
Stealing Millions 25 Cents At A Time - Chirag
http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/stealing-millions-25-cents-at-a-time
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huhtenberg
I don't remember the exact details but there was a story making rounds about a
company that sent out $25 average-looking invoices to large and very large
companies, with each invoice saying "Invoice for nothing". Most companies
didn't pay, and still these fellas made a LOT of money on those few that did.
The best part was that the scheme was 100% legal.

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danudey
There's a company called 'Domain Registry of Canada' that looks for .ca
registered domains that are about to expire and sends a form letter telling
you that you should renew, and to fill in the form, check the box, and enclose
a cheque to make sure your domain stays active.

What the form ACTUALLY is is a transfer request, which will transfer your
domain to them, at a rate of likely twice what you're paying already. It says
this in the fine print, but if I didn't know who my registrar was already I
might not have noticed (good thing I don't send cheques to people).

It's the shadiest kind of business, and while I believe it may be technically
legal, they're taking advantage of customer confusion. I'm sure they make a
ton of money with this sort of thing.

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brianbreslin
There is a similar company (probably same people) in the US "Domain Registry
of America" which sends out these "bills" to protect your domain from lapsing
for $25/year.

My guess is that company easily gets 100-250k renewals/transfers a year that
way. Most likely way more.

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a1k0n
My dad fell for that. Twice.

Man I hate those people.

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blhack
Would anybody here take the time to dispute a $0.25 charge? I wouldn't...

This also reminds me of something that I have wanted from credit card
companies for a very _very_ long time...imagine if there was a protocol for
the CC companies to accept a record of not only the amount, but also the
transaction that you made? Basically the CC machine sends a copy of the
receipt to the card processor...

Carrying around paper receipts in my wallet for doing expense reports is a
massive pain in the ass.

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zck
A friend and I had kicked around a startup idea where you would take a picture
of your receipt with your phone and upload it to our service. Then it would do
OCR, and at the end of the month, you could easily reconcile your statement
with the receipts you took pictures of. One benefit is that you don't have to
trust the credit card company, or the merchant you buy from, which is a
problem of your proposed system.

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blhack
Is the resolution of most cell-phone cameras good enough for this?

I frequently use my phone to take pictures of stuff I would normally just
write down (error message after a kernel panic, asset tag, where I parked my
car, etc. etc.), but for things the size of a receipt, I can't read it...

What phone were you using?

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GFischer
My Nokia N86 8mp certainly is :) (though it has some trouble focusing at short
range).

I expect cell phone cameras like that will become commonplace in the next year
or so, so it's a good time for startups to abuse that.

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mcknz
PETER This sounds familiar.

MICHAEL Yeah. They did this in Superman III.

PETER Yeah. What a good movie.

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rbranson
It is sort of like spam and/or snail mail solicitations. It's so "inexpensive"
for people (victims) to ignore that it becomes a simple exercise in basic
profit equations for the sender.

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dzlobin
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing>

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Groxx
More reasons why banks / credit cards should be issuing restricted-value, one-
time-use card numbers for purchases. Or at least the _option_ to do so. Easier
to control and revoke, and easier to identify fraud like this (a number 4
years out of date? * flags go up __* ).

~~~
ars
They do. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number>

I use it all the time.

~~~
Groxx
Where "they" is a rather small subset of the world's banking / credit card-
ing. I suppose I should've said " _more_ banks", it does sound like I don't
know of its existence.

But yes, that's pretty much precisely what I'd like, though it _should_ be
_everywhere_ , and really should've been there from the start. Abuse like this
is a rather obvious possibility if there's no way to control what merchant X
can do. Looks like Mastercard may come out with it soonish, hopefully Visa &
others will do so as well.

~~~
a1k0n
Discover has had a little Flash app for generating one-time-use numbers for
many years now.

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lovskogen
Office Space, anyone?

~~~
messel
read all the above comments just to see if anyone posted this one.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzGWvZAd228>

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redstripe
Before I clicked through I thought this article was about how banks charge a
fee for every electronic debit card transaction that they process. Then I
realized most banks in Canada charge $0.50 at a time.

~~~
danudey
Really? For ~$12/mo I get unlimited debit card uses, ATM withdrawls, online
bill payment, and teller transactions. I can't remember the last time I paid
service charges.

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samsonasu
The last time you paid a service charge was the last time you gave your bank
$12.

Even if you got dinged $2 per ATM withdrawal you could take money out once a
week and pay less in fees. Your situation sounds like highway robbery to me.

~~~
danudey
$12 per month for a debit card, four bank accounts, unlimited transactions,
good ATM coverage, branches open until 8 PM every day, friendly service.
Sounds pretty good to me.

Also, your suggestion would imply that I should only spend cash, presumably
meaning that I take out huge sums of money once a week at the ATM, then spend
the week having to juggle cash, change, etc. It's not worth the hassle at all.
The fact that debit cards are the most common method of payment in Canada
seems to imply most people agree with me.

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aaronsw
Site is down, anyone have a copy? It seems to refer to this article, though:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178560/FTC_says_scam...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178560/FTC_says_scammers_stole_millions_using_virtual_companies?taxonomyId=17)

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varikin
Capital One once put a hold on my CC for a $0.63 charge from Amazon (my S3)
bill. I thought it was very strange especially since they never acted on my
$0.19 changes for S3 the 6 six months prior.

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pinko
This seems like a great opportunity for Mint.com. Just flag any known
fraudulent companies in everyone's personal report.

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mkramlich
When I first saw the title I assumed it was about Wall Street.

I kid you not.

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rokhayakebe
Apparently Verizon Wireless does the same thing. I heard they charge randomly
users (claiming that you click on the Internet icon and got connected) and
this ends up being in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I have no evidence
of this, but I tend to believe it.

