Currently, carding is one of the most popular types of cyber frauds. This criminal industry has been strengthening its positions in recent years, and its growth is unlikely to stop, since e-Commerce is also developing at a rapid pace.
Carders are criminals or fraudsters who gain access to other people’s credit card information and use this information to steal money from their cards.
The first part of a typical carding scheme is to get the data needed to make a payment. Typically, this data is obtained through theft, which involves scanning a credit card or phishing, which in turn involves extorting information directly from the user, usually by creating fake versions of popular websites. However, the most dangerous criminals cause huge hacker attacks. As a result, thousands of credit cards fall into the hands of fraudsters.
The next step after receiving information about the card is to check that this information is correct and that it actually functions. Carders may perform small purchases to test the selected cards. The process is usually automatized and allows the criminal to simultaneously check hundreds of cards.
After the card is tested and recognized as working properly, the funds on it are used to purchase gift cards from online shops. Carders do not simply withdraw cash in order to increase their own privacy, since gift cards will not attract much attention and are much harder to track, taking into account the following steps.
When the gift cards are ready, they are usually resold or exchanged for goods in the selected shop. In the last case, the carders use services of so-called droppers. These are people, who allow carders to use their address as the delivery address for the illegally purchased goods. They do not use their real addresses or names, when they rent apartments and they do not usually directly interact with carders.
It is almost impossible for the investigators to reveal the whole carding criminal group, as these people are hiding themselves fairly well and the recourses get sold to another party after each stage. For example, the party obtains the credit card information and sells it to the second party. This second party uses this information to purchase the gift cards and sells these gift cards to the third party. The third party uses the cards to purchase goods. The goods are collected by the fourth party ( the dropper ). Then, the goods are resold to the fifth party. Taking into account that each party has almost no real information about other parties involved, tracking down one of the members almost never results in revealing the whole chain of criminals.