Money laundering via author impersonation on Amazon?(krebsonsecurity.com)
krebsonsecurity.com
Money laundering via author impersonation on Amazon?
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-author-impersonation-on-amazon
128 comments
I'm sure the real reason is avoiding liability for not making any real effort to verify the documents.
Alternatively, they could simply just not be making these records not available to whoever they were talking to at all and/or never disclose them as a matter of blanket policy.
>I had the same with Verizon after someone opened a wireless account in my name. After supplying all the documentation they asked for, they came back to me, "our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently"
Last summer I get a teams message from my manager "Call me ASAP" uhhh, crap, what did I do wrong.
HR had received an attempt to verify my unemployment claim. Uh, er, what? Apparently, like millions of other Americans this past summer, I was one of the people that someone tried to fraudulently collect unemployment benefits on.
I contacted the unemployment office her and reported it, a day or so later got a form email back stating this was happening like crazy and I needed to take no further action.
>our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" (i.e. that they were saying that the account, and credit tradeline, were in fact mine).
This is an ongoing fear of mine. That come tax time they're going to be like "whoa, you owe all these taxes on the thousands of unemployment income you were paid" and I'll be like "uhhhhhhhh, no?"
Last summer I get a teams message from my manager "Call me ASAP" uhhh, crap, what did I do wrong.
HR had received an attempt to verify my unemployment claim. Uh, er, what? Apparently, like millions of other Americans this past summer, I was one of the people that someone tried to fraudulently collect unemployment benefits on.
I contacted the unemployment office her and reported it, a day or so later got a form email back stating this was happening like crazy and I needed to take no further action.
>our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" (i.e. that they were saying that the account, and credit tradeline, were in fact mine).
This is an ongoing fear of mine. That come tax time they're going to be like "whoa, you owe all these taxes on the thousands of unemployment income you were paid" and I'll be like "uhhhhhhhh, no?"
This feels like some sort of scam but it's not clear what the purpose would be:
G.J. Blokdijk is the 'author' of thousands of medical titles: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&fie...
Gerardus Blokdijk gets more than 40,000 hits for computer-related titles apparently generated by template: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gerardus+Blokdyk&i=stripbooks&ref...
G.J. Blokdijk is the 'author' of thousands of medical titles: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&fie...
Gerardus Blokdijk gets more than 40,000 hits for computer-related titles apparently generated by template: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gerardus+Blokdyk&i=stripbooks&ref...
I think I have the answer, and it's a lot less interesting than it appears at face value.
These titles are created by an IT company that is selling software / services. The software appears to do platform price matching / analytics, and one of those is on Amazon.
My understanding / assumption is that it appears that if they are a high frequency sellerid paired to their developerid, then they can increase their requests per second (http://docs.developer.amazonservices.com/en_US/dev_guide/DG_...) either by requesting a change, or maybe via background quotas set by Amazon.
The IT company has some promotional stuff, and they indicate a number of VM's using multiple public IPs to avoid throttling, and in addition:
> [as a top seller we get 8 rp/s, instead of the newbie 0.5 rp/s against 20 items per request]
I went through some of the sellers, and noted some have some complete shite ratings, but that their ratings are consistently at a certain value even over 30/90/12 months. Lifetime values are highly skewed as it appears they pre-stuffed the hat. So for every real person that gets screwed by a cancelled order, they create a number of fake reviews.
So my conclusion based on what I see is that this is their place-holder author, each of the clients they've sold this to has a store front stocked with these titles, the clients generate a ton of fake sales at a reduced price, request a quota increase as "we're a large seller", and then happily do whatever system gaming they actually intended to do.
I could go further down this rabbit hole, but this hypothesis has been exhausted. I wish I was this interested in my actual job.
These titles are created by an IT company that is selling software / services. The software appears to do platform price matching / analytics, and one of those is on Amazon.
