Forum Moderators: buckworks
We had an order come thru which was highly suspect. It was for 2 Gift Certificates ($200.00 Each). That alone peeked my interest, the order had a billing address for a US Individual and the details were complete and accurate. The contact phone number was for a place of business in the same town the individual lived. We called to verify and sure enough, the individual works there. What made the whole thing suspect though was that the delivery address was Pakistan. Needless to say that set off bells and whistles and as it turns out, when we contacted this individual, he stated that the transaction was fraudulant as we had suspected. He also told us that this is the second time this has happened and that this time, American Express had contacted him.
So, we called American Express to offer them any information we could, i.e. e-mail address, bogus website for the e-mail address, ip the order came from, etc etc. Guess What? They said thanks for calling, but they were not interested in any information we could provide, further, they had no way to note the information in regards to the card holders card.
I guess American Express isn't the least bit interested in assistance at prevent or even apprehending credit card fraudsters! Unbelieveable!
However, they don't care a whit about the criminals and just write it off as part of the cost of doing business. That includes the police and credit reporting agencies.
I had my identity stolen in February, and it was clear as day that my credit was run through a shell company before the thieves committed to falsifying identification documents. When notified that a non-existant company, with fake telephone numbers, was running credit on people, they couldn't care less.
Identity theft is the easiest major financial crime to perpetrate, and even better for the crooks, its very, very, very rare for arrest and convictions to occur.
Had I a criminal mind, a $1000 investment could yield tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its sickening, and until concerted efforts are made to track down and get prosecute the organized gangs that are involved, the problem is going to get worse, not better.
There is a relatively easy way to protect yourself though, and that's to force the three major credit reporting agencies to put fraud alerts on your files. A fraud alert requires that lenders contact you at a predetermined telephone number (home or work number, usually) before granting credit. A fraud alert means you can't get instant credit anymore - but you'll get by just fine without it, and you won't have to deal with the mess when your identity is stolen.
Also, never, ever, ever, try to avoid getting credit anywhere but banks and major credit card companies. That car dealership around the corner that's happy to give you a loan? Hah - filled with high-turnover, low wage employees who would be happy to steal some files and hand them over to a crook for a few bucks.
You are absolutely right. I even told this individual that this was very serious because they even have an accurate work number. That to me means whoever is behind it isnot the casual identity thief, they are a professional in the criminal sense.
Moreover to your point, credit card companies have the ability to make identity theft harder. There are simply things that anyone who has some experience with e-commerce knows that the credit companies could do, but don't, simply because they are not on the hook. I won't mention them here, but we all know that they could verify a couple more items that would cut down on fraudulant charges alot. There will always be ways around anything, but right now, credit card fraud is so easy, even 10 year olds are commiting it and getting away with it.
Until somebody (congress, FTC, etc.) makes it something that the issuer will not profit from (chargeback fees), then there is no incentive for the issuer to find a way to protect merchants, thus protect themselves.
I say: baloney. Their only interest in minimising fraud is minimising fraud that costs them money. If the fraud is something that costs the merchant money they are not interested. (If the types of fraud resulting in merchants losing money rises to the point where it is not economical for most merchants to accept cards then that has major repercussions for the banking industry and the credit card companies will have to sit up and listen. But that is unlikely to happen). In the meanwhile they will continue spending large sums to cover their collective ass*s and the merchants will continue losing money. There have been numerous instances we've had fraudsters by the short and curlies ... but neither the card companies nor the UK police were interested in doing anything about any of those cases. Moral/s: Don't trust card companies as far as you can throw them. Trust merchant services even less. And read all the small print of all the contracts.
The UK government says crime doesn't pay and has recently seized £600000 worth of goods from criminals. I say, it does pay if you are Visa/Mastercard/AMEX....and the rest.
The EU (who always make funny laws and directives!) should make it illegal for the card companies to charge either the customer (except through negligence) or the merchant (except through negligence, again) any fees to process these transactions. If I process a £100 fraudulent transaction, the card company should be entitled to take £100 back of me. No fine, no fees.
That way, the card companies would begin to take notice.
It is as if the card companies accept the amount to pay you, but then refuse and then fine you for it. I am afraid if I tell them I am going to pay them and I refuse to pay an invoice, I would be in the wrong. Why not the other way around?
Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, a lot more players(paypal and friends) are entering the marketplace and they ARE competing for the merchant business.
Hopefully this will lead to the destruction of the cartel and everyone will benefit. Unfortunately, in the mean time, everyone suffers from the monopoly.
