Target Credit Card Fraud Case Leads To 2 Arrests At Texas Border

[okaawhatever]

Source: Huffington Post

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Account information stolen during the Target security breach is now being divided up and sold off regionally, a South Texas police chief said Monday following the arrest of two Mexican citizens who authorities say arrived at the border with 96 fraudulent credit cards.

McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said Mary Carmen Garcia, 27, and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez, 28, both of Monterrey, Mexico, used cards containing the account information of South Texas residents. Rodriguez said they were used to buy tens of thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise at national retailers in the area including Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us.

"They're obviously selling the data sets by region," Rodriguez said.

Garcia and Guardiola were both being held Monday on state fraud charges. It was not immediately known whether they had retained lawyers.

Continued at Link

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/20/target-credit-card-fraud_n_4634303.html

---

All of this would have been avoided had our banks spent the extra money and got the computer chip embedded cards like they have in Europe. Our banks and retailers didn't want to spend the extra money and since our politicians can't get elected these days without major corporate contributors, we won't have laws forcing them to protect their customers anytime soon. Overturn Citizens United now.

[freshwest]

1. it's not just the banks not wanting the chips in the cards. It's the RWNJs calling that Big Brother.

There is an entire industry of people who have sold people on the belief that such things are for mass survelliance and or the mark of the beast, on and on. States have passed laws against having the chips in state driver's licenses and IDs. And don't think the banks didn't get screwed on this deal, as whenever.

I've had trouble with fraud on my cards, I didn't pay, the bank had to eat it. All I had to do was show them research on the firm or correspondence to show that I was not the one who did it. I did not have one of those 'protect your credit or prevent card fraud' policies either. it's the law that they are on the hook.

Other than that, I think this is the same group that sent that data to Russia, no?

And they have sold it internationally to whoever bid on it, I guess. This is what stinks about electronic transactions, but with millions upon millions of them on any given day, it's out there online to be stolen. I don't know what the answer is, because even if they were chipped, not all vendors have equipment to inspect the transaction. It's a problem.

[loudsue]

2. So true. the rwnjs are off the rails in their fear of anything happening under Obama's time in

office.

The problem is, it is Fox news, which is 6% owned by the Saudi royal family, that keeps people thinking this way. When in the hell are they going to figure it out?

[okaawhatever]

5. While I agree with you in general, in this case I believe it is the actual cost of the cards and

scanners. Someone else reported that down thread, but i read it in a story about the stock price of the card maker or card reader maker going up because people thought this incident would force banks or the lawmakers to require it. If the fraud costs one or two billion and the cost of cards and readers is five times that, you know which way they'll go.

[freshwest]

7. Why should they when so many vendors won't buy the equipment to process it? And how would it stop

the theft of data from TARGET, the purchases at WalMart, etc., if the chip was there and the pin number used was correct? Are you suggesting that we need more survelliance, photographs taken at checkout lines or on all cards?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying not to do it, if one thinks it will really work. It's just that a lot of people reject more indentifcation and don't want it, from both sides of the political spectrum. I'm speaking in practical terms only and see a lot of business that is not conducted with scanners, except at large stores. Even with that at WalMart, etc., it all could have been faked without taking more measures to identify people in real time and give more identification, which some people reject.

We've got people complaining about GPS and RFID scans, as well as data bases, and you can't have this level of security without giving up more of your privacy. A tech fix does not always work.

Do you think a chip in the credit card would have prevented hackers going into the data base to get card numbers and pins when they did not have physical access to the cards, just the digital record of transaxtions?

The only thing that would stop this would be more cyber security at the banks, ISPs, etc. which can be overcome by persistent thieves working together as this incident proves. Crooks can even purchase the exact same equipment online that banks and vendors use, as proven by numerous thefts.

True, the banks looked at it as you say and weighed the cost to risk benefit to adding to the price of the carfd. But the idea it's all the bank's fault and no one else along the chain of data is not accurate. The theft of data occured online, not with the cards themselves.

Do we want everything chipped, and can't those be picked up with RFID devices and stolen as well? It was some kind of data base that caught these crooks in Texas and no chip was involved, just the magnetic strip, probably. Which thieves can create themselves.

I don't really want to argue about this with you and this idea, it's a good one. but it's not THE answer. And I honestly don't know what is the final answer, as the crooks have managed to work around every fix that's been installed so far.

The scope of this theft - 70 million accounts - shows how vulnerable our data is in corporate hands. Even if I was to go with the assumption that the banks are the main ones at fault, that's not where the breach occured. And there are many other ways to steal in a transaction that the chip would not solve.

The more ID that is required at the point of sale, the more vulnerable I feel as it's all in the hands of people that I don't know, who may be up to no good. Guess if I'm going to enjoy the paperless system I'll have to get used to giving out more data all the time. Sorry, it just bugs me out sometimes.

Oh, and I'm running out the door, and have appreciated your thread and reply as thought provoking. Just don't think it takes into account the variable that I see in this case.

[rhett o rick]

3. Boycott Target for being so lax with their system. They didnt give a crap. nm

[Kablooie]

4. I read that the expense of chipping American cards along with the new card scanners ...

would be much more expensive for the credit card companies than paying for credit card fraud.
If the fraud becomes much more prevalent we will see that change.

Like everything else, the bottom line is the only thing that corporations care about.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Yep, I read that too.

Until the fraud cost exceeds the cost of changing the system they're willing to eat the fraud loss.