Jury Service

[stender]

simples if your choosing a delivery time but in the case of that guy and 2 cards from different banks. how would he know when they were being delivered unless he was the postman or knew the postman?

 

[Systreg]

But how does it work when someone for example buys stuff to be delivered? do they rent a bedsit for a week or two for cash and get the stuff delivered to there then disappear?

In many cases of this type of fraud, the fraudster/scammer will use a money mule or in this case a re-shipping mule.

To give an example, there are a lot of scam emails and fake job postings looking for a company representative, we call them representative scams.

In this scam, a person applies for an advertised representative job thinking it's a real job, the job will entail receiving cheques from foreign companies, or as is often the case, the fake job will be for a fake charity or a fake charity scammer using the name of a real charity, possibly in tandem with a fake site made to look like the real charity.

So, you apply for the job and of course, you get it, you are then sent cheques to cash in your bank, most of the time the cheques are just completely fake, but good enough in most instances to fool any bank cashier, so the cheque funds go in to the victims bank account.

Due to the way banking works almost everywhere, banks tend to make the funds from deposited cheque available to withdraw before the cheque actually clears, hence why there is normally a sense of urgency to send the money on quickly when the scammer emails you, so the victim withdraws the money from the bank and send it to the scamemr via Western Union.

Some time after sending the scamemr the money, it could be days, weeks or even many months later, your bank informs you that the cheques you deposited were fake, you are now liable to repay the bank all of the money that you deposited and withdrew to send to the scammer, along with possibly facing money laundering charges and passing fake financial instruments charges in relation to depositing fake cheques, depends on the country in which the victims is based, numerous victims have been arrested because of this and some have been jailed for their unknowing part in the fraud.

Another problem is, there is a security feature on Western Union payments, which is only supposed to be used in cases of emergency, say for example you are on holiday and have your passport and wallet containing your ID stolen.

You can then have a friend or relative send money to you and when you speak to them they will tell you a security test question and answer which they used when sending the Western Union funds to you, so you can go to Western Union to collect the funds without having to show an ID, because you supply them with the security test question and answer from the sender to prove you are the intended recipient.

Unfortunately, this Western Union security feature is routinely abused by scammers in various frauds, they ask victims to give them the test question and answer when sending the funds, that way they have to show no ID when they collect the money in their foreign country, which means there is no way to know the real identity of the scammer as they almost always operate from internet cafes in countries which are known for corruption and bribery, such as Nigeria and other West Africa countries.

Going back to re-shipping mules, in many instances a person will be employed as a receiver and shipper of good via a fake job advert, to them it's a real job, they don't realise they are being used as a re-shipping mule to send on goods that have been fraudulently purchased online with stolen credit card details or via online auctions.

They receive the package at their address and ship it on to a safe address that the scammer has set up, more than likely in Eastern Europe in places like Romania and Russia, as that is where most re-shipping scams tend to originate from.

Here is a fairly detailed example of a real life scam in the US whch I normally post on anti fraud forums I'm a memebr of when someone new asks about re-shipping scams, in this case the US victim was re-shipping goods to Russia:

USATODAY.com - Cybercrooks lure citizens into international crime

This is a short timeline of events from the article, showing how they use stolen credit cards:

How a reshipment gets done

USA TODAY examined a paper trail of e-mails, letters, credit card statements, packing receipts and mailing labels that Karl kept of his work as a 'mule' and pieced together this account of an illegal reshipment:

April 18. Someone from a bogus Web site at the center of the scam, kflogistics.biz, tests a $1 charge on iWon.com, a prize-giveaway Web page, using a Bank One Visa credit card number stolen from Brian Spoutz, a 48-year-old San Jose, Calif., software salesman. A Visa investigator notified him about the compromised card in May, Spoutz says.

April 20. Kflogistics.biz uses Spoutz's Visa card to place an order at Newegg.com for a $2,607 digital camera and extra memory. It directs shipment of two separate parcels to a home in Gilroy, Calif.

April 22. FedEx attempts to deliver the parcels, but the reshipper in Gilroy has gotten cold feet and rejects the delivery. Using FedEx's online tracking, Michael Birman of kflogistics.biz notes the failed delivery, contacts FedEx and redirects delivery to Karl in Grass Valley, Calif. Birman then alerts Karl via e-mail to watch for the two parcels.

April 23. Birman goes to USPS.com. Using a hot credit card number, Birman purchases a $48 Global Express Mail shipping label addressed to Roman Radeckiy in Moscow, then downloads the new label as a JPEG image file. Birman attaches the JPEG file to an e-mail to Karl, instructing Karl to combine the two parcels into one box, affix the label and mail to Radeckiy.

April 24. FedEx delivers the parcels to Karl in Grass Valley.

April 27. Karl prints out the JPEG label. Karl repacks the camera and memory into one box, affixes the printed JPEG label and completes the reshipment.

 

[crabfoot]

simples if your choosing a delivery time but in the case of that guy and 2 cards from different banks. how would he know when they were being delivered unless he was the postman or knew the postman?

It could be a dodgy postman who took the cards and statements, or someone close to the cardholder who wasn't mentioned (like an adolescent son), or some kid who knew where the back door key was hidden and was entering the house on the quiet while the cardholder was at work. Then those cards would be sold to a "bent card salesman", who probably sold the cards to the baddie.

The bobbies recently took down a website where it was possible to buy all sorts of stolen cards and forged documents by mail order ...