The Anatomy of Money-Mule Scams

Brian Krebs of the Washington Post's Security Fix blog has up an article on work-at-home money mule scams (backgrounder blog post here). These operations offer victims hundreds or thousands of dollars per week for moving money through their own accounts — a critical piece of the infrastructure for profiting from identity theft and phishing. The article links to the site of a UK fraud fighter named Bob Harrison, who lists hundreds of fradulent money-mule operations.

Comments

all for the easy buck

[downix]

That this scam can even work is a product of supplier-side economics. Where people don't have to work to get what they want. That it is all about me me me.

Get rich quick schemes never are quick and they don't get you rich. never have, never will. Grow up and get a real job. Want to make $100k a year, go to college to earn that degree for a position that does make $100k a year.

Re:all for the easy buck

[balsy2001]

The only get rich quick scheme that works is selling get rich quick schemes to idiots.

Re:all for the easy buck

[evilRhino]

Of course, you'll probably have to take a loan to do this, so a good chunk of the first several years of your increased income is actually going to interest payments. Then you have to actually find the job you want afterwards, and hope they won't lay you off if they happen to lose that big contract. Great plan!

Re:all for the easy buck

[innocent_white_lamb]

The father of a friend of mine has spent his entire life chasing the big dollar that's always just over the next hill. When I first realized that, i found it rather amusing. But now I just find it rather sad to see.

He has never really worked at anything for very long because there is always a bigger, better opportunity right over there instead. And he has managed to get started on some things that could possibly have developed into something eventually, but due to his short attention span they never get a chance to get off the ground.

The last I heard of him was a year or so back when he was moving to yet another new town because money was just falling out of peoples' pockets there and he was going to offer some kind of unspecified services and collect some of that.

It's too bad, really, because he's now got to be well over 60 years old now, and he still has pretty much nothing at all.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:EBay is not a court of law

[darkfire5252]

Since when does EBay get to decide who is responsible for fraud?
It's the latest trend in corporate liability. All they do is assure the consumer that they get to decide, and tell them that it would be upheld in a court of law and that the agreement is legally binding. Clueless consumer believes all the legalese being thrown at them, and the issue never goes to an actual courtroom. An actual judge would rule anything from Monroe is liable (for doing the actual act) to Paypal/Ebay is liable (because both the auction and the PayPal accounts are under their control and they didn't adequately protect against fraud) to the buyer is liable (for not adequately investigating the purchase). However, because Monroe bought the "Look at this thing we made you agree to, our word is legally binding" bit, it never goes to court and Monroe continues to believe the lie.

It's no different than the dump trucks with the words "Not responsible for objects falling from truck" printed on the back of them. They are damn liable, but most people take the claim at face value and don't push the issue.
IANAL, etc.