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Visa and MasterCard Take Fight To Scammers
An anonymous reader writes "In his latest story, Brian Krebs reports on a collaboration between brand holders and credit card companies to shut down payment processing for rogue online pharmacies, pirate software sellers and fake anti-virus scams. By conducting test purchases, they map out which banks are being used to accept payments for which scams. Writes Krebs, 'Following the money trail showed that a majority of the purchases were processed by just 12 banks in a handful of countries, including Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Latvia, and Mauritius.' These results are then fed to Visa and Mastercard who typically shut down the merchant accounts 'within one month after a complaint was lodged.' If you can't accept payments, you can't make money — and without money you can't pay the spammers who advertise your product. This effort is apparently quite effective and has led to much concern by those running such sites."
Not in all cases. Exemplary point: Antibiotics. They're already over-prescribed and as a result, we have massive problems with stuff like MRSA.
Yes, in an ideal world we'd all have perfect information and be perfectly rational. However, we don't live in such a world and I've had a cashier tell me that he's taking antibiotics to prevent flu (I don't even know which idiot prescribed the stuff).
As a result, the access to some drugs has to be limited in order to prevent secondary effects from happening. I couldn't care less about idiots who shot their immune system to hell with antibiotics - I do care about the multi-resistant bugs those people are training.
Everything you said I could make an argument against, but I won't. Even if it's all true, it's not really relevant. There was a 'scam' a few years ago where a bunch of people got together and opened a business selling sex toys online. But after ordering them, you'd receive a check for the amount of the order and a note saying it wasn't actually legal to sell sex toys in the jurisdiction they were based out of. The catch was the check was from a very obscene-sounding place, like "Anal lover's paradise empornium" or somesuch. As a result, many people didn't cash those checks, and they kept the money. It turned out to make them a lot of money, and it was completely legal (at the time anyway). While this is certainly unethical behavior, it wasn't fraud. It's the same thing on eBay where people sell laptops but if you read the description they're not selling a powerbook, but a powerbook binder. You'd plop down $200 for a used laptop and get a 3 ring binder with the word "Powerbook" in the sleeve.
It's unethical, I agree, but not illegal, it's not fraudulent. In cases like these, the law needs to be changed. Because ultimately, it's the government's responsibility to protect people from fraud and unethical and harmful behavior, not individuals or businesses. To say otherwise is to advocate vigilantism and a departure from the rule of law. The proper party to correct these problems is the government, and only the government. Whether the instrument of criminal conduct is an algorithm or a gun, doesn't matter as far as a conviction is concerned. I don't want to get too far into criminal law here, but the term for an action that indirectly results in harm is called the proximate cause. For example, I'm having an argument with you and I throw a wine bottle at your head, you slip trying to get out of the way, fall on something sharp, and die. While it's true my actions (throwing of the wine bottle) didn't cause your death, there was intent to cause injury, and the wine bottle could have caused a fatal injury, so I'd still be guilty of murder, even though I wasn't the direct cause of your death.
My point is the law itself can be simple and doesn't have to account for all possibilities, in order to apply and be effective. In the case of frauds and scams, there's no need for private individuals and corporations to take action as long as the government can (and does). If, for whatever reason, it does not, then the appeal to action must be directed to the authorities, and no other person or organization. But say a scammer has found a way to legally cause financial harm... in that case, the government needs to pass a law to address that issue, and from that point forward, prosecute anyone caught doing it. But there can be no ex pos facto laws -- that is, we can't declare something that was legal yesterday illegal today, then prosecute someone for an action under the new law.
You can't argue for vigilantism in a society under the rule of law -- and any society not under the rule of law is likely very primitive and with limited economic and social development. They have bigger problems than a petty crook. Civilized society doesn't tolerate people taking the law into their own hands, regardless of how good their intentions may be. Invariably, the vigilante makes a mistake; Accepts evidence that shouldn't be, passes a judgement too harsh, or is biased. To advocate justice means advocating all the principles of it, not just the ones that are convenient.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Visa and Mastercard participate in or at very least facilitate these transactions. You are uncomfortable with someone choosing not to participate in criminal activity? They should knowingly facilitate fraud, allowing their networks to be used for criminal activity? No, I think the card associations and issuers are doing exactly the right thing in refusing to process fraudulent charges for counterfeight goods. Their motivation is threefold. Doing the right thing, of course, and branding, but mainly chargebacks. You may know Visa and Mastercard, through their issuers, guarantee to protect their customers from most types of fraud. If you pay by Visa and are shipped a counterfeight product, you can fill out a form and get your money back. I suspect most would agree that's good for consumers. It means, however, that Visa is ultimately on the hook for the money. If you buy MS Windows and get shipped a couterfeight copy, VISA could end up having to refund your money. Thus it's incumbent upon them to reduce fraud as much as practicable, because in the end the money comes out of their pocket. (If they can't retrieve the money from the scammer.) You would prefer that Visa would be required to a) knowlingly facilitate fraud and then b) pay back the money someone else stole?