UKC

Bank rang. Card details being used fraudulently.

Went through the transactions - £50 of Domino's pizzas; £190 of cosmetics; £200 at Next etc. etc. All telephone or online purchases.

I can envisage how people get the details - everytime I give them out I think how easy it is for the recipient simply to keep a copy note of them; what I can't understand is how they get used in a way that doesn't make it trivial to trace?

For example, the cosmetics will have been delivered to a clear address. Do the people there just claim they never placed the order or what?

In reply to JJL:
Lots of ways that I've seen, get them delivered to an empty address which you have access to, get them delivered to a work address*, get them delivered to any old address and then wait outside and intercept the delivery, get them delivered to a mailbox, get them delivered to an address where you know the person won't be in and has a "safe place", get them delivered to flats where the driver has to buzz in and intercept at the lobby, get them delivered to addresses with mail rooms.

Or just buy digital goods and don't worry about it.


*Incidentally, if you're serving in the military and decide to commit card fraud - don't get stuff delivered to your base, in your name. It doesn't end well.

In reply to Lemony:


Interesting; thanks.

I'm impressed that the bank's algorithm picked it up, as there's some Christmas stuff being purchased normally at the same time.

In reply to Lemony:

Use of mules as well. pay someone a pittance to redirect the mail elsewhere.

In reply to KevinD:

...or even just circles of people who receive the mail for each other. On the rare occasions we've managed to have action taken it's usually when there's been a group involved.

In reply to JJL:

Sometimes it's bent retailers. Someone cloned my card and spent £12k in a Spanish travel agent. Four transactions of £3k each, in one day. The shop must have been in on it. The credit card company just wiped my balance without a second thought.

In reply to JJL:

They can trace it, it just costs more to act on it that to write off the debt.

A friend traced someone who used her credit card to buy flowers for a wedding amongst other things. She got the name and address of the person as well as when and where the wedding would be. Gave all details to bank and police, neither organisation acted on the information. She got the money refunded though.

In reply to Hooo:

I don't think it holds that the shop's in on it. If the payments passed 3dsecure there's no reason for them not to accept them. We'd have accepted the payments either way and then decided how to deal with it. Almost certainly by refunding but we'd have given the customer time to respond to contact first.

In reply to cap'nChino:



This is everything you need to know about credit card fraud. The banks are completely happy to do nothing and simply spread the costs to all their customers. The police are happy that the banks do not expect them to solve any crimes, so they completely ignore the issue.

I had somebody buy a mobile phone contract at my address, they must have waited by my door to intercept the phone. Vodaphone didn't give a toss and immediately wrote it off.