An Indiana couple pleaded guilty recently to their part in defrauding Amazon of more than $1.2 million in electronic devices by taking advantage of the e-commerce giant’s replacement policy. [More]
black market
Couple Illegally Used Amazon Replacement Policy To Get $1.2M Worth Of Electronics For Free
By 10.2.17
How Much Is Instagram Verification Worth On The Black Market?
By 9.1.17
Here in the social media era, everyone is a brand — but some more than others. Verified “influencers” on social media platforms can make a pretty penny selling access to their influence… and so it perhaps is unsurprising that the ability to influence is, itself, a hot commodity you can buy. [More]
Olive Garden Unlimited Pasta Passes Hit eBay With Prices Up To $4,500 Because Of Course
By 9.16.16
Despite the fact that Olive Garden put 21,000 Never Ending Pasta Passes up for sale yesterday, 19,000 more than it offered last year, those passes sold out immediately. Demand remains, it seems, as there are already listings for the passes on eBay with asking prices up to $4,500. [More]
Shadow Economies: Harvest Organs From The Poor For The Rich
By 11.4.11
Living in abject poverty, $10,000 is a beguiling promise. All you have to do is give up one kidney. It’s ok, you have another one. But a Bloomberg Markets Magazine investigation shows how gangs around the world prey on the poor and use threats and violence to get them to give up their organs, which they can then resell for upwards of $150,000. This isn’t just happening in some ice-filled bath in China: this week, a Brooklyn man plead guilty to selling black market kidneys to people in New Jersey. [More]
NYC 8-Year-Old Sells Gun At School For $3
By 5.2.11
In a disturbing sign of how easy it is for kids to get their hands on firearms, an 8-year-old Queens kid was caught selling a loaded 9mm handgun to another student at school for $3. [More]
Do Not Try To Turn A Kid Into A Drug Dealer By Promising Him A Video Game
By 3.23.11
A 34-year-old New Hampshire woman who wanted to get her hands on some pain medication allegedly devised a plan that landed her in jail: Ask a 9-year-old boy to swipe his mom’s Percocet, and promise to buy him a video game in return. The boy held up his end of the bargain and noticed something was amiss when he saw the woman take the label off the pill bottle. [More]
Montgomery Ward's Hacked 6 Months Ago, But Victims Weren't Told
By 6.30.08
Somewhere between 51,000 and 200,000 records were stolen from Montgomery Ward’s servers last December—the company says it’s the smaller number, but CardCops, the group that spotted the hack in the first place, “spotted hackers touting the sale of 200,000 payment cards belonging to one merchant” in June, which is how the story became public. Montgomery Wards knew about the breach when it happened, and although they reported the crime to federal investigators, they didn’t tell any of the victims. The CEO of Direct Marketing Services, which owns the Montgomery Ward name, told the Associated Press that after he alerted investigators he felt his company “had met its obligations.”
