OUTLAW "toll-free" companies stealing your call records.

Not many people are talking about it yet, but thieves are sophisticated enough that they can easily set up a small website claiming to have a good deal for you to get a 1-800 phone number. but what you don't know is that these shabby companies are actually stealing your calling records and recording your phone calls so that they can sell your private info to other data thieves.

It's important to buy from a company that does not ONLY advertise in the "Sponsered Ads" section of the search engine... Anybody can advertise there and you should not trust just anybody. Cheap websites are a key indicator of cheaply ran service.

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Crooks behind a wireless debit card skimming operation in Edmonton are likely linked to players in Calgary, cops say, as one expert warns of the growing sophistication of these scams.

Organized crime section Det. Colin Harper said groups behind a number of cases in Calgary may have fled this city after several recent arrests here offered high-profile proof of the police crackdown on the crime.

“We believe the incident in Edmonton is likely elements of the Calgary group,” Harper said today.

“They simply moved up there because there was too much awareness among the public and police here.”

On Friday, Edmonton cops said they suspected an unnamed organized crime group from Quebec had installed wireless Bluetooth chips in debit machines at the 8427 112 St. Wendy’s restaurant.

The fraud saw over 400 bank accounts compromised.

Police allege cons rigged the PIN pads sometime in February and passed account information to counterparts in Quebec, where duplicate cards were pressed and used.

Tom Keenan, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Information Security and Cryptography, said organized crime groups, including outlaw biker gangs, have set up their own highly sophisticated IT departments to develop these scams, adding he has no doubt IT expertise among organized crime is on par with legitimate business.

“From a criminal perspective getting a Bluetooth chip into these machines isn’t easy, but it’s very smart,” he said.

“And worth the payoff — they no longer have to go back to retrieve and replace their skimming machines.”

The number of skimming incidents discovered in Calgary has dropped in recent months — likely due to the arrest of about 20 alleged players in skimming-related crimes in the last four months of 2006, Harper said.

As a result, identified skim sites has gone down, he said.

Last year, an average of about one was discovered each week whereas there have been just four so far this year, Harper said.

And criminals are easily buying what they need to start up an illicit skimming operation on the Internet or in local stores and reaping the rewards.

“Not only are they manufacturing counterfeit credit cards and debit cards but driver’s licenses and government-issued ID,” Harper said.

“We haven’t cut the head off the monster yet.” Theft and fraud is costing Canadian retailers $8-million a day or more than $3-billion a year, according to the Retail Council of Canada.