How scammers get away with fraud

&gt; <i>because the sum stolen – £40,000 – is deemed not large enough to bother the authorities</i><p>There was an investigative news story on TV about a couple who would order hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise over the Internet using stolen credit card numbers and brazenly have it delivered to their <i>own</i> home. The TV crew showed their house brimming top to bottom with boxes and boxes of fraudulently obtained goods that they would resell on eBay. They said no police ever visited them.<p>In every one of the frauds the couple committed, the merchant would know that he shipped to (for example) 1234 Main St, Minneapolis. The credit card issuer, bank, and defrauded card holder would have the address also. Probably hundreds of police reports were made, or am I assuming too much? If a single policeman actually followed up on one of these &quot;too small&quot; thefts of $100 to $1000 they could have prevented hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional theft.<p>I imagine that the system breaks down because no one reports the fraud or pushes to get something done, or because the police don&#x27;t follow up, or both.

&gt;The police are concerned about the prospect of vans carrying vast amounts of petrol.<p>There is a pictures of such trucks here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;krebsonsecurity.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;gas-theft-gangs-fuel-pump-skimming-scams&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;krebsonsecurity.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;gas-theft-gangs-fuel-pum...</a>

While customers victim of online scams and identity theft are more or less protected by big vendors or banks because of regulations, provided they act swiftly, small merchants are often on hook when a scam happens with very little options to recoup the money lost. What are the solutions for merchants? insurances? anti-fraud detection services? What could you recommend to a merchant that is starting to do business online? restrict with whom one does business with? use bigger merchants to do transactions? what works, what doesn&#x27;t to mitigate risk?

&gt; <i>In one instance, it froze thousands of pounds that had arrived into an account. “We blocked it and contacted the originating bank,” says Blomfield. “But that bank [one of the biggest UK players] said it was all fine. Then it rang a few days later to say it looked like the customer had been conned. Luckily, we were able to return the money.”</i><p>I wonder how often it happens that the bank simply keeps the money it froze, either telling nothing to the originating bank, or telling the originating bank that the money has been transferred or withdrawn. For two banks that rarely deal with each and are in different countries, what can the originating bank possibly do other than take whatever the receiving bank says at face value?

&quot;...and one [scam] so simple we are banned from telling you about it.&quot;<p>Interesting.

I used my chip card in Canada during the last week. I used my visa chip card heavily for gas, bc ferries, food, etc. I remember giving out my card number, expiry date and security code to an agency that offers whale seeing tours in Victoria Island. Next day, I saw two charges: $108.XX from Chick-A-Fil, Salisbury, MD and $1.00 from Sweden. The card issuer called me right away to verify what&#x27;s going on.<p>I wonder how my cc details were compromised. Was it a skimmer at gas stations? or one of those credit card scanners in Canada (Canadians seems to use PIN number with credit cards) or bcferries.com website.<p>I am not sure.

&quot;because the sum stolen – £40,000 – is deemed not large enough to bother the authorities&quot;<p>You just apply broken window theory to everyone of them.Punish swiftly to discourage bad behavior.<p>Students who sell their accounts for cash;charge them with conspiracy to commit fraud and money-laundering.<p>Some of the criminal activities described in the article are kind of chutzpah

&quot;These &#x27;mule&#x27; accounts are a vital link for crooks moving money around the banking system.&quot;<p>Indeed. A vast majority of digital financial crimes in some way rely upon these types of accounts. I really don&#x27;t understand why I haven&#x27;t heard of any of these people who sell their accounts to criminals being charged as accessories (before the fact). Perhaps because enforcement is low in general. But I think that a lot of the alleged college students doing this wouldn&#x27;t risk ruining their future on felony fraud charges for $200 if we started prosecuting some of these people. The mere fact that not all of the money was routed back out and some remained as payment is essentially the smoking gun that they were knowingly involved. Any decent investigator&#x2F;detective would be able to break these students in 15 minutes once presented with that evidence.

&gt;<i>Frustratingly, there are few mechanisms for banks to communicate with each other. “In the US, there is a web portal for banks to contact each other on these issues. Here, it’s just email, Blomfield adds. “Sometimes we are even told to use a fax.”</i><p>Interesting. In many ways the Americans are far behind (still writing checks, lack of chip and pin) but in this arena they have Europe beat.

&gt; because of his ears... ear positions are the most difficult thing to fake<p>ROFL :)<p>Credit Card security model, with CVV, is so broken, but also so widespread, it is cheaper to cover fraud than change it. Especially if card processors (Visa, MasterCard) can shift damages onto merchants.

I think it depends. If it&#x27;s a really big bank, even when it&#x27;s only $100 the police will probably follow up on it. But with the small competitor banks even big sums like $40k will not get pursued. And you can&#x27;t say $40k is not a big sum. It certainly is.<p>As a bank one has other options besides the law, though. Lawyers, private detectives, even deals with gangs. It&#x27;s not impossible to survive such things and defend against it.<p>The only thing stopping the bank is the bank itself. Like most organisations a bank is probably barely able to achieve what it makes money with and everything else trailing off into nirvana in an unlimited amount of bureaucracy.

Though informative , it felt like an Advertorial for the Monzo bank...