The password today is ‘pretext’ State, federal bills might impose sentences on impostors

The Hewlett-Packard scandal has taken a word from the film noir world of the private eye, pretexting, and put it into a bright spotlight. In the process, the affair could help criminalize the activity as well.

Pretexting, a practice long used by detectives and others, has increasingly come under fire by lawmakers and privacy advocates.

A San Diego insurance agent/broker who failed to send clients’ premium funds to insurance companies, causing the victims to lose more than $150,000, has pled guilty to one count of insurance fraud and one count of grand theft, according to the California Department of Insurance.

According to Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, Oscar Serron, 52, a former insurance agent and broker from San Diego, entered his plea following a a probe by the CDI Investigation Division of consumer complaints received during 2003 alleging that Serron committed insurance fraud involving premium theft. Serron, who entered his plea July 31, was the owner of First Preferred Insurance Services located in Oceanside, Calif.

What’s in a name?

Just ask a New York couple who found themselves in hot water for offering fake designer handbags and wallets for sale at Zern’s Farmers Market.

Hai Dong Yu, 35, and his wife, Xu Cai Chen, 34, of Bayside, N.Y., have been sentenced to six to 23 months in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility after each pleaded guilty to a felony charge of trademark counterfeiting.

Judge William T. Nicholas, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered the couple to complete two years’ probation after they’re paroled from jail.

The theft of a laptop from a financial services company containing thousands of personal files has clients asking how it could have happened.

The laptop of an MD Management employee, containing information on 8,000 clients, was stolen from a parked car in an Edmonton shopping mall parking lot on June 19.

Mehadi Sayed, a computer security specialist at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, said the incident shows that consumers have to ask how their confidential information will be stored and protected.

Who falls for this stuff?

Who’s so greedy or naive to get suckered by those Nigerian scams that litter inboxes and spam filters with rubbish so clearly a ruse you’d have to be a knucklehead or on drugs not to just delete ‘em?

That’s the question people ask. Readers raise it all the time. Whenever the column or talk turns to swindles and the Nigerian e-mail nonsense in particular, they want to know: Who could possibly fall for this?

You might be surprised.

All the new TV reality shows that center on competition to become the next Hollywood star, musical icon, supermodel, TV host or business mogul have spawned an entirely new area of interest for opportunists — and a few less-than-ethical operators.

For example, there has been a recent wave of letters and advertisements seeking young beauty-pageant and talent-search participants. Targeted mostly at parents of young ladies, the ads promise: “Win Big Prizes! Scholarships! Cash! Become the Next Supermodel!”

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