3 ms·

I don't get this. Credit Card fraud is used to acquire goods from unsuspecting traders. This requires a trader to have a POS and money is not usually credited f

• richmarr 11y ago
  Misleading title. He wasn't spotted "skimming contactless cards" he was spotted holding an object and doing nothing else with it.
• forgetsusername 11y ago
  No kidding. If you're collecting payments through a credit card processor, this sort of scam would be shut down and reversed almost immediately, since the credit card company is directly in the middle of the transaction.
  • cissou 11y ago
    While you're mostly correct, it doesn't prevent people from "trying" this sort of scam. IIRC Square had to fight many battles like this, where fake "merchants" would open a Square account, swipe stolen cards, move the money away from Square and close their account. It's many small time crooks, not one big operation (it doesn't take a genius to figure this out), so it's actually really hard to fight.
• nly 11y ago
  There was a presentation at 32C3 this year where it was demonstrated, live on stage, just how woefully easy it is to get an eBay bought PoS device working with someone elses merchant account. Once you've done so, all you have to do is issue a 'refund' to a card you control, perhaps already stolen itself, and then go and withraw the cash. Another method, that was actually demonstrated, was to issue a mobile phone topup, which many of these multi-function terminals can do. Like most exploits, cybercrime isn't going to be enacted through a single flaw, but through systemic failure in the industry to give a shit before rolling any of this crap out.