My understanding / assumption is that it appears that if they are a high frequency sellerid paired to their developerid, then they can increase their requests per second (http://docs.developer.amazonservices.com/en_US/dev_guide/DG_...) either by requesting a change, or maybe via background quotas set by Amazon.
The IT company has some promotional stuff, and they indicate a number of VM's using multiple public IPs to avoid throttling, and in addition:
> [as a top seller we get 8 rp/s, instead of the newbie 0.5 rp/s against 20 items per request]
I went through some of the sellers, and noted some have some complete shite ratings, but that their ratings are consistently at a certain value even over 30/90/12 months. Lifetime values are highly skewed as it appears they pre-stuffed the hat. So for every real person that gets screwed by a cancelled order, they create a number of fake reviews.
So my conclusion based on what I see is that this is their place-holder author, each of the clients they've sold this to has a store front stocked with these titles, the clients generate a ton of fake sales at a reduced price, request a quota increase as "we're a large seller", and then happily do whatever system gaming they actually intended to do.
I could go further down this rabbit hole, but this hypothesis has been exhausted. I wish I was this interested in my actual job.
Pretty interesting anyway; thanks!
Different kind of scam. Those books are fillable forms -- the medical titles have pages of generic questions like "how often should I take <some medication>" and "can you take <some medication> with food", with large spaces for the reader to write an answer. The books aren't specific to the medication at all, as evidenced by the fact that they're full of irrelevant questions (like asking if an antiparasitic drug is addictive).
The business titles in the second SERP look similar -- they're poorly formatted scoring systems or checklists.
So yeah. Those books look "legitimate" inasmuch as they are at least intended to be bought by real people believing that they are useful, rather than as a means of money laundering. The content of the books is heavily templated to the point of making the books not worth their selling price, but that's a separate issue.
The business titles in the second SERP look similar -- they're poorly formatted scoring systems or checklists.
So yeah. Those books look "legitimate" inasmuch as they are at least intended to be bought by real people believing that they are useful, rather than as a means of money laundering. The content of the books is heavily templated to the point of making the books not worth their selling price, but that's a separate issue.
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I stumpled upon Blokdijk last week when looking for resources on setting up Cyrus IMAP. I don't think this is a simple money laundering scam after looking further into it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyrus-IMAP-Server-Complete-Guide-eb...
I found the full text elsewhere and it's basically 215+ pages of boilerplate/generated questions with blank answers to fill in. Complete nonsense. It's not only sold on Amazon, but on several other otherwise-not-that-dodgy sites as well.
The author even has an Australia-based business selling "licenses", "certifications", "professional development" etc. Blokdijk/Blokdyk (he spells his name inconsistently) looks like a typical conman with a small number of Schroedinger accomplices and blindsided useful idiots.
https://theartofservice.com/
I get the vibe that if you sign up with them, you end up as a "consultant"/"affiliate"/"coach" spending your time acquiring new nodes in the network... Maybe there's a scammy MLM-component, maybe not, it's not spelled out, but I've seen that before even when it's not obvious from anything public.
I'd be surprised if their business would hold up to legal scrutiny.
And given that, who are these purchasers of his books on Amazon, then? I can't imagine anyone genuinely buying this and not asking for a refund. Is it just him buying from himself to boost his image, or are they that good at selling snake-oil?
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Then take a look at this, one of the top results I got when searching (warning, scam and probably contains malware): https://iv.0li.ru/books_db/?q=OFdIalBBN1dvcU1DbThiNTJIOVp0YS...
This is the most clever piracy-scam site I've seen. Note how the title is generated from the query and post dates are dynamically set so the earliest is old while the most recent is yesterday.
It's quite poetic how these assisted auto-content generating scams are chaining on to each other (:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyrus-IMAP-Server-Complete-Guide-eb...
I found the full text elsewhere and it's basically 215+ pages of boilerplate/generated questions with blank answers to fill in. Complete nonsense. It's not only sold on Amazon, but on several other otherwise-not-that-dodgy sites as well.
