4 ms·

Wow. The story and comments below it make me realize security is a lot more important than my data science background led me to believe. I had no idea people

Wow. The story and comments below it make me realize security is a lot more important than my data science background led me to believe. I had no idea people are working so hard to buy stuff with fake or stolen credit card information. Bots running on AWS to sell stuff on eBay, then actually purchase the sold item and have it sent to the buyer. Wow

noonespecial 11y ago
Its especially sad because that's clearly more than enough knowledge and skill to make a more-than-decent living and be a productive member of society.
- bluedino 11y ago
  You could take a couple days to set some bots and accounts up, and potentially make tens of thousands of dollars. That'd take months as 'productive member of society'.
  - hippich 11y ago
    you do not need bots. just socks server running on free ec2 instance
- hippich 11y ago
  people who do it, either live in countries where they can not really realize their skill in any meaningful way, or it is gang business, where scale is quite different. Globalization helps a lot to prevent former.
  - studentrob 11y ago
    Whoa, gang programmers? Is that a thing? I feel so innocent.
    - hippich 11y ago
      there is very little programming involved and a lot of social hacking skills.
- kbart 11y ago
  It depends on society. Most of such people are young, bright and computer literate from the 3rd world countries where often doing even a small time scamming on Internet nets you way more than local office job.
  - studentrob 11y ago
    It seems to me if you're caught doing that you risk quite a bit of your future chances at an office job in a growing economy. I guess everyone has to make their own choices.
    - bwilliams18 11y ago
      The chance of actually getting caught in this situation is really rather low...being unsuccessful, sure, but truly caught, prosecuted, etc, probably won't happen.
      - studentrob 11y ago
        Today, yes. Tomorrow, next year, 5 years. You don't know. The more successful you are the more attention you'll get. Plenty of uncatchable people have been caught. Ulbricht, Gottfrid, ...
- prodmerc 11y ago
  Except the positions for making a decent living are already taken. And please don't blame only third world citizens - most of the time they're just grunts, the masterminds are usually in the countries where cards are actually stolen from (i.e. first world, rich, etc.)
  - studentrob 11y ago
    It's hard to get a job, therefore I steal? Sorry, I don't buy it. We don't know exactly the details of how these scams are happening or who is conscious of what they're doing. However, whoever does control the details of setting up on AWS can certainly make a living wage elsewhere. Stealing is not acceptable within any society. We are all human beings, we share this earth, let's share not steal.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      Imagine that you're smart, young, and faced with an awkward choice. You can live your life in an impoverished place, ekeing out a living producing mud in Elbonia. Or you can steal money from people who, from your perspective, have TONS. People who aren't even near you anyway, and who according to local thought are evil and oppressing you. Plus, that's a lot of money to you. Now couple it with the gang aspect.
      - studentrob 11y ago
        I don't have to eke out a living making mud. I know how to work with AWS. I can find a job working for a web development shop and teach myself new skills along the way. I don't know what you mean by gang aspect. Yes organized crime exists and forces people to participate. Are you saying there's a high likelihood that the people who set up these scams are being forced to do it by a gang? I don't know anything about the likelihood of that. As far as I know, all participants in tech criminal rings are willing. If people are being forced to join against their will, someone should shed light on that.
    - throwaway2048 11y ago
      Crime is unquestionably coorlated with poverty, you can't just dismiss that with banal moralizations of how BAD these people are and how they ought live properly. If you want to solve most crime issues in a real way, stop it from being the only choice many people have to "get ahead" or even survive.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Yeah. Unfortunately, the scammers may not even feel they're ripping off their own society. According to commenter Charles, whose story of being scammed seems as advanced as the OP, the accounts scamming him were registered via ebay.in. Given all the call centers and operations in India and the Philippines, for example, these low-wage countries may have a good number of people who understand how eBay and PayPal systems work. They certainly have a number of tech savvy and multi lingual folks. If these really are Indian based, I'd argue their modern robin hood efforts aren't a good idea. However I know next to nothing about Indian culture, and we don't really know where the origin of the scam is coming from. It could be US based. [rant] In