Slashdot Mirror
UK Gang Caught After $750K Online Music Fraud Scam
LSDelirious writes "10 individuals in the UK have been arrested in connection with an online fraud gang, whereby the group created several songs, had the songs uploaded to iTunes and Amazon, then used thousands of stolen credit cards to repeatedly purchase the songs from these services. It is estimated that they charged approximately $750,000 worth of fraudulent purchases, netting the group over $300,000 in royalties payments."
I say we go back to the outdated model of printing CDs and using stolen credit cards to buy boxes of them. So much easier, and they would never have been caught. No really.
A new creative way to get cash off credit cards. Woop. At least it's better than getting goods delivered to a drop house and selling them at a pawn shop.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just traditional money laundering via a slightly new route. They used to do similar things with Auction Houses, they'd list an item of no real value and then buy it. Dirty money into clean money!
When compared to the 'guys who stick up for artists (and take 95+ % of the earnings' these guys are saints. Give them a medal! At least they made their own music!
$30k each just doesn't seem worth it. What a waste of criminal talent.
The Spice Girls remain at large.
...or stolen credit card *numbers*? TFA and TFS claim "cards". How exactly to you steal thousands of cards?
"...then used thousands of stolen credit cards to repeatedly purchase..."
Shouldn't that be thousands of credit card numbers to repeatedly purchase since I doubt that they phsically stole thousands of credit cards.
...and where can I get a torrent of them?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
In all seriousness, that sounds like a lame Sunday school song. Is this how religions get started?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Remember when they first came in in the UK?
The premium rate phone number renter was paid their cut monthly by BT.
But ordinary subscribers are billed quarterly.
So here's how some people made a lot of money.....
Start two companies. One of them rents a load of premium rate numbers and phone lines. The other rents a load of ordinary phone lines.
Company 2 then calls Company 1's premium rate lines incessently.
For three months in a row, Co1 gets cheques from BT.
At the start of Month 4 both companies get phone bills.
At around the start of Month 6 Co 2 gets final reminders, and is possibily cut off from service and threatened with all sorts of legal actions.
But, no matter, both Companies have vanished with around 6 hefty BT cheques.
Profit!
... Were the songs any good?
A criminal gang that scams people out of their money with recorded music? Looks like the RIAA is inspiring copycat crimes.
Too late. Google "Church of Emacs".
Do Apple/Amazon keep their cut?
oh no! now i've seen everything.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Thank you for this. I am still wiping tears from my eyes lol
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
If they were smart they would have gone this route. You can control the cost and you get a much higher percentage of the money... It's a trade off of slightly more noticeable transactions for fewer overall transactions.
The BBC is reporting that nine people were arrested. Six men and three women. And not ten like many other articles are reporting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8094748.stm
Nevertheless what everyone is really waiting other than the name's of the individuals arrested obviously...are the names of the albums that they put up.
As soon as their real and DJ names are released we can find out what albums they worked on and see if those compilations were actually good. I wonder if they'll get enough downloads from real sales to pay for their lawyers and court fines? I also wonder if Amazon/I-Tunes will have to forfeit the money? And also if the artists used in the compilation mixes will get to keep any money that they made as well?
but when they copy credit card numbers, they're "stealing" them?
It's all just data, right? Right?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
.. if they just post another song called 'Slashdot Effect'. I think we'd all pay to see a band of credit card fraudsters.
Wait a minute, does this means iTunes & Amazon keep more than 60% of the price for themselves and give the rest to the artists?
I'm gonna quit my job and launch an online music store!
I'm gonna bite....
Depends if the card was physically stolen. If not they normally refer to it as "card cloning" not stealing.
The real theft is when the card is used without the owners permissions and their money is used to buy things.
Where dem tracks at?? This should be the most authentic gangster music!! Almost sounds like a project vom Weird Al ...
Regardless of how you feel about the RIAA and big music, trying to equate their business activities with stealing credits cards and using them to purchase tracks as part of a fraud operation is moronic.
Probably, at least some of the cops/prosecutors/judges prosecuting them would have downloaded the stuff illegally, thus opening some interesting possibilities for an out-of-court settlement or, better still, a full-fledged countersuit. With any luck, the copyright infringing cops/prosecutors/judges would soon end behind bars and compelled to pay tens of millions to the gang when they come out.
Intellectual Property: an immaterial non-entity, most fiercely contended by those with no proper intellect to speak of.
I would really love to have one of these songs (I often use musically esoteric materials in my classroom). The article doesn't mention what the music was. Anyone know? From other sources?
Moronic LIKE A FOX!
I think "from the felonious-monk dept." has a better ring to it.
[
Apple called a few months ago and asked whether I'd bought an iPhone "yesterday" and had it shipped to Miami and whether I was trying to purchase 5 songs right now.
I don't own any Apple products and told him that. Further, I hadn't used that credit card since visiting Buenos Aires about 8 months earlier. I wasn't very nice to the poor Apple guy. Phone calls out of the blue like that are unwanted here.
He retained his composure and explained it to me - their fraud team had detected the transactions in near real-time and he was protecting me from unusual activity. He blocked the song transactions and refunded the iPhone cost. I contacted my bank and they cancelled the card and issued a new one. I wouldn't be liable for anything.
When my CC statement arrived, it was just as Apple said. Charges then refunds. Makes me want to deal with Apple as a client once they stop partnering with crap AT&T, fix the dog software and stop over charging for their hardware.
it's pretty much how every label started.
that's nothing, in the process of pulling off this scam, they lost $2 billion to piracy! nobody's safe!
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Sounds like something Metallica would do.
Let's see, at $150K per song, that comes out to 5 songs.
As a form of basic theft, that has got to be one of the all-time dumbest, most inefficient ways to steal money. --Giving a massive percentage to Amazon and to the manufacture of CDs. It's also one of those schemes which isn't even a scheme; you'd think that an important part of any basic plan to commit a crime would be to get away with it afterwards. It seems that they left the whole, "Don't Get Caught" portion off the menu, because really, how the heck did they expect to NOT get caught when leaving such an idiotically obvious number of money trails all pointing directly at them?
What this smacks of is more simply a group of guys who don't want to be thieves so much as famous musicians. Because now they have press and street cred, (for being stupid?), and if the songs are any good, they might just end up with music careers. After they get out of prison.
Oh, whatever. They were probably just stoned and not thinking clearly.
And they probably need haircuts. Off my lawn.
-FL
Credit card fraud is a crime, regardless of your socioeconomic status, and regardless if you try to dismiss is as "trying to make a living". You don't have a right to etch out "some sort of living" by purchasing stuff with stolen credit cards.
This is NOT copyright infringement. This is fraudulently using someon else's credit card to purchase products. Night and day difference, and the riaa is not involved, as far as I can tell (how can they be? these people put their own music up, and purchased it). The $750,000 is not damages, it is fraudulent charges. By taking this incredibly thin excuse to push your agenda, you discredit it.
Explain to me the fundamental difference between this and the RIAA program where they tried to have universities pay them and then charge students increased fees for music downloadable through the university network. Even if the students didn't want to.
Honestly, did you think you would get away with it? Anything involving digits and plastic is easy to trace. You are better off robbing for cash.
wow, thats all you can say, smart, but stupid.... come on'
http://www.iPhoneNewsStand.com