Triangulation Let Me Down

Early 80s song references are definitely a Thing for me. You can definitely read my thoughts here, and hopefully have fun, but I heartily recommend giving the wonderful Planet Money podcast a listen:

Wake up and smell the fraud : Planet Money

Sometimes online shopping can feel a little unsavory. There are the listings that make you question if you’ll really be getting exactly what’s advertised. And there’s no worse feeling than paying for something and then not getting it. But when Nina Kollars ordered coffee pods and got WAY more than s…

NPR

I first came across this sort of thing trying to understand what kind of fraudster would buy some hard-to-fence items that would be delivered to a traceable address.

I got this diagram from here https://chargebacks911.com/triangulation-fraud/#:~:text=FAQs-,What is triangulation fraud%3F,the product from another merchant:

So how it works, in short, is this. You, effectively the mule, see a note on Facebook for something that looks great value, say a $300 iPhone! Open to a bargain, but accepting some risk (there is definitely fraud on the Facebook Marketplace), you pay for the phone. A week later, you get a Noel Leeming delivery of an iPhone. You post a review for the seller saying as how they are awesome, making them much more appealing to future customers.

Pretty cool, eh?

The fraudster accepted your money and used compromised card data to buy a brand new iPhone from Noels, using your delivery address. Lower risk than them buying it for themselves and then attempting to sell it on.

The victim sees the Noels charge and lets the bank know there's an unauthorised transaction, and they get a refund, while Noels and the banks can debate liability (see https://theoutlet.page/losses/ for further info).

If this sounds like a victimless crime then are you a policeman? yes, that can be a seductive interpretation. However, you are definitely and directly funding criminal activities and that is intrisically a Bad Thing. Don't. They do other, worse, activities, and you are supporting an entire industry of villainy that will create more victims.

One sidenote that can be made is that, when a fraudulent purchase at, for example, Playstation is made, the receiving account can be shut down. (Which makes little Timmy very unhappy when he promised faithfully that he had never used granny's credit card to buy credits in Fortnite.) Once word gets out that you can lose access to your entire library, people tend to behave better. This isn't even receiving stolen goods.

Please don't. Be good.