The author even has an Australia-based business selling "licenses", "certifications", "professional development" etc. Blokdijk/Blokdyk (he spells his name inconsistently) looks like a typical conman with a small number of Schroedinger accomplices and blindsided useful idiots.
https://theartofservice.com/
I get the vibe that if you sign up with them, you end up as a "consultant"/"affiliate"/"coach" spending your time acquiring new nodes in the network... Maybe there's a scammy MLM-component, maybe not, it's not spelled out, but I've seen that before even when it's not obvious from anything public.
I'd be surprised if their business would hold up to legal scrutiny.
And given that, who are these purchasers of his books on Amazon, then? I can't imagine anyone genuinely buying this and not asking for a refund. Is it just him buying from himself to boost his image, or are they that good at selling snake-oil?
------------
Then take a look at this, one of the top results I got when searching (warning, scam and probably contains malware): https://iv.0li.ru/books_db/?q=OFdIalBBN1dvcU1DbThiNTJIOVp0YS...
This is the most clever piracy-scam site I've seen. Note how the title is generated from the query and post dates are dynamically set so the earliest is old while the most recent is yesterday.
It's quite poetic how these assisted auto-content generating scams are chaining on to each other (:
Not so much laundering the money, but rather obscuring the trail between the crime and the money. Laundering would come afterwards, I presume.
Ok, so to pull this of, you need to:
1. have one or more stolen credit cards (obviously not on your name)
2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card
3. have a bank account somewhere either under the false name from 2. or under some other false name or with a bank that will never give out your real name
So the money is not "clean" because it now rests inside a bank account with a false name or a bank that does not cooperate with authorities. In any case it is still somewhat shady.
Ok, so to pull this of, you need to:
1. have one or more stolen credit cards (obviously not on your name)
2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card
3. have a bank account somewhere either under the false name from 2. or under some other false name or with a bank that will never give out your real name
So the money is not "clean" because it now rests inside a bank account with a false name or a bank that does not cooperate with authorities. In any case it is still somewhat shady.
>1. have one or more stolen credit cards (obviously not on your name)
>2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card
That probably won't work too well because you'll have a unusually high chargeback rate on your account which would lead to your account getting flagged. You also eat the charge of chargebacks so that will eat into your profits. This could work as a part of a larger money laundering scheme though. eg. you have cash from selling drugs and you want to clean them, so you buy amazon gift cards with it and then use them to buy your ebook. now you have a clean source of income (selling ebooks) that the IRS would be satisfied with.
>2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card
That probably won't work too well because you'll have a unusually high chargeback rate on your account which would lead to your account getting flagged. You also eat the charge of chargebacks so that will eat into your profits. This could work as a part of a larger money laundering scheme though. eg. you have cash from selling drugs and you want to clean them, so you buy amazon gift cards with it and then use them to buy your ebook. now you have a clean source of income (selling ebooks) that the IRS would be satisfied with.
I don't think IRS is your issue. (after all, the IRS taxes criminal income). His issue is access to the banking infrastructure, which can be difficult if he has lots of cash, or money sitting offshore. He might not even care about the IRS or the US, but just needs a "pass-through" to another entity.
How can the IRS be satisfied when someone else's identity is being used? It doesn't make sense because the launderer is still in possession of dirty, now stolen, money.
I'm guessing they are using the identify of "real" authors to bypass some kind of check Amazon has on new accounts selling books from unknown authors. Otherwise, what you're saying makes sense.
I'm guessing they are using the identify of "real" authors to bypass some kind of check Amazon has on new accounts selling books from unknown authors. Otherwise, what you're saying makes sense.
Not sure, maybe amazon doesn't require that the author be the same person as the entity selling the books (eg. LLC)? That way the IRS only really sees that Bob is getting his income from Bob's Books LLC, but unless they dig deeper they wouldn't know that Bob's Books LLC is impersonating Famous Writer.
edit: this is incorrect, see thread below.
edit: this is incorrect, see thread below.