general, I'm unimpressed with the ability of the US government to identify major online scamming patterns and execute effectively deterring consequences for the perpetrators, as well as enact legislation that is not overreaching. I recall one I got hit by a buyer's club called Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty in 2007. They started in 2000. They still exist and are still scamming people under the name Affinion, Trilegiant and a host of other buyer's club names that they come up with. In 2007, I had entered my email address twice to receive some coupon after registering for a road race on active.com. Unbeknownst to me, this legally authorized them to share my credit card with another company and start billing me $10 monthly. Apparently at that time, entering your email into two different text boxes constituted a legal signature. I didn't read the fine print because it just looked like a coupon that would be emailed to me. It didn't look like I was buying anything. I never thought my CC # could be transferred like that and have me charged by a different company. I think the partnering company (active.com, fandango.com, and others) gets a kickback from RR's "coupon" scam which is a modern discount buyer's club. Anyway, I didn't notice the recurring charges for a few months. Once I did I found this company had been scamming people for years, since 2000. I called to get a refund and got it back in full. They put up some resistance, but having read other peoples' experiences, I knew what they would say and what I should say back. I wrote a few lengthy comments online, considered that my contribution and moved on. There was a TV report done on them in 2009, in which their CEO stated they were following all laws in all states [1] Web Loyalty was subsequently involved in a class action lawsuit, in which they settled [2] According to a review on Glassdoor from a former employee, the company has since been sold to another one called Affinion [3] There are several revealing Glassdoor reviews from current Affinion employees, this one is worth sharing [4] In October 2013, Affinion settled with 46 state attorneys general to refund $19 million to tricked consumers. [5] There are many complaints about Affinion on BBB.org, some of which look just like the old ones about Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty. That is, charges for services for which people never signed up [6] There are also some recent complaints about "Web Loyalty" here on BBB although they really fall under Affinion now. [7] I recall reading one comment where a person was only billed once every six or 12 months, rather than monthly, so they nearly missed it. This company has been operation for 15 years and is clearly still scammy. I'm sure lawyers would look at this and tell you it happens all the time. It's their job to see this. To me, this is unacceptable. When you steal cash from a store you go to jail. When you scam people out of money over the internet, you get fined some amount less than your profit, make some minimal adjustment to your scamming service, perhaps sell the business to another one, get a new name and then resume as usual with a small hit to profit. Our society does not benefit from the little money coming back via these fines. When is our government going to learn that fines are not a proper deterrent for super scale larceny? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RzjkOirHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RzjkOirHg [2] http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/27/webloyalty-customers-eligible-for-payments-under-class-action-settlement/ http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/27/webloyalty-customer... [3] https://archive.is/FCXKT https://archive.is/FCXKT [4] https://archive.is/91Hf1 https://archive.is/91Hf1 > "A sinking ship with part of the hull still miraculously above water. Affinion is a "Business Parody" at best." > Pros > I cannot, in all honesty, find one single benefit of choosing Affinion as an employer as opposed to the next company. Like quicksand, every reason for working there gets sucked into an abyss. > Cons > The only benefit of ever working at Affinion would be the lesson one could learn about how unethical companies with a sketchy business model are able to survive this long. At best, it is a sinking ship on its last leg of survival. > Advice to Management > Those in "upper management" play their "oblivious" roles to perfection. The fact is, the emperor has no clothes on...and yet every one of them can describe the non-existent clothes to the last thread. [5] http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2013/10/affinion_webloyalty_to_refund.html http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2013/10/a... [6] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs-and-group-purchasing-service/affinion-group-inc-in-stamford-ct-41001179/complaints http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs... [7] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs-and-group-purchasing-service/webloyalty-com-inc-in-stamford-ct-77000102/complaints http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs... [/rant]

