[IP] more on We all have to sacrifice, in the War on Terriers]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] We all have to sacrifice, in the War on Terriers
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:13:42 -0500
From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Randall <rvh40@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
CC: Dave <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
References: <440762F2.9080508@xxxxxxxxxx>
<20060303015904.GA11630@xxxxxxxxx> <1141352760.5774.170.camel@xxxxxxxxxx>
On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 09:25:58PM -0500, Randall wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 20:59 -0500, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>
> > "The Secret Service is the primary federal agency tasked with
> > investigating access device fraud and its related activities under
> > Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029."
> >
> > I suggest a far more *likely* series of events is as follows:
> >
> > 1) Sending in payment far in excess of the normal monthly payment will
> > raise a fraud flag, purely as the private, free-market, choice of the
> > credit-card business.
>
> Reckon there's a huge problem going on, where fraudsters pay off credit
> card balances for complete strangers?
Let's put it this way - the time-delay for a check to clear,
is a well-known aspect of credit-card fraud:
http://www.btimes.co.za/99/0822/btmoney/money10.htm
"The bank has identified the current overnight clearance system for
card deposits as a loophole often exploited by dishonest clients.
Errol van der Merwe, director of Standard Bank's card division, says
thieves use false identity documents and names to open credit card
accounts.
They then deposit counterfeit cheques into the account for large sums
of money.
Under the current system these cardholders can spend until the
deposited amount is used up and the bank will only discover that the
cheque is a false one once it fails to be cleared.
From this week, if you deposit money in your credit card account you
will not be able to access the funds until the cheque has been
cleared seven days later.
The other major banks have installed similar systems."
What further evidence would I have to provide to justify
skepticism? I've already found two specific citations, one pointing
out that credit-card fraud is part of Homeland Security purely as
administrative organization (i.e. not meaning one is a terrorism
suspect), another that large checks deposited into an account is
used in credit-card fraud. When does the other side get a burden
to give any evidence at all beyond third-hand scare-stories?
It would be not nice, but sadly comprehensible, if a flunky at
the credit-card company suspected (falsely) that the customer was
trying to do something with a bad check, and gave them a nasty speech
("We take credit-card financial transactions very seriously - all
suspicious transactions are reported to jack-booted thugs with very
large guns who like nothing more than to torture criminals for
potential terrorist information" - I'm being facetious, but if you
think about it, it's pretty easy to imagine a snippy manager saying
something along those lines).
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php
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