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Credit card numbers aren't particularly secret (if you think of all the retail staff online, on the phone and offline) that have access to them. The thing that
by josephlord 12y ago
Credit card numbers aren't particularly secret (if you think of all the retail staff online, on the phone and offline) that have access to them. The thing that manages fraud and keeps the value of card numbers down is the difficulty in converting card numbers to cash or goods safely and anonymously.
I'm slightly surprised that the gift cards scheme works as I don't see why there couldn't be a revocation list for gift cards circulated amongst stores that is added to when a chargeback occurs. Even if it doesn't it still exposes the criminal when buying the gift card.
- dfox 12y agoSecurity of credit card industry is built not on hard computer security principles but on auditing and ability to point fingers. This breaks with enough levels of indirection and gift cards add such additional level of indirection. Also gift cards have secondary (and probably more important) use for thieves. Giftcard is legitimately looking magstripe card that in many cases gets processed in same way as card payment, so you can just write stolen magstripe data onto giftcard and get something that does not raise suspicion (store clerk is not going to verify that card number matches or event that payment method matches).