Credit Card Drop/Swap

[frog]

I ate lunch at a small restaurant today. The kid behind the counter dropped my credit card when trying to swipe it, and immediately came to mind the thought: how could he keep it?

The inevitable, he'd have to switch the card with another of the same bank and design, and he'd have to swipe after the drop to prevent GREAT HAMBURGERS RESTAURANT from showing up as the last legitimate purchase on their credit report.

What needs to be worked out is how to get the card to be swapped. Of course, it:
a) Can't be traceable back to you
b) Preferably activated to prevent the weeper from noticing the swap and cancelling their card
c) Easily executable, beyond the necessary wait for someone with the same card.

Simply creating a bogus account is silly, because then you could just use that card instead.

Any ideas?

[Tachyon]

Get a small webcam and PDA to record the output, mount this in a small case like a tiny scanner. Leave it running all the time behind the desk, then bend down and place both sides of the card on the scanner face quickly.

[frog]

I suppose, you could intentionally screw up the charge process. In smaller places, the fax and interac machine use the same line; you could activate the fax machine to buy more time to do whatever you need to. More than a minute is risky, though, what with your boss running back and forth.

So, assume about a minute grace.

[rbcp]

A few years ago I read about some lady in a restaurant getting busted because she had a Palm with a card reader hooked up to it.  She kept it next to the credit card machine and would swipe it in both machines.  The authorities figured it out and caught her while she was using it.

I know that doesn't help much.  But maybe you could get a card reader and do some double swiping.

[Tachyon]

If you could somehow hook a logger up to it and leave it there for a week (make sure you don't use it, just to be careful), you could get numbers and stuff without connecting yourself to the crime.

[mr_doc]

Why not imprint the card onto carbon after pretending it doesn't work in the machine, memorize the ccv numbers (write them down after) and then use the 'card' 2 weeks later when odds are the last purchase wasn't at TALL MONKEY CHINESE RESTAURANTS. Or did you want the card for something?

Or I guess you could not even enter the transaction at all but the customer might see that charge missing and if that charge happens to be missing on several stolen cards you're caught. Just like if it was the last charge on several cards.

[Tachyon]

That's actually a great idea, and shitloads simpler than mine. You could even get cheap and use a case of some sort full of wax or clay.

[mr_doc]

If you have a cc processing terminal you automatically have the imprint machines and carbon. They come with the machine. Most stores just never use them.

When you have an unreadable card you're supposed to manually enter the info from the card into the terminal and then imprint it onto carbon paper.

[rbcp]

If you have a cc processing terminal you automatically have the imprint machines and carbon. They come with the machine. Most stores just never use them.

When you have an unreadable card you're supposed to manually enter the info from the card into the terminal and then imprint it onto carbon paper.

When I ran a retail store in 1999, we paid $700 for a credit card machine but never received one of the carbon imprint machines with it.  I don't think it's a required thing.  It's just a good idea in case your phone lines go down.  But really, how often does that happen?

[PHISH-PHREAK]

You could always go to the bathroom and into a stall and write them down or take pictures.

[frog]

You could always go to the bathroom and into a stall and write them down or take pictures.

Take the customer's card into the bathroom?


In keeping in the vein of simplicity and pragmatism, you could just keep a calculator under the counter. After turning on the fax machine and killing the transaction, scribble down the expiration date. Announce, The fax machine must be on, the interac machine doesn't work when they're both on. How am I going to turn this thing off.

Now with a pretense for pressing buttons, key in the first numbers into the calculator. Once the screen is filled, add it to memory and enter the remaining numbers. Turn the fax off, finish the transaction. Put them numbers down with the expiration date and put the paper in your pocket.

You could do this in a few steps, to minimize any suspicion about hitting a peculiarly high number of buttons, but the longer you spend the more chance of your boss checking up on you.

[gimmegimmegimme]

That's actually a great idea, and shitloads simpler than mine. You could even get cheap and use a case of some sort full of wax or clay.

I was reading about waiters using playdoh then etching the ccv on the back.

[MattGSX]

If you want an easy way to get access to credit card numbers, just get a job at a call center. Only about half of the call centers that handle cc information actually require you to enter/leave empty handed. I bring my backpack to work with me everday, which almost always has at least one notebook in it. You have to be very careful with this, though, since many call centers have remote monioring/keylogging, so you can't copy-paste or something similar.

[Tachyon]

Ok here's my plan that I came up with while working at my call center, but never ended up carrying out because eventually enough managers got pissed off at me and decided to fire me. What you do is get a bunch (five to ten I figure, they're expensive but it's an investment) of those little in-line hardware keyloggers that go between the keyboard and computer. Then, you covertly install (remember my call center was perfect for this, 100+ stations but no security to speak of) these keyloggers in the back corner where the creepy day people work, but make sure you never use them. Wait a week or so (each station can probably net around 400 CC numbers, names, addresses, ect in a day, that makes 1400 identities in total) and covertly remove them.

You now have 1400 identities waiting to be assumed, most of whom have credit cards in their name. From here, I'd fly to some nice warm country with no extradition treaty with my country of origin (something off this list in my case http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=512566) and live out the rest of my days in luxury, always staying below the 1000 dollar threshold that would make the FBI give a shit.

[ravenmaddox]

At one of the places where I worked I just memorized the card, expiry, and cvv while I was doing the transaction (for some reason the reader wasnt working and i had to manually enter the numbers which helped me with this) and IMMEDIATELY after finishing with that customer I took a break to write down the numbers and shove them in my pocket. I had the perfect drop address already lined up and ordered a few things from http://www.johnsonsmith.com/ <--- Things you never knew existed but can't possibly live without. This was the thinkgeek of the early 90's.