Counterfeit Credit Cards

05:28:12 AM Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Cheapest Credit Card Deals…Costing Your Identity

Could you believe that the best ever US based credit card costs you as little as one dollar only? Meanwhile this improbability turns into reality when it comes to involve hackers in cyberspace whose main job is to create and maintain a global network supporting the ever increasing growth of credit card and ID fraud activity.

If you are going to make a credit card deal or order a free credit report online, even if the card product or credit report offer belongs to a well-known and reliable credit card issuer, you may be an easy game for cyber criminals. They steal your personal information and use it to make fake credit cards.

Who are these cyber criminals and how do they get access to the customer's personal and thus confidential data? Shadowy web sites or, in other words, underground servers, resort to all means and devices possible to carry out their fishing practices targeting your personal identification numbers (PINs), social security numbers and, of course, credit card data.

The criminals then sell these stolen credit card and ID details for a song and you may be completely unaware of the fraud. According to the latest reports, a good half of those criminal networks were based in the USA, selling not only your credit card information but also, would you believe that, online bank accounts, PayPal accounts and e-mail addresses - all for as little as $3 to $300!

So, if you happen to stumble on a suchlike network, you are very likely to be offered stolen US based credit cards with verification numbers for 1 to 6 dollars! And it has been stated that the usage of fake credit cards and stolen ID adds up to the gross fraud against consumers, estimated in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To be able to protect your personal information from being stolen and then being used to create and sell credit cards, you need to know the procedure of the fishing. As a credit cardholder and a potential customer of any credit providing company, you must have visited an online resource inviting you to get free credit report or received an email with the same offer.

Don't le the criminals fool you and seize the confidential information which you are requested to insert to have access to your credit report! If you slip up, very soon you may be having your best, no fees or lowest APRs credit cards sold on the fraudulent web site.

How does it go? You go to a shadowy web site and your personal data and passwords are stolen through infecting your computer and making access completely available to cyber criminals. You receive an email and your data is still stolen - a widely used technique called fishing. It's rather difficult for the average customer to detect whether the email comes from a legitimate organization or from fraudsters.

We can, however, suggest a few effective steps to be the winner:

• In case you receive an email with a free credit report offer, do not hurry to respond. Make sure the company named in the email is legitimate by using its telephone number or a web site.
• If you go on a web site asking you unnecessary information such as your passport number or PIN, try to leave it, avoiding the temptation to complete the order. Legitimate sites are not allowed to request such sort of information.
• Trust a secure web site only and all legitimate sites are secure.

These are three easy steps to take for protection but nevertheless, the cases of selling fake credit cards are frequent.

Not long ago a man has been caught in Sydney, trying to import special equipment and even blank credit cards for the purpose of producing fraudulent credit cards. The other day in Florida four citizens were arrested for cooperating with a criminal organization buying thousands of credit cad numbers from the upper mentioned fraudulent web sites and then manufacturing fake credit cards, using the information.

Don't like the idea of being a victim and having your credit card fraudulently charged? Follow the advice suggested and save your identity together with your card.