But Bob isn't getting the tax bill, which is my point. The tax bill is going to Famous Writer, who is most certainly going to contest the bill, and will probably win. Now the IRS doesn't get their money, so they are not satisfied.
The whole idea behind money laundering is to actually pay the taxes on the ill-gotten gains to prevent you from being hit with charges relate to tax fraud, which are certain to stick.
The fact that they are operating in this manner indicates that they are not scared of the IRS, probably because they are not operating in the USA. Thus, the clearly system isn't designed for tax evasion purposes. They must have some other reason for operating in such a manner. The only thing I can think of is they are trying to bypass Amazon checks. Presumably they used to just create a fictitious LLC to do this under the name of a random name, but eventually were foiled by Amazon's automated systems, so they changed tactics.
The whole idea behind money laundering is to actually pay the taxes on the ill-gotten gains to prevent you from being hit with charges relate to tax fraud, which are certain to stick.
The fact that they are operating in this manner indicates that they are not scared of the IRS, probably because they are not operating in the USA. Thus, the clearly system isn't designed for tax evasion purposes. They must have some other reason for operating in such a manner. The only thing I can think of is they are trying to bypass Amazon checks. Presumably they used to just create a fictitious LLC to do this under the name of a random name, but eventually were foiled by Amazon's automated systems, so they changed tactics.
>But Bob isn't getting the tax bill, which is my point. The tax bill is going to Famous Writer, who is most certainly going to contest the bill, and will probably win. Now the IRS doesn't get their money, so they are not satisfied.
Why would it go to Famous Writer? I skimmed the article and it only say the author on the product page is Famous Writer. If Famous Writer wrote it, but then signed over all the rights to Bob's Books LLC, then Famous Writer would be the author, but all the proceeds/tax bills will go to Bob's Books LLC.
As for why bother impersonating Famous Writer in the first place? Probably because an unheard of author selling $500,000 worth of books for $500/each would be suspicious, but if he was famous it would be less so.
Why would it go to Famous Writer? I skimmed the article and it only say the author on the product page is Famous Writer. If Famous Writer wrote it, but then signed over all the rights to Bob's Books LLC, then Famous Writer would be the author, but all the proceeds/tax bills will go to Bob's Books LLC.
As for why bother impersonating Famous Writer in the first place? Probably because an unheard of author selling $500,000 worth of books for $500/each would be suspicious, but if he was famous it would be less so.
> Why would it go to Famous Writer?
From the article:
> Reames said Amazon refuses to send him a corrected 1099, or to discuss anything about the identity thief.
The writer in question received a 1099, which states that he earned the proceeds from this book, and the IRS is going to require him to pay taxes on those earnings.
> As for why bother impersonating Famous Writer in the first place? Probably because an unheard of author selling $500,000 worth of books for $500/each would be suspicious,
The author says this book made much more than any of his other books:
> Reames is a credited author on Amazon by way of several commodity industry books, although none of them made anywhere near the amount Amazon is reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.
They (the hackers) impersonated the author because they had access to his information via his publisher. Thus, they could bypass Amazon's normal vetting process for self-published books.
This is a terrible money laundering scheme (since it doesn't actually result in legitimate money), but it's a very good theft scheme.
From the article:
> Reames said Amazon refuses to send him a corrected 1099, or to discuss anything about the identity thief.
The writer in question received a 1099, which states that he earned the proceeds from this book, and the IRS is going to require him to pay taxes on those earnings.
> As for why bother impersonating Famous Writer in the first place? Probably because an unheard of author selling $500,000 worth of books for $500/each would be suspicious,
The author says this book made much more than any of his other books:
> Reames is a credited author on Amazon by way of several commodity industry books, although none of them made anywhere near the amount Amazon is reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.
They (the hackers) impersonated the author because they had access to his information via his publisher. Thus, they could bypass Amazon's normal vetting process for self-published books.