noonespecial 11y ago

Its especially sad because that's clearly more than enough knowledge and skill to make a more-than-decent living and be a productive member of society.

bluedino 11y ago
You could take a couple days to set some bots and accounts up, and potentially make tens of thousands of dollars. That'd take months as 'productive member of society'.
- hippich 11y ago
  you do not need bots. just socks server running on free ec2 instance
hippich 11y ago
people who do it, either live in countries where they can not really realize their skill in any meaningful way, or it is gang business, where scale is quite different. Globalization helps a lot to prevent former.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Whoa, gang programmers? Is that a thing? I feel so innocent.
  - hippich 11y ago
    there is very little programming involved and a lot of social hacking skills.
kbart 11y ago
It depends on society. Most of such people are young, bright and computer literate from the 3rd world countries where often doing even a small time scamming on Internet nets you way more than local office job.
- studentrob 11y ago
  It seems to me if you're caught doing that you risk quite a bit of your future chances at an office job in a growing economy. I guess everyone has to make their own choices.
  - bwilliams18 11y ago
    The chance of actually getting caught in this situation is really rather low...being unsuccessful, sure, but truly caught, prosecuted, etc, probably won't happen.
    - studentrob 11y ago
      Today, yes. Tomorrow, next year, 5 years. You don't know. The more successful you are the more attention you'll get. Plenty of uncatchable people have been caught. Ulbricht, Gottfrid, ...
prodmerc 11y ago
Except the positions for making a decent living are already taken. And please don't blame only third world citizens - most of the time they're just grunts, the masterminds are usually in the countries where cards are actually stolen from (i.e. first world, rich, etc.)
- studentrob 11y ago
  It's hard to get a job, therefore I steal? Sorry, I don't buy it. We don't know exactly the details of how these scams are happening or who is conscious of what they're doing. However, whoever does control the details of setting up on AWS can certainly make a living wage elsewhere. Stealing is not acceptable within any society. We are all human beings, we share this earth, let's share not steal.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Imagine that you're smart, young, and faced with an awkward choice. You can live your life in an impoverished place, ekeing out a living producing mud in Elbonia. Or you can steal money from people who, from your perspective, have TONS. People who aren't even near you anyway, and who according to local thought are evil and oppressing you. Plus, that's a lot of money to you. Now couple it with the gang aspect.
    - studentrob 11y ago
      I don't have to eke out a living making mud. I know how to work with AWS. I can find a job working for a web development shop and teach myself new skills along the way. I don't know what you mean by gang aspect. Yes organized crime exists and forces people to participate. Are you saying there's a high likelihood that the people who set up these scams are being forced to do it by a gang? I don't know anything about the likelihood of that. As far as I know, all participants in tech criminal rings are willing. If people are being forced to join against their will, someone should shed light on that.
  - throwaway2048 11y ago
    Crime is unquestionably coorlated with poverty, you can't just dismiss that with banal moralizations of how BAD these people are and how they ought live properly. If you want to solve most crime issues in a real way, stop it from being the only choice many people have to "get ahead" or even survive.
studentrob 11y ago
Yeah. Unfortunately, the scammers may not even feel they're ripping off their own society. According to commenter Charles, whose story of being scammed seems as advanced as the OP, the accounts scamming him were registered via ebay.in. Given all the call centers and operations in India and the Philippines, for example, these low-wage countries may have a good number of people who understand how eBay and PayPal systems work. They certainly have a number of tech savvy and multi lingual folks. If these really are Indian based, I'd argue their modern robin hood efforts aren't a good idea. However I know next to nothing about Indian culture, and we don't really know where the origin of the scam is coming from. It could be US based. [rant] In general, I'm unimpressed with the ability of the US government to identify major online scamming patterns and execute effectively deterring consequences for the perpetrators, as well as enact legislation that is not overreaching. I recall one I got hit by a buyer's club called Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty in 2007. They started in 2000. They still exist and are still scamming people under the name Affinion, Trilegiant and a host of other buyer's club names that they come up with. In 2007, I had entered my email address twice to receive some coupon after registering for a road race on active.com. Unbeknownst to me, this legally authorized them to share my credit card with another company and start billing me $10 monthly. Apparently at that time, entering your email into two different text boxes constituted a legal signature. I didn't read the fine print because it just looked like a coupon that would be emailed to me. It didn't look like I was buying anything. I never thought my CC # could be transferred like that and have me charged by a different company. I think the partnering company (active.com, fandango.com, and others) gets a kickback from RR's "coupon" scam which is a modern discount buyer's club. Anyway, I didn't notice the recurring charges for a few months. Once I did I found this company had been scamming people for years, since 2000. I called to get a refund and got it back in full. They put up some resistance, but having read other peoples' experiences, I knew what they would say and what I should say back. I wrote a few lengthy comments online, considered that my contribution and moved on. There was a TV report done on them in 2009, in which their CEO stated they were following all laws in all states [1] Web Loyalty was subsequently involved in a class action lawsuit, in which they settled [2] According to a review on Glassdoor from a former employee, the company has since been sold to another one called Affinion [3] There are several revealing Glassdoor reviews from current Affinion employees, this one is worth sharing [4] In October 2013, Affinion settled with 46 state attorneys general to refund $19 million to tricked consumers. [5] There are many complaints about Affinion on BBB.org, some of which look just like the old ones about Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty. That is, charges for services for which people never signed up [6] There are also some recent complaints about "Web Loyalty" here on BBB although they really fall under Affinion now. [7] I recall reading one comment where a person was only billed once every six or 12 months, rather than monthly, so they nearly missed it. This company has been operation for 15 years and is clearly still scammy. I'm sure lawyers would look at this and tell you it happens all the time. It's their job to see this. To me, this is unacceptable. When you steal cash from a store you go to jail. When you scam people out of money over the internet, you get fined some amount less than your profit, make some minimal adjustment to your scamming service, perhaps sell the business to another one, get a new name and then resume as usual with a small hit to profit. Our society does not benefit from the little money coming back via these fines. When is our government going to learn that fines are not a proper deterrent for super scale larceny? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RzjkOirHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RzjkOirHg [2] http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/27/webloyalty-customers-eligible-for-payments-under-class-action-settlement/ http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/27/webloyalty-customer... [3] https://archive.is/FCXKT https://archive.is/FCXKT [4] https://archive.is/91Hf1 https://archive.is/91Hf1 > "A sinking ship with part of the hull still miraculously above water. Affinion is a "Business Parody" at best." > Pros > I cannot, in all honesty, find one single benefit of choosing Affinion as an employer as opposed to the next company. Like quicksand, every reason for working there gets sucked into an abyss. > Cons > The only benefit of ever working at Affinion would be the lesson one could learn about how unethical companies with a sketchy business model are able to survive this long. At best, it is a sinking ship on its last leg of survival. > Advice to Management > Those in "upper management" play their "oblivious" roles to perfection. The fact is, the emperor has no clothes on...and yet every one of them can describe the non-existent clothes to the last thread. [5] http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2013/10/affinion_webloyalty_to_refund.html http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2013/10/a... [6] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs-and-group-purchasing-service/affinion-group-inc-in-stamford-ct-41001179/complaints http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs... [7] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs-and-group-purchasing-service/webloyalty-com-inc-in-stamford-ct-77000102/complaints http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs... [/rant]