Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/12/watch-credit-card-scammer-sho.html
…
4 Likes
I have been trying to balance my need to buy a new computer for gaming and the desire to purchase a small Peavey tube amp head and cab to replace my aged fender solid state amp…I know have an idea.
Thanks BoingBoing!!
7 Likes
he’s been making $2k a day for ten years and he’s never been caught? why in the hell have i been busting my hump like a chump?
17 Likes
the video isn’t loading and the link seems broken, can someone post a direct link to the vid / article? thanks!
4 Likes
If I was using my phone to make $2K a day, I would fix the cracked screen.
4 Likes
Safe to assume it’s a burner phone, probably one of dozens.
But that house purchase is going to bust him unless he has a good way to launder those Benjamins. “Oh, yah mon, my rich uncle in Jamaica passed away and left me $20-mil!”
2 Likes
Everyone engaged in sustained criminal enterprise tells himself he just needs a little more and then he’ll be set. But he’ll never have enough, and each additional crime creates that much more evidence pointing to him.
I have a fraudulent purchase to deal with in our shop right now. The buyer attempted to use 5 other cards before the 6th card went through. The billing address on the order is correct, but they’ve requested shipping to a PO Box in another town near a port. It used to be that orders like that only came from Singapore, but this one is from Canada, of all places. The credit card’s rightful owner will contest the charge and we’ll get a chargeback, lose the payment, and lose the merchandise, to boot. In the guy in the video’s scenario, the banks are the only victims, and they deserve it. In reality, the small merchants like me are the ones taking a beating. The banks and credit card processors all charge fees to the merchants for fraudulent transactions.
24 Likes
If that was true, why hasn’t he retired to the Caymans?
maybe he spends as fast as he makes it.
3 Likes
On the one hand, kind of glad that this sort of crime isn’t leading to people being millionaires, etc.
On the other hand, I’m sure SOMEBODY is a millionaire because of stuff like this. We just won’t see a video about them.
1 Like
The video appears to be missing and it’s set as private on YouTube, too. Darn.
1 Like
Exactly right. I guarantee you that if this guy is getting away with this for any significant amount of time, someone much smarter than him is doing this a whole lot better. Seems to me this guy is mostly buying stuff he wants with the CCs, not necessarily generating a whole lot of cash. With some ingenuity you could definitely get a good ring of front men doing the risky part (buying stuff at stores) for a small cut and get a resale business going. As long as you pay taxes and have a legitimate looking business or two or some rental properties you could probably get away with it for quite awhile. Launching Tor now.
4 Likes
It’s called owning a pawn shop, and it’s been known as a front for criminals for centuries.
5 Likes
But couldn’t he just upload some credit to PayPal, then download it to a legit debit card?
ETA: Alternatively, some crooks buy the merch, and resell it on the street.
1 Like
Video’s down. Here’s a mirror (for now) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hpp3s
3 Likes
1 Like
At some point in there he mentions that being part of his process.
1 Like
They are. They’re the ones selling him the credit card numbers on autopilot from a near infinite list. Their risk is very low, while his is very high. If this were a gold rush, he would be the guy panning for gold in the creek, and they would be the ones selling the pans.
AND he talked about it on TV. The first rule of crime is don’t effing talk about it.
3 Likes
My most recently compromised credit card (I seem to have a card number compromised about once every 2-3 years) was used at a small pub and then at a motel on Long Island.
So somebody had a fun night out, and while it cost me nothing more than the five minutes it took to confirm to the bank’s fraud department that the charges weren’t mine (their ability to detect fraudulent charges and notify me before I see the charges has greatly improved over the years), it will probably be a significant hit to those merchants.
I’ll also bet that those merchants are still using mag stripe readers instead of EMV chip readers for processing credit cards, which screws them on two fronts: (1) they become more of a target for these petty criminals, who can pretty easily download a card number off the internet and code it on a mag stripe, but who don’t have easy or cheap access to equipment to produce EMV chip cards, and (2) my understanding is that the merchants are responsible for fraudulent charges if they don’t use EMV readers these days.
How much does it cost a small merchant like a pub or a motel to upgrade to EMV chip readers?
5 Likes
The bare-bones EMV enabled terminals by themselves are about $500. A POS terminal with an EMV reader can vary widely depending on the capabilities which essentially replicate the capabilities of the old POS terminal, and like the old ones, they can cost up to several grand. What a lot of small business are doing instead is getting EMV reader attachments for iOS or Android smart devices, which start at about $50.
2 Likes