This is a terrible money laundering scheme (since it doesn't actually result in legitimate money), but it's a very good theft scheme.
Except the IRS thinks the impersonated author is making that income, not the person trying to launder money. This won't help them with the IRS.
Sort of, especially if you can do a network of these.
Amazon is an Everything store, including more easily washed financial products like gift cards that companies normally avoid for these reasons. I bet they can use their proceeds to exchange for these.
I am curious if, by having a linked AWS account fueled by these, if there is a way to fully wash. E.g., bitcoin mining sets a super lossy floor.
(We do graph analytics, where mining webs of transactions & their meta data is super interesting. Funny behaviors like these pop out as weird and extreme looking topologies when looking at them :)
Amazon is an Everything store, including more easily washed financial products like gift cards that companies normally avoid for these reasons. I bet they can use their proceeds to exchange for these.
I am curious if, by having a linked AWS account fueled by these, if there is a way to fully wash. E.g., bitcoin mining sets a super lossy floor.
(We do graph analytics, where mining webs of transactions & their meta data is super interesting. Funny behaviors like these pop out as weird and extreme looking topologies when looking at them :)
how do you wash a gift card? I would assume the original method of payment for the card is logged somewhere. unless you can turn around and sell the gift card for cash really quick, you would be stuck holding evidence.
Yep, it's a time-sensitive market, as they're racing teams that will take days/weeks/months/never to catch up.
* Dark web resellers: "20-50% take for X cards at Y $ in Z time" => additional jumbling (drop shipping, ...) and exit points (discounted $ for anonymous purchases for/during illegal activities)
* Normal marketplaces: "$100 starbucks card, 10% off!"
* Sell to physical retailers like small corner stores
The approach & time will all impact % retained
Edit: Here's a fun one, esp. when you think through all the ground operations / people in the drug supply chain: https://losspreventionmedia.com/gift-cards-have-become-a-com... . We work with a lot of sec/fraud teams, where I've repeatedly heard the story "At $100M-1B revenue the finance wizards started a gift cards program, but it became such a pain point that we canceled it."
* Dark web resellers: "20-50% take for X cards at Y $ in Z time" => additional jumbling (drop shipping, ...) and exit points (discounted $ for anonymous purchases for/during illegal activities)
* Normal marketplaces: "$100 starbucks card, 10% off!"
* Sell to physical retailers like small corner stores
The approach & time will all impact % retained
Edit: Here's a fun one, esp. when you think through all the ground operations / people in the drug supply chain: https://losspreventionmedia.com/gift-cards-have-become-a-com... . We work with a lot of sec/fraud teams, where I've repeatedly heard the story "At $100M-1B revenue the finance wizards started a gift cards program, but it became such a pain point that we canceled it."
I agree, the title is misleading. This doesn't have the traditional hallmarks of money laundering since the scheme is mostly transparent and fradulent. It's really just a scam.
notice how amazon gift cards go for higher than face value on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazon+gift+c...
My only logic is that its a form of money laundering.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazon+gift+c...
My only logic is that its a form of money laundering.
I've spent a few thousand on itunes gift cards over a decade or so, all at above face value, because it's the only way to get funds into my "US" account, which is the only way to get access to a lot of content without torrenting it.
These days though, I just torrent more often than not. It's just too much work trying to pay for the content I like.
These days though, I just torrent more often than not. It's just too much work trying to pay for the content I like.
>My only logic is that its a form of money laundering.
That doesn't really make sense. Why buy it online leaving a papertrail (ebay account, bank/credit card transactions), when you can buy it anonymously in person using cash? The daily volume also isn't there. It's a couple thousand dollars per day at most. You can easily get that amount in person without raising any suspicion by driving to different stores in your city.
That doesn't really make sense. Why buy it online leaving a papertrail (ebay account, bank/credit card transactions), when you can buy it anonymously in person using cash? The daily volume also isn't there. It's a couple thousand dollars per day at most. You can easily get that amount in person without raising any suspicion by