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- THE K G B ELITE AGAIN PRESENTS:
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- ASSULT WITH A PLASTIC WEAPON
- FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY
- BY
- HE MAN
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- This is a summary of an article called ASSULT WITH A PLASTOCE WEAPON it deals
- with credit card fraud and is intended for informational purposes only.
- Armed robbers with machine guns, wearing ski masks stole 6,000 credit cards
- from the CALIFORNIA plant that makes them.Only about half have been recovered.
- A womens telephone credit card was stolen from her purse while she was in NEW
- YORK CITY,and she later recieved a bill for $195,000 in call charged to her
- card.
- It is now easier, safer and more profitable to steal with a credit card than
- a gun says LARRY SCHWARTZ president of the fraud and theft info bureau of
- Boynton Beach Fla.
- Credit cards can be used in person,or the name and number can be written on
- mail orders or telephoned to a wide range of vendors.Cards can also be
- counterfited,lost or stolen through the mails.
- VISA and MASTERCARD losses alone were up 50% from 1982 to 1983-from $135
- million to $200 million according to the American Bankers Association.
- Both card companies are owned by bank consortiums.
- American Telephone & Telegraph Company reports that telephone calls made
- through illegal use of credit card numbers were up an estimated 37% last
- year,from $69.5 million the year before to $95 million this year.
- Brian Brigham a spokesman for Visa international,says use of cards stolen
- from holders accounts for 35.9% of illegal transactions.These transactions
- average $650.The next most common abuse,accounting for 29.2% of illegal
- transactions is with cards that holders have lost.The average use here
- totals $1,047. The next catagory,at 24% is diversion of cards sent through
- the mails. This involves the highest average dollar loss $1,919. Counterfit
- cards account for only 11.2% of the fraud but result in the second highest
- dollar loss.
- Ok there are three cycles lost or stolen cards go through.First they are
- used for large purchases with a quick resale value,such as exspensive
- jewelry.Once the dollar limit on such a card is reached, the criminals
- switch to a lower priced items that do not need validation by a sales clerk
- thus they dont do a credit check showing that the credit limit has been
- reached.(VISA AND MC DO NOT REQUIRE VALIDATION ON PURCHASES UNDER $75
- ALTHOUGH SOME CLERKS ARE NOSY AND RUN A CHECK).
- More than 93% of credit card fraud activity occurs in 12 states, these are,
- NEW YORK,FLORIDA,NEW JERSEY,CALIFORNIA,MASSACHUSETTS,PENNSYLVANIA,VIRGINA
- CONNECTICUT,TEXAS,ILLINOIS,MICHIGAN AND NEVADA.
- Criminals (PHREAKS) obtain account numbers in several ways:#1 Searching
- merchants trash for carbon sheets.#2 Buying stolen cards.#3 Getting temp.
- jobs as mail or telephone order clerks.#4 Working for a bank or having a
- friend that does.#5 Getting card holders numbers over the phone (Like
- impersonating a card company representative.#6 Looking over the shoulder
- of someone making a legit. purchas.#7 Stealing cards from the manufacturer.
- Once in posession of a card it can be altered by shaving off the old #,
- and embossing the card with heat to form a new #.
- Finally some sophisticated counterfiters make their own cards. a New Jersey
- (SCHOOL) was discovered to be offering classes in counterfiting and related
- fraud. Upon completion of the course, students were sold cards to use.
- Placement cosisted of providing graduates with a fence!
- The two bank card issuers have formed a joint venture company with Malco
- Plastics, a leading credit card maker, to market electronic WATERMARK tape
- to approved card producers worldwide. What this tape is used for is to
- hold a permanant non-altering code that has arithmatic sequences imbeded
- into the tape.Get this> another company is trying to use carbonless sales
- slips.Also visa has made a new card,it has a picture on it of a dove and
- when it is tilted at various angles the card changes hue(color and lightness).
- Visa hopes to have 80% of its domestic credit card transactions automated
- by next year,using on on line terminals. These terminals will enable a
- merchant to transmit personal id #'s, known only to visa and the cardholder.
- Banks are also starting new procedures.Like mailing cards in plain envelopes
- with wadding that makes it impossible to feel the cards.Also they are now
- calling the customer to see if they have recieved their card in the mail.
- Ok now a little about the dreaded (FBI). They can enter a credit card fraud
- case that involves interstate transportation of stolen property. But they
- cant touch a case unless it meets a certain dollar ammount. where CC fraud
- is not a great problem the dollar limit is $10,000 and problem ereas the
- limit is $50,000.
- Right now ther are no federal laws against counterfitting,alteration,
- possessing a card with unlawful intent,using a card or # with unlawful intent,
- giving,selling,trading in equipment with the knowledge that they are t be
- used for counterfit cards. Several bills in congress would close these gaps.
- Credit cards are one of the major steps moving twords a cashless society.
- I hope that this bit of info has informed you of the situation
- that the credit card companies are in. Well that is enough for now.
-
- DONT YOU DO ANYHTING I WOULDENT DO AND HAVE FUN
-
- WRITEN FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
-
- BY
- HE MAN