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Likely using stolen credit card credentials to buy bitcoin and then use them to buy things on Steam. They already have a massive problem with that without intro
by erk__ 5y ago
Likely using stolen credit card credentials to buy bitcoin and then use them to buy things on Steam. They already have a massive problem with that without introducing bitcoin into the equation
- flotzam 5y agoWut. This is like stealing faberge eggs so that you can throw them through the window of a Shake Shack that you want to break into
- dahfizz 5y agoHave you ever heard the phrase "money laundering"?
- flotzam 5y agoYes, and it's almost always used as a vague catch-all
- mr_cyborg 5y agoThere are some resources out there if you search for the stages of money laundering. Companies that have to fight money laundering have to know what it looks like and what they can do to catch it. The stages are Placement, Layering, and Integration. Here’s one source that may help explain: https://www.stpaulschambers.com/stages-of-money-laundering-explained/ https://www.stpaulschambers.com/stages-of-money-laundering-e...
- flotzam 5y agoBut how does any of that apply to the supposed "Steam purchases with stolen credit cards by way of Bitcoin" scheme?
- mr_cyborg 5y ago1. Stolen money is used to buy bitcoin 2. Bitcoin is obfuscated by purchasing things online with it 3. Those online assets can be sold for cash
- flotzam 5y agoThe obfuscation in step 2 seems very superficial. Like, is the IRS not going to ask where you got your stacks of Steam codes from?
- rosndo 5y agoYour bank will probably be the first one to ask, lying is a felony. (As is money laundering, of course) Also Valve will be looking for this too, as required by their bank. This is an incredibly unrealistic money laundering scheme, entirely fabricated by mr_cyborg. The truth is that the “fraudulent transactions” here are double-spends, because Steam was accepting 0-conf payments in an unsafe way.
- anonymousab 5y ago> This is an incredibly unrealistic money laundering scheme, entirely fabricated by mr_cyborg. Using stolen money to buy gift cards, using those gift cards to buy real things and then selling those real objects or licenses or accounts after the fact is a well known process. Substituting "bitcoin" or any cryptocurrency for "gift card" is neither unreasonable nor unrealistic.
- rosndo 5y agoThis only makes sense where “stolen money” is money that you don’t actually control, such as stolen credit cards where the transactions will inevitably be charged back. In that case it does make sense to buy and sell gift cards in order to “cash out” the money. This does not make any sense in the context of bitcoin.
- 5y ago
- berkes 5y agoHow can you launder money on steam? Buying swords or funny hats? Buying hundreds of games and then never play any?
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoBuy TF2 keys and trade them to another account? Or CSGO skins? It's incredibly liquid and there are third party marketplaces for cashing out
- netheril96 5y agoThey are not more liquid than BTC itself. Why not just sell the BTC directly?
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoI guess games and cosmetics sell easier than crypto scams.
- netheril96 5y agoYou got it backwards. It is much easier to sell crypto "scams" than games and cosmetics. At any given time, there are a lot of people ready to buy your BTC. For games and cosmetics, not so many.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoBitcoin is so liquid you can cash out millions within seconds. Source: I've done it
- mbesto 5y agoSpeculative theory - - You steal a credit card. - Buy BTC with said credit card. - Use BTC to buy Steam cosmetics that you already own and Steam converts that BTC to USD. You now have effectively used a stolen credit card to convert its value to cold hard cash that is not traceable, or at least requires several hoops to jump through to figure out who stole the card.
- k__ 5y agoWhy would they go over Steam? If they already have their assets in BTC they could simply put them in a mixer.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 5y agothat doesn't make any sense. The 'fraud' in your scenario and where the point of contention lies is between the the credit card company and the exchange where it was onramped. There's no way the exchange is then going to go through the effort to track the btc to steam and say 'Hey, that transaction that didn't come from our exchange wallet was fraud i want the BTC back.' Also - That's just like fraud with extra steps? Why even usee btc?
- JKCalhoun 5y agoPerhaps stolen credit cards have checks in place to immediately flag them as fraudulent?
- rosndo 5y agoNo.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoYes. What do you think a chargeback is?
- rosndo 5y agoLiterally nobody offers a service to check if specific coins were bought with a stolen credit card. I know what a chargeback is, and those are utterly irrelevant here.
- squeaky-clean 5y agoThat's not what they said at all though. Have you never been traveling and had your CC declined and your bank immediately calls you to verify the purchase? Credit cards do have checks in place to immediately flag them as fraudulent. This is not related to bitcoins and they never said it was. On top of that, if you use a stolen credit card to buy a steam game and the original owner files a chargeback, your entire steam account gets banned. So yes it's extremely relevant here. If instead you buy BTC on an exchange and then spend those BTC on steam, it's less likely to be flagged as fraud (at the time) because the BTC is purchased from an American website. Then you spend the BTC on steam. Then once the credit card is reported as stolen and a chargeback filed, it's the crypto exchange who gets hit. The chargeback is never associated with Steam and you can buy Steam games from a lower-priced market without the CC company ever being aware.
- scotty79 5y agoHow would steam know what was used to pay for bitcoin they received?
- jayd16 5y agoConceivably, the public ledger aspect of the technology.
- gruez 5y agoI doubt steam is doing blockchain analysis, tracing back where the coins came from, and seeing whether the exchange that sold them the coins were defrauded or not.
- jayd16 5y agoFirst off, why not? Why would you doubt that when they're a massive storefront and deal with fraud of all kinds? But also, wouldn't it be fairly easy and beneficial to have this information? Exchanges know what wallets are charged back and fraudulent. Is it not in their interest to work with Steam? Or even, is it not in the exchange's interest to do this analysis and demand the coin from Steam?
- gruez 5y ago> First off, why not? Why would you doubt that when they're a massive storefront and deal with fraud of all kinds? 1. The anti-fraud tech used for credit card fraud (ie. stolen credit cards used for unauthorized transactions) don't really translate well to the fraud described here (ie. stolen cryptocurrency). 2. it makes sense for ecommerence merchants to do anti-fraud stuff, because they're on the hook for fraud. the same does not apply to cryptocurrency transactions. >But also, wouldn't it be fairly easy and beneficial to have this information? Exchanges know what wallets are charged back and fraudulent. 1. I haven't heard of such blacklists being around, especially in 2017 (when steam stopped accepting payments) 2. such blacklists would likely be ineffective, because of mixers and lack of coordination (see previous point) 3. such blacklists threaten the fungibility of bitcoin, which would probably cause backlash from potential customers. >Is it not in their interest to work with Steam? 1. it might be in their interest to work with steam, but not the other way around 2. even though steam might have huge sales volume, it's not going to be the primary route criminals cash out. if you stole tens of thousands of dollars in crypto, I doubt you'll spend a significant portion of that on games. You only have so much time, and games are relatively cheap. Meanwhile localbitcoin has people willing to give you literal cash for a few percentage points cut. There's a reason why all the anti-money laundering regulations target banks and other high cash volume businesses (eg. pawn shops), and not bestbuy or mcdonalds. >Or even, is it not in the exchange's interest to do this analysis and demand the coin from Steam? If [random exchange] messaged me and said that some coins I hold were 10% tainted from 10 transactions ago, and wanted me to return them, I'd tell them to fuck off.
- rhino369 5y agoHow would Steam even learn about that? The person getting scammed in that situation is the person selling bitcoins for credit card payments, since those payments will be canceled by the card holders bank. Does anyone actually sell bitcoin via credit card transactions?
- tenuousemphasis 5y agoYou can't really buy bitcoin with a credit card because the seller would likely lose a ton of money to chargebacks.