We’d heard that credit card information can fetch as little as $1.50 on the open market, but we never really thought about what the experience of actually purchasing the info was like. Well, it turns out that buying a stolen credit card is a process riddled with fees. Who knew?
Brian Krebs started out by opening an account on a site that sells card numbers stolen from computers infected with trojans. He soon found out that being a scammer doesn’t mean you won’t be nickel and dimed.
The trouble is, the minute you seek to narrow your search using the built-in tools, the site starts adding all these extra convenience fees (sound familiar?). For example, if I wanted to buy a card stolen from anyone around the Washington, D.C. area, it would probably be from a resident of McLean, Va., which is more or less a tony place where there are plenty of well-to-do folk. Anyway, the site found me a card (a MasterCard) belonging to a McLean resident alright, but then the service wanted to tack on an extra $.60 just because I isolated my search by city and state — raising the cost in my shopping cart to $2.10! No way, Jose. Not this bargain shopper!
Oh, and as the commenters on BoingBoing pointed out — No, the site doesn’t accept credit card payments for stolen credit card numbers.
I’ll Take 2 MasterCards and a Visa, Please [Krebs On Security via BoingBoing]
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No problem. Go to the PayPal scam site and pay with a credit card, then use that to pay at the credit card scam site.
So, what’s the credit card site? I might want to buy one.
If you can’t figure out how to find the site from the info on this page, I think maybe you should close out any real credit card accounts you have now
I didn’t read the article before posting this >.
n tht cs, y’r dbl dt nd frst-pst whr.
I’m selling a tool that creates fees for websites that sells credit cards. The more elaborate the fee, the more I charge.
Oh, The Huge Manatee!
This confirms that the stolen credit card sites are run by banks – how else do you explain all of the fees?
It’s a conspiracy I tells you!
This reminds me of the coke dealer that called the police when his goods got stolen.
Cripes! With all those fees, it sure sounds like Bank of America is in the business of selling stolen credit cards too!
What if I write a check for 21 bucks tell him that it was a mistake but for his troubles he can keep 8 and send me the remaining 13