Carding is one of the most trending types of online fraud in the 21st century. Carders are people, who secretly gain access to someone else’s credit card and steal the money from it.
How do carders operate
The criminals adopt more and more complicated schemes of operation alongside with the increasing attention of law enforcement agencies to the issue. The criminal industry is constantly growing and there are a lot of different schemes of stealing the money from one’s credit card, but the typical modern carding chain may be described as follows:
1. Reaching the card information
2. Testing the data
3. Purchasing prepaid cards of online shops
4. Purchasing goods with prepaid cards
5. Reselling the goods
The first step involves gaining access to one’s credit card information. Carders might use different methods to reach this information. They might launch massive hacking attacks on any website that stores databases of cardholders, which will allow carders to acquire thousands of credit cards instantly. Or they might acquire the information, using such methods as skimming and phishing, which is less profitable and effective, but involves less risk of getting caught.
The second step’s essence is in understanding, whether the data is correct and actual. Typically, this happens right before the money is stolen and involves making a low-cost purchase on any website just to test, whether it is possible to steal money from the selected card.
The third step is used by carders to cover their tracks. The prepaid cards draw less attention and are hard to track later.
While doing the fourth step, carders use the prepaid cards they purchased in order to obtain goods for resell. This is a tricky process, as a carder is not able to order goods on his own address. They usually attract the so-called drops – people, who pick up the delivered goods for them.
The last step before actually receiving the money is the resell of goods purchased before. The most common type of goods are electronic and clothes, as they are easy to purchase and fast to sell. Actually, many listings on Amazon, eBay and other online shops are made by carders, who are trying to resell their goods.
Which makes carders even harder to track, is that each step is usually done by different parties. Despite the law enforcement agencies are doing their best to pursue carders, they are almost never able to reveal the whole criminal chain.