Oh, how great. There’s a site you can use to make the phone number on someone’s caller ID appear as anything you want when you call. It’s essential for stalking ex-boyfriends or girlfriends or seeing if someone’s cheating on you. And you know what else it can help you do? Get lots of fraudulent credit cards!
Perhaps this was not the original intent the creators of SpoofCard had in mind, but the product is said to have assisted identity thieves in stealing more than $15 million and victimizing 6,000 people.
In this scam, identity thieves ordered credit cards in other people’s names and had them sent out to their real addresses so they appeared to be legitimate. Then the thieves intercepted the cards, and, thanks to SpoofCard, were able to both disguise their voices when talking to card service agents and activate the cards automatically from the “valid home phone numbers.â€
You can most likely guess what happened next. The thieves used the cards to the hilt; then tossed them aside and signed up for some brand new cards. This went on for at least two years, and was a very large scale operation. Thirty-five people were arrested as suspects in the New York City area. This was only after a lengthy investigation where cops listened in on at least a million telephone calls. It is still unclear how exactly the thieves were able to get so many credit cards.
While you may think that this is quite an amazing feat, you can also guess what happened to a lot of those people with the credit cards in their names. Yep. Their credit ratings went right down the toilet. Even when the credit card company eventually eats the charges due to its no liability policy, if it doesn’t know the charges are fake right away, it will report that person to collections. So you know that that happened to a good number of them over the course of two years.
Hopefully some of these unfortunate victims had identity theft protection. If such a plan was monitoring their credit, they would be notified if a new credit card was going to be issued in their name before it happened or very soon afterwards. They could then notify their provider that they did not request such a change and get that application canceled before the thief could do any damage.
Although the credit card companies’ fraud policies may give you a sense of security, the ultimate responsibility for identity protection lies on your shoulders. Even if SpoofCard goes away, identity thieves will find a new tool to help them continue their illegal ways. The best defense against identity theft has been and always will continue to be smart consumers. As long as there are easy victims, thieves will find their business to be lucrative. The more hassles we can make for them, the better off it will be for us in the long run.