it becomes pretty clear that setting up a new bank account in a new state is not too difficult.  And the entire scam is conducted by means of paper correspondence, meaning that so long as the physical documents are worded very carefully, it is probably fairly challenging to prove that an actual crime happened.  (The scammer does publish the patent or trademark in some meaningless register, just as the scammer promised to do.)  Probably nobody trying to prosecute would ever get their hands on any human being to try to get them to turn states' evidence against some other human being.  Layered on top of this is that the victims know perfectly well that there is quite literally nothing they can do to get their money back.  It is gone, gone, gone.

But the credit card scam is conducted with live human beings.  Many of us have gone through the process of getting set up to be able to get paid with a credit card.  That process involves some amount of vetting.  Not only that, the victim that manages to catch on that it was a scam can file a dispute with the victim's credit card company, and this could be done a week later or a month later.  And there's a chance the victim would actually manage to get the money back.  One of the points here being that the credit card processing service provider that got suckered into agreeing to process charges for the scammer might very well get wise to the scammer being a scammer within mere days of the start of the relationship.

Cycle time for "high-tail it to another state" for the check-based scam is very likely on the order of months, as may be seen from the fact that the scam letters often use the same post office box address for several months in a row.

Cycle time for "high-tail it to another state" for the credit-card-based scam is very likely on the order of only a week or two, surely never better than a month.

The number of banks that the scammer might move to next is in the tens of thousands.

But in the world of credit card processing, there are actually only a few dozen distinct wholesale credit card processing service providers.  They are visible to the public through retail presences that number in the thousands, but the number of underlying service providers is quite small.  When you go to your locally owned bank or credit union to see about processing credit cards for your business, it turns out they outsource everything about the actual credit card processing to Alliance Data or any of a few other companies.

So the scammer using credit cards might only be able to do a few "whack-a-mole" high-tails before the scammer had used up every possible credit card processor.

I cringe to think how the high-tails actually get accomplished in real life.  What must surely happen is that the scammer is constantly recruiting shills to do the actual opening of the bank account or the opening of the credit card processing account.  The shill is somebody who has little or no money, and the thing the shill brings to the table is that they have a Social Security Number and (until now) an untarnished reputation.  The scammer pays the shill a thousand bucks (with promises of future riches that never actually arrive) to set up an LLC and to open the bank account or credit card account.  When the high-tail out of town happens, the shill is left holding the bag, so to speak.
On 12/11/2023 4:41 PM, Jessica R. Friedman via E-trademarks wrote:
That does sound more urgent because a nervous client may not want to take the time to notify their lawyer.

Jessica R. Friedman
Attorney at Law
300 East 59 Street, Ste. 2406
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 212-220-0900
Cell: 917-647-1884
E-mail: jrfriedman at litproplaw.com<mailto:jrfriedman at litproplaw.com>
URL: www.literarypropertylaw.com<http://www.literarypropertylaw.com>

[1479430908386_PastedImage]

From: E-trademarks <e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com><mailto:e-trademarks-bounces at oppedahl-lists.com> on behalf of dbmelnick--- via E-trademarks <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com><mailto:e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Date: Monday, December 11, 2023 at 6:40 PM
To: 'for trademark practitioners' <e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com><mailto:e-trademarks at oppedahl-lists.com>
Cc: dbmelnick at gmail.com<mailto:dbmelnick at gmail.com> <dbmelnick at gmail.com><mailto:dbmelnick at gmail.com>
Subject: [E-trademarks] Spam caller
A client just advised me that she received a call from someone claiming to be the USPTO, asking her to pay a fee online to complete the registration.  He was calling from a spoofed version of 571-272-6500, which is a USPTO phone number.

Calling the USPTO about this seems futile, but I do think that this is beyond what we have seen before and I am considering further action.

Diane

Diane Melnick Esq.
Practus LLP
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