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A Look at the Underground World of Credit Card Information Sales

At Krebs on Security, Brian Krebs reveals a credit card scam world I never knew existed. It turns out that there are a multitude of websites where fraudsters can go to purchase stolen credit and debit card information online. Krebs says the glut of competitors in this industry helps keep prices for stolen account numbers exceptionally low. Stop reading for a second and take a guess how much your credit card information sells for on the black market.....

Finished pondering this? Did you guess $1.50, because that is the answer (unless you are a U.K. resident, in which case it is a whopping $4.00).

Krebs opened an account at one such site called "rock3d.cc" and observed how the site tried to upsell fraudsters for services such as specific searches for card information from people living in a particularly affluent area of town. It costs an extra $.60 to isolate your search by city and state, raising the cost in Kreb's shopping cart from $1.50 to $2.10. See a screenshot of the site below:

Krebs adds in a comment to the post, "For all those who are asking, payment is made via LibertyReserve and/or Webmoney, virtual currencies that are popular in the underground. You guys didn’t really think the proprietors of this shop would accept credit cards, did you? :)"

As the Boing Boing blog describes it, the rock3d.cc site is "structured like a bizarro-world PayPal, with soft come ons, hidden fees, and lots of upsell pressure." There were also some interesting comments on the Boing Boing post about this subject, including:

Posted by Bruce Carton on September 24, 2010 at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Comments

A Look at the Underground World of Credit Card Information Sales

At Krebs on Security, Brian Krebs reveals a credit card scam world I never knew existed. It turns out that there are a multitude of websites where fraudsters can go to purchase stolen credit and debit card information online. Krebs says the glut of competitors in this industry helps keep prices for stolen account numbers exceptionally low. Stop reading for a second and take a guess how much your credit card information sells for on the black market.....

Finished pondering this? Did you guess $1.50, because that is the answer (unless you are a U.K. resident, in which case it is a whopping $4.00).

Krebs opened an account at one such site called "rock3d.cc" and observed how the site tried to upsell fraudsters for services such as specific searches for card information from people living in a particularly affluent area of town. It costs an extra $.60 to isolate your search by city and state, raising the cost in Kreb's shopping cart from $1.50 to $2.10. See a screenshot of the site below:

Krebs adds in a comment to the post, "For all those who are asking, payment is made via LibertyReserve and/or Webmoney, virtual currencies that are popular in the underground. You guys didn’t really think the proprietors of this shop would accept credit cards, did you? :)"

As the Boing Boing blog describes it, the rock3d.cc site is "structured like a bizarro-world PayPal, with soft come ons, hidden fees, and lots of upsell pressure." There were also some interesting comments on the Boing Boing post about this subject, including:

• "Scammers scamming scammers? Is there no honor among lowlife scum anymore?"
• "I love how they have a Terms & Conditions page, as though they were a legitimate business who could actually hold you to those terms. It's like Ted Bundy trying to get his victims to sign a disclaimer to absolve him of responsibility for death or serious injury."