Buying gift cards with stolen credit cards Reddit

Just got another debit card from my bank. This is the 3rd time this year they have replaced my card because my number was in a group of cards that was compromised.

So the crooks get the numbers, then what? If they order something online, it has to be shipped somewhere right? Having a po box or shipping it to their home with be dumb. Creating a duplicate card with my information and physically going into a store would pose the risk of being caught on video.

What they hell do they do with the numbers?

Hey, TFR. I just saw this happen last night.

So, I work customer service at a wholesale club in the US. For those unfamiliar with wholesale clubs, you purchase a year's membership and get all your info recorded in our database. It's no secret as we ask for your license and all the particulars when you sign up. When you check out, you need your membership card, so naturally, all your purchases are recorded, no matter which club you use it at.

Last night, I'm manning the desk when my supervisor, who is about my age (within a few years of twenty), walks over to me.

Hey, uh, LanceCorporalAwesome. What do we do when we suspect credit card fraud?

I don't know. Get a manager, I guess. Why?

That guy at self-checkout is trying to use, like, ten credit cards over there.

Shit, really?

I look over and see this guy with big-ass dreads and earbuds in getting frustrated with the card machine because it keeps declining his card(s). My supervisor radios the manager, asking him to come to the supervisor counter. Our manager comes over and my supervisor alerts him to the situation.

This whole time, Dreadlocks Guy's light is flashing because his payment keeps getting declined. My manager goes over to him and "helps" him out, mainly as an excuse to get a closer look without attracting the guy's suspicion. Surprisingly, the guy didn't even seem nervous about my manager being right there the whole time. He just kept right on going.

Eventually, the guy left. We immediately go over and reprint his receipt and find that, lo and behold, the guy left his cart behind with some stuff in it. Apparently, he had tried to break it up into several transactions and gave up on the latest one. We look inside the cart and see two packs of plugin air fresheners and a rug. Hidden underneath the rug were a $100 iTunes gift card, a $50 Google Play gift card, and nine (9!) Visa gift cards worth $200 each. I don't remember how much he had already succeeded in loading up and making off with.

Now here's the good part. Using his receipt, the manager pulled up his membership. Last year, the guy spent $400, maybe $500. This year, he spent just shy of $32,000. He looked up his purchase history and we saw hundreds of Visa gift cards purchased in clubs in several states, and even the occasional batch of groceries. It was insane. I don't know what happens next, and I likely won't find out, but if I do, I'll update you guys.

TL;DR: Guy uses stolen credit cards, also uses membership card with all his personal information on it.

EDIT: One missing word and replaced "nectar" with "because." Autocorrect sometimes.

Gift cards are a common avenue of fraud.

What happens if you steal a purse and want to steal money from the person? You take the cash from the wallet but these days it probably isn't much. So now you try to use their credit cards before they are cancelled.

So what do you buy? You don't want to race out to Macy's and buy a bunch of clothes because what you really want is cash for rent, alcohol, and drugs. Instead you buy a gift card with your stolen credit card, and sell that gift card below face value somewhere such as online. By the time they figure out the transaction was fraudulent and revoke the gift card the thief is long gone with their cash.

If the store has been burned a few times that way they can just refuse to sell gift cards on credit.

From 2001 to 2004 I was an identity thief and carder (credit card fraud). I primarily used hacked credit cards to buy goods that I'd resell for massive profits.

I started by selling fake IDs at college. I dropped out because I hated school and was making too much money to stay. I built up a small network of resellers at my school and others. When I found carding one of my resellers took over my ID business. Later he worked for me with the fraud stuff, eventually leading to my capture (more about that later). By the end I was printing my own credit cards and using them at retail stores to buy laptops, gift cards, etc which I resold on eBay.

I did a lot of other related crime too. I hacked a number of sites for their credit card databases. I sold my fake IDs and credit cards online. I was very active in carding / fraud forums, such as ShadowCrew (site taken down by Operation Firewall). I was working on getting into ATM skimming when I was caught. I had bought some electronics kits with the intention of buying an ATM and rigging it to capture data.

I was caught in December 2004. I had gone to a Best Buy with the associate mentioned above to buy a laptop. The manager figured out something was up. Had I been alone I would have talked my way out but my "friend" wasn't a good social engineer like I was. He was sweating, shifting around, generally doing everything you shouldn't do in that situation. Eventually the manager walked to the front of the store with the fake credit card and ID, leaving us behind. We booked it. The police ended up running his photo on the cable news network, someone turned him in and he turned me in.

After getting caught I worked with the secret service for 2 years. I was the biggest bust they had seen in western NY and they wanted to do an op investigating the online underground. They knew almost nothing. I taught them how the online underground economy worked, techniques to investigate / track / find targets, "hacker" terminology, etc.

I ended up getting time served (~2 weeks while waiting for bail), 3 years probation, and $210k restitution.

My website has some links to interviews and talks I've done. I do all my interviews and conference talks for free to help make up for what I did.

Go ahead, AMA. I've yet to find an on topic question I wouldn't answer.

Watch The Lookout on ABC tonight, 10pm ET, to see an interview with me about skimming.

I will be answering questions off and on until midnight.

EDIT: Thanks for the questions, time for bed.

Can I buy gift cards with stolen credit card?

What happens if someone buys something with a stolen credit card?

Can gift credit cards be traced?

How does credit card churning work?