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With Insider Help, ID Theft Ring Stole $700,000 In Apple Gift Cards
itwbennett writes The Manhattan District Attorney's office has indicted five people for using personal information stolen from around 200 people to fund the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Apple gift cards, which in turn were used to buy Apple products. "Using stolen information to purchase Apple products is one of the most common schemes employed by cybercrime and identity theft rings today," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. "We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists' office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use," he said.
>We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists' office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use
Those people can do that because of the horribly insecure payment methods the banks impose on everyone. If crime requires motive and opportunity, then it's the banks who are providing the opportunity.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Why are so many people such jerks?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
i feel sorry for the people whose ID's were stolen. but apple skipped out on paying over $9bil in taxes in 2012, so anything anyone can do to bend them over and stuff a banana in that tailpipe is ok with me. i dont own and never plan to own any apple product ever, so i laugh derisively at them from afar.
You're such a tool, the bank issuing the credit got screwed in this scam.
when you fucking idiots are GIVING IT AWAY on your fucking Facebook accounts??
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Apple products can be deactivated remotely, even laptops.
Each device has a serial number that can be linked to the gift cards which can be linked to the stolen credit cards.
Do a little bit or leg work, deactivate the illegally obtained devices. Even if you don't nab the thieves, you make this scheme way less profitable.
Wow, that office really gets around...
Not if the items get sold before they are deactivated.
Sorry, Linux isn't a GUI. Which GUI do you dislike specifically?
Not sure how you say Linux is a clone of Windows when it is pretty well documented it is a clone of BSD, which Mac OS X is also a clone of.
I'm pretty sure that if I had to create hundreds of lines of credit, buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Apple products and then sell all this stuff one iPhone at a time on Craigslist I'd end up making less than minimum wage. What a fucking lousy scheme, it's almost as tedious as stealing from park meters or vending machines.
lucm, indeed.
As I understand it, Apple has been prepaying their future taxes (the taxes that they will owe if/when they bring the money into the US).
laptops? iphones? What a waste.
I want $700,000 worth of itunes!
But as a user, I want to know that my product is genuine. That's why I only buy Microsoft products, because just in case I forgot where I purchased my computer, I get reminded over and over that it's genuine!
You can do that - call up your credit card provider and they can enter it into their fraud profile on you so if your card gets charged at that company, it triggers a fraud alert.
The problem isn't that though. The trick is different. You see, in the US, Apple offers instant financing through BarclayCard - basically an instant sign up credit card. And that's what happened here - the receptionist at the dental office took the stolen credentials, and then gave it to their Apple store buddies who used it to apply for BarclayCard credit cards. They then used those cards to buy gift cards. Those gift cards were then used to buy Apple products which were the sold for cash (classic money laundering).
So telling your bank wouldn't really have helped because they applied for new credit - this wasn't a case of the receptionist capturing the credit card information you used to pay for the dentist, but using the information in your file to apply for new credit (standard identify theft).
No doubt because Apple's own employees were involved that Apple would be forced to eat some of that (and that it was Apple's own initiative to allow for instant financing). Of course, perhaps Apple should send the victims some free gifts as compensation for potential time lost having to deal with whoever manages BarclayCard and the unexpected bills.
And when they get deactivated, the unlucky users get to tell the police where they bought them from.
Yeah, in no way will this be abused.
FYI in Europe it is possible to block stolen phones. In 99% of the time this is not done due to the cost being higher then the worth of the phone itself.
What should happen is that this service is free and the companies are obliged to pay for it up front. Because if you look at it per phone, the cost is high. If you look at it in total cost, it is peanuts.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Telling your bank, no, but placing a free 1-year freeze on your credit with the credit reporting agencies does work. Rinse and repeat each year, and turn it off before you apply for credit.
That's terrible. $700k in apple gift cards?! That's *almost* a full two minutes of income for Apple!
Telling your bank, no, but placing a free 1-year freeze on your credit with the credit reporting agencies does work. Rinse and repeat each year, and turn it off before you apply for credit.
...or just place a permanent freeze on your credit, like I did a decade ago. When you want to apply for credit you temporarily lift the freeze for a few days whereupon it reverts to frozen. It works much like making your Bluetooth device discoverable.
Sorry, Linux isn't a GUI. Which GUI do you dislike specifically?
Different AC here, but I'm going to go ahead and say all of them. From gaping holes of space to poor font kerning and everywhere in between. Even KDE, which I consider to be at the top of the shit heap, still looks like it was cobbled together by a guy working out of his parent's basement.
> let them focus on Office,
*snort*
> Exchange
*bwaha*
> and SQL Server
*BWAHA - HA - HA*
Dude, you made my day!
Not sure if troll or just stupid - giving more power to a large corporation over what is done with products after they have been sold. Stick with the banks - the problem lies there
So, in the Anthem breach, what was disclosed: name, date of birth, SSN..
And what did the receptionist at the dentist office need to enable the thefts here:
" DAÃ(TM)s office alleges that Annie Vuong, a 27-year-old from the Bronx, stole the names, address, birth dates and social security numbers of patients"
Excellent.. buy more Apple stock, because there's a new 67 million unwitting customers for Apple products..
The iCrime
New from Apple !
No doubt because Apple's own employees were involved that Apple would be forced to eat some of that (and that it was Apple's own initiative to allow for instant financing).
Liability will be interesting. So a financing deal was started in the name of Mr. X, but Mr. X didn't actually do anything so isn't liable for anything. Because of that financing deal, Apple handed over a computer or a phone to a crook, and Barclays paid money to Apple. The crook sold the computer or phone to Mr. Y who may or may not have been aware what was going on, and may or may not be found.
First, there's the question whether these computers were stolen. In the UK, in a similar case, a judge decided that this was not theft, but a voidable contract (since the buyer entered a contract but had no intention to pay for the computer and forged documents to avoid paying, Apple could obviously void the contract and ask for the computer back). However, the contract had not been voided yet, so the buyer owned the computer legitimately. That's one judge in the UK; a judge in the USA might decide differently, and it is a borderline case, so the laws might be different.
Now can Barclays get their money back from Apple? Difficult. Depends on the contracts, depends on the small print in US laws. Depends on to what degree Apple is liable for crimes committed by employees. Also depends on how much Apple values their relationship with Barclays. How much money Barclays is making if things like this $700,000 fraud are included.
Apple made the business decision to have the instant credit provided by a 3rd party. There was a lot of money to be made in this channel and Apple is sitting on billions in cash so why did Apple not provide the credit directly? Because they knew this would be abused and they couldn't put a solid number on the potential downside. There are probably some interesting emails to be subpoenaed by an enterprising attorney on this subject. I would guess the Apple CFO would have been for offering the credit directly and the CMO against it.
No but they have been taking an accounting reserve to pay the fraction of convertable bond redemption scheme they cooked up. Uncle sam hasn't seen a red cent of the repatriation taxes. They also have massive profit so this reserve is a blip on their balance sheet so it hasn't hurt their stock price.
User: "I bought this iPad from a white van"
Police: "So can you describe it?"
User: "Well it was white...and it looked somewhat like a van"