You're A Victim Of Credit Card Fraud! How Did They Do It?
Thirteen ways in which your credit card and personal details can be stolen
Phishing
If you have an e-mail, you will at some point receive a phishing e-mail. These emails look like official messages from a bank or website and ask you to update your account information. Don't do it. Banks do not update information in this manner. Any information you send in reply will go straight to an identity thief. Phishing can also occur over the phone when someone pretending to be your bank or credit card company calls you asking for account information.
Site Cloning aka Spoofing aka Pharming
Fraudsters might clone an entire site or just the pages from which you place your order.
The pages are identical to those of the real site. Great care is taken to copy the most intricate details including logos, URLs and slogans. This is to ensure that the process of inputting your information feels natural and safe. Personal and banking details are commonly input to these sites. The cloned or spoofed site receiving these details might even send you a receipt of the transaction via email much the same as the real company would. You suspect nothing but the criminals have all the details they need to commit credit card fraud.
To get you to this cloned website, the criminals may have sent an e-mail to you (see phishing) requesting you visit the site by clicking a link, you may have typed in an incorrect URL and been redirected or you may have a virus on your computer.
Legitimate companies should require you to log in to a secure site. Check for the lock at the bottom of your browser and "https" in front of the website address.
Legitimate sites will have a relatively short internet address that usually depicts the business name followed by ".com," or possibly ".org." Spoof sites are more likely to have an excessively long string of characters in the url, with the legitimate business name somewhere in the string, or possibly not at all.
If you have doubts about an e-mail or website, contact the legitimate company directly and immediately. Make a copy of the questionable web site's url address, forward it to the business and ask if the request is legitimate.
Skimming
This can happen when you go into a store to buy something on credit. The corrupt clerk handling the transaction first skims your card data onto a skimming device or electronic magnetic stripe reader before that clerk processes the actual transaction. Details harvested with a skimming device can be used to create a cloned or counterfeit card which may be sold to other criminals or your details can be used for CNP fraud.
Skimming occurs most frequently in a bar or restaurant where customers hand their card over to the waiting staff in order to pay the bill.
Even the so-called 'completely secure' smart chip credit cards can now be skimmed. Skimming devices are fully portable and can store hundreds of smart chip details. The criminals are even able to re-write the chips.
Skimming devices can also be placed over the normal card reader on an ATM to steal your information when you try to make a withdrawal.
Physically Stolen Cards
Card holders are easy targets for theft anyplace where they are surrounded by strangers. Pickpockets know how to recognise signs of distraction and rifle your pockets and bags when you are not paying attention. If detected early, you can prevent any attempts at fraud by calling your card issuer and canceling the card. If the theft on the other hand goes undetected the thief can cause an enormous amount of damage: expensive purchases, applications for new credit cards and even taking out loans in your name.
The biggest problem is ATM fraud. Some people write their PIN on the back of their card. If the card is lost with the PIN written on the back a criminal has easy access to any amount the bank will allow out of the ATM in a single day. The criminal can also perform cash-back transactions. The bank might have no legal obligation to refund these transactions because the PIN is considered a top-level indicator that the person performing the transaction is authorised to do so.
False Merchant Sites
False merchant sites generally offer an extremely cheap service but are in reality set up to harvest as many credit card numbers and details as possible. The sites may be part of a larger criminal network that sells the details it collects. The owners of these sites might even make fraudulent transactions themselves before closing the site and moving on.
Credit Card Number Generators
This computer emulation software generates lists of credit card account numbers from a single account number. The software is programmed with the mathematical Luhn algorithm that card issuers use to generate valid card number combinations.
Sophisticated generators use advanced algorithmic hypothesising to generate tens of thousands of valid credit card numbers from a single account number. To generate expiry dates, the generators take a best guess based on a database of expiry date and account number similarities.
The generators allow criminals to generate as many numbers as they desire, in any of the credit card formats - American Express, Visa, MasterCard or Switch.
Dumpster diving
Stealing important documents from rubbish bins is a common identity theft practice. Sensitive documents should be shredded properly before throwing them away.
Information gathered in this way can easily be used for identity theft and credit card fraud.
Mail theft
Outgoing mail is especially lucrative for thieves. It can include bills that you are paying by cheque or credit card, credit card applications and other sensitive information.
It is more common for mail to be stolen from places where several households' or business mail is accumulated in one place, for example, housing complexes, apartment blocks and office blocks.
Even locked mailboxes are unlikely to stop a determined thief.
Hacking and wireless hacking
Identity thieves can easily access personal data by tapping into wireless connections. Make sure your wireless network or Bluetooth system is secure and encrypted.
Thieves can hack into unsecured web sites of financial institutions, retailers and credit card transaction processing companies to name a few. Any personal details of yours that are stored can be copied and used to commit fraud.
IP Spoofing
IP spoofing happens when an intruder sends a message to a computer with a specific IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted source.
Link alteration
This is where the return address in a web page or e-mail is altered. Sensitive information is then sent to a bogus site and not the legitimate site or e-mailed back to the criminal.
The thief's address is added before the actual address in an e-mail or page that has a request going back to the original site.
If an individual receives a spoofed e-mail requiring that person to "click here to update" their account information, and then are redirected to a site that looks legitimate, there is a good chance that the person will submit their personal information.
Triangulation
Triangulation happens when a merchant offers a product at a very cheap price through a web-site. The customer is expected to pay via e-mail when the item is delivered. The merchant uses a fraudulent card number to purchase the product which is then sent to the consumer. The consumer then sends the merchant his or her credit card details via email to effect payment. The operation continues in this way with the criminal using the credit card numbers sent by consumers to buy goods. The website will eventually be closed by the fraudster and a new one started.
Shoulder surfing
Someone stands behind or next to you at an ATM and sees your pin being entered. They then find an opportunity to steal your card when you are distracted.
Be aware of the risks when online and offline. Don't be a victim. Exercising some common sense and caution can save you a lot of trouble.
by: Richard Glanville
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