Practical Fraud Prevention

Chapter 6. Stolen Credit Card Fraud

He deals the cards… and those he plays never suspect…

Sting¹

The first fraud victim Gilit ever met was her father. A careful man, he checked his credit card statements regularly. One fine day he was surprised to see that he had bought goods in Ukraine and had run up charges with various online gaming vendors. Initially he was surprised: he couldn’t understand how the theft was possible, since the card was still in his wallet and he had never used it online. But then he was amused: the bank that issued the card reassured him he would not be footing the bill for any of this activity, and he enjoyed imagining himself roaming Kyiv.

This kind of introduction to fraud isn’t unusual, and Shoshana has similar stories to tell from the experiences of her family and friends. Stolen credit card fraud is the form of fraud that regular consumers are most likely to be aware of, through personal experience or that of a friend or family member. Unfortunately, even fairly basic attacks such as this one still manage to go unnoticed from time to time.

Attacks more carefully matched to the victim’s buying habits also fall into this fraud category and are more difficult to stop. In both cases, it can take time for a consumer to notice there’s a problem, because the credit card statement is so unclear that the consumer misses the first few instances of theft when they’re glancing through it. This delay (as discussed in Chapter 5) adds to the challenge, ...