How To Get Money From A Stolen Card

All this talk of stolen credit cards and "skimming." Then what? What happens after you've swiped your card through a tampered-with ATM, gas pump, or bank entry door?

A kid, a computer, and a clever scam that games the organization—that'southward all it takes to make large bucks, without leaving home. For credit carte fraudsters like the teenager who calls himself "d0g," it'south but online shopping. He doesn't handle merchandise, cash checks, or visit drib spots. His butt never leaves his chair, his fingers never leave his keyboard, his eyes never leave his screen.

How fraud with a stolen credit carte du jour works

It'due south all well-nigh shopping, according to Patrick Lambert, who poked effectually the clandestine "carder sites" that sell the information from stolen credit cards. Buy i for a few dollars and just go shopping! Well… not quite.

What'southward a credit card fraudster to practise: buy expensive goods online and have them shipped to his home? Certainly not. In his Interview with a malicious hacker making over $10,000 a week, [Edit 7/eight/13: Lambert has taken down his fascinating and instructive article.] Lambert reports how like shooting fish in a barrel it is to find and use these carder sites, and how to turn the hot credit menu into hard cash:

So finally, the final question I had was how they manage to get actual, physical appurtenances using that stolen credit card, without having to divulge their address. The way I was explained is that all he has to exercise is post ads on eBay for popular items that he doesn't actually have. And then, when someone buys information technology, he turns around and buys that same item from some online store with the bought CC numbers, and puts the eBay buyer's accost equally the shipping location. He makes those stores send the products directly to his buyers, and gets clean cash for them, which he can spend any way he wants. Information technology'southward a type of online money laundering. And apparently, the reason why these stolen numbers are sold so cheaply is because a vast majority of them are either already canceled, or maxed out.

Now I'm wondering well-nigh the wide-format pro printer I sold on Craig's List: did I unwittingly sell information technology to an ID thief and obediently ship information technology to the innocent 3rd party who supplied the thief with clean money? It could take worked that way, at to the lowest degree if I were a shop that accepted credit card payments. In my example, I was paid via PayPal, and the funds cleared. Can a thief fund PayPal with a stolen credit card? I'm not sure…

You tin can run into how this three-manner scam works. An innocent and unsuspecting buyer of appurtenances provides clean money in return for existent items, and is none the wiser. A merchant sells items and is paid with a stolen credit card. d0g sits in the heart pulling strings and catching the money. Easy!

There'south much more to information technology though, Lambert learned from d0g. "Doing the offense, getting rich with stolen identities, is really like shooting fish in a barrel. The hard part is covering your tracks, and 90% of the things these people do are for the sole purpose of covering themselves."

That would include subscribing to a VPN (a secure and anonymous web tunnel), and funding an bearding online payment system.

This sort of "hacking" (which is not what I would phone call it) tin can be done on a big or very small scale, but either way, easily, and causing serious fiscal damage. If it's true that i credit carte fraudster (like d0g, the teenager) can net over $10,000 a week with a low risk of getting caught, it's clear that the vocation would attract legions of practitioners. It's clear, too, that our payment system needs fixing.

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12/22/fifteen Note to HACKERS: I appreciate when yous contribute additional knowledge in the hundreds of comments below, but delight realize that this mail will not function as a message board for contacting each other. Check information technology out: all email addresses in the comments below take been deleted. This is done by a man (me), non a robot. Then please save yourself (and me) the trouble. Do comment on credit carte hacking, but don't expect for business here. Thanks —BV

Later note: Alas, I had to close comments on this post due to soliciting. However, there'south really interesting stuff below. Cheers for all the contributions!

Even later note: Looks like skimmers' days may be numbered, thanks to the Skim Reaper, a credit card-sized detection device that nosotros can dip into an ATM or POS before using it to determine its safety. Well, nosotros won't exist using it any time soon, at a price of nearly $500, but let's say maybe bank co-operative managers will bank check their machines periodically, and police can cheque random ATMs.