credit card scam Archives - John Sileo, Cyber Security Training

Posts tagged "credit card scam"

Secrets of a Former Credit Card Thief

We’ve all heard the standard tips about preventing identity theft and credit card fraud. But what would a real identity thief tell you if he had the chance? A recent interview with creditcards.com talks to a thief one on one and reveals the secrets

behind credit card theft.

Dan DeFelippi, who is 29 years old, was convicted of credit card fraud and ID theft in 2004. He tells consumers that: You can never be too careful.

DeFelippi, Learned at an early age how to create fake Id’s and he said it went down hill from there. He mostly made fake credit cards with real credit card information he bought online. He would then make fake Id’s to go with them and purchase big ticket items at Best Buy or Circuit City. He would turn around and sell them on Ebay for cash. DeFelippi says committing credit card fraud is still “ridiculously easy to do,” he says. “Anyone with a computer and $100 could start making money tomorrow.”

Identity Theft Scam Stole Millions – Pennies at a Time

The FTC just busted a long-running internet scam where offshore thieves set up virtual companies and stole millions of dollars from US consumers one small charge at a time.

“It was a very patient scam,” said Steve Wernikoff, a staff attorney with the FTC who is prosecuting the case. According to him, the scammers found loopholes in the credit card processing system that allowed them to set up fake U.S. companies that then ran more than a million phony credit card transactions through legitimate credit card processing companies.

The fraudsters were able to fly under the radar for so long because they only charged consumers between $ .25 and $9 and set up over 100 fake companies to pull off these transactions. In this specific case they charged over 1.35 million credit cards a total of $9.5 million dollars – those nickles and dimes really add up! Shockingly, 94% of these charges went undetected by the credit card holder because they didn’t notice an unusual charge on their credit card statements and fraud detection agencies rarely detect anything under $10.