Slashdot Mirror
Feds Bust a Dark-Web Counterfeit Coupon Kingpin
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: The dark web has become the go-to corner of the Internet to buy drugs, stolen financial data, guns...and counterfeit coupons for Clif bars and condoms? The FBI indicted Beauregard Wattigney yesterday for wire fraud and trademark counterfeiting on digital black market sites Silk Road and Silk Road 2. Wattigney allegedly spoofed coupons for dozens of products and sold collections of them online in exchange for Bitcoin. The FBI accused him of doing $1 million worth of collective damage to the companies he made coupons for, but a fraud consultancy believes the total financial cost of his actions was much higher. Wattigney also offered expensive lessons that taught people how to make their own coupons. "In his tutorials, [he] explained the simple breakdown of barcode creation using the increasingly universal GS1 standard: GS1 codes begin with a 'company prefix' that can be copied from any of the company's products. The next six digits are the 'offer code,' which can be any random number for a counterfeit coupon, followed by the savings amount listed in cents and the required number of item purchases necessary to receive the discount."
Who takes the loss the retailer or the manufacturer?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I remember seeing coupons like this and guides how to produce them circulating on 4chan, atleast half a decade ago. Alot of people were using them to get steep discounts on PS3s as I recall.
I actually had a job for a couple of years designing 'advanced' POS system software based on the industry standards. The items that the retailers considered 'advanced' just amazed me. They seemed like basic items to me. That said, it is almost impossible to protect against this until they changed the coupon codes to something like QR codes that they could digitally sign. The current standard was made long time ago and is very limited in the amount of information it can carry.
/ This is a simple standard anyone can google that shows exactly how these bar codes are laid out. I used that myself when implementing that section of code. Why anyone would pay for it is beyond me. At the end of the day, the retailers know there is going to be some fraud on this. They have switched to all of these automated checkout systems to save money on cashiers, who would likely catch this sort of thing, so I don't really feel sorry for them at all. They have made that trade.
That said, there are some safeguards in there. If your coupon total is unusually high, your checkout will lock up and require approval from the person watching up front. So anything outrageous will likely be caught. Also, you better pay with cash, as the transaction is all tied together to your card. Also, don't use a loyalty program. So at the end of the day is all that hassle worth it to maybe save a couple of dollars? Conversely, though, I guess the checkers care less and less every day as they get replaced by machines and probably just hit the 'ok' button most of the time, and the retailers eat it as just cost of doing business.
Myself, I would not suggest it as it is punishable by law. It is worth going to jail to save a relative few dollars off your bill?