Credit Card Thieves Make Charitable Donations
By: Sharon Henry | Posted: 11th February 2008
To find out that your credit card was lost or stolen is not a thing everyone dreams of. As credit card theft is on the rise, many cardholders are concerned about the problem. When you suddenly realize that your card was stolen, you can't even suppose that thieves will make donations to charity funds. But don't think that they are simply so generous to donate several hundreds or even thousands of dollars to help people who are in need. The true motives of thieves are really not noble, they are just extremely tricky.
The situation of loss or theft is quite simple. Someone, not you, will spend thousands of your dollars without apologizing. And if you don’t notify the bank about theft as soon as you realize the fact, your credit card will be usable.
Certainly, you may not notice the loss to inform your bank immediately (such cases are not rare). Until it happens, a thief can buy anything he or she wants with your plastic. And you will be surprised to learn that fraudsters used your best credit cards to make charitable donations. They are not merciful, be sure. It is just a new trend called carding.
If you have never heard about this term, let me explain its definition. It is the process when a thief verifies the validity of stolen credit card. Generally, carders verify the plastic with help of the Internet trying to be very cautious in order to avoid the attention of banks. Therefore they charge only small sums of money.
Thieves need to be sure whether this stolen credit card is usable or not. How to check it? The good and least perilous method to do it is to charge, say, hundred of dollars for inessential things. And charitable donations and site subscriptions are just what the doctor ordered. They allow charging any sum you wish without any requirements. Moreover, they are good variants to be unnoticeable for banks as they monitor every purchase made with a stolen credit card. Unfortunately, charitable donations are made not so often as any other transactions with credit cards. Therefore the legitimacy of these transactions can be hardly determined.
It should be also mentioned that thieves were always clever enough t o face the problems. Many years ago they used “generators”, a specific computer program. Fraudsters made a succession of card numbers and tested them to check the validity of credit card.
Today, they use new modern methods and charitable donations for checking, the validity of good credit cards is one of them.
All in all, if a cardholder suffers from the credit card loss and its consequences, there is one good thing concerning identity theft. At least some money that was stolen along with credit card comes to those who are in need and can help them at least slightly. In any way, you need to be always watchful and contact the bank immediately when you realize that your card is stolen or lost (knock on wood!). Good luck!
As an expert in the sphere of credit card deals and finance, Sharon W. Henry writes articles trying to share her skills and to help people avoid identity theft, manage their budget wisely, start credit with help of no credit cards, and so on.
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Tags: thousands of dollars, new trend, subscriptions, banks, validity, thieves, sums of money, dreams, thief, charitable donations, variants, cardholders, best credit cards, credit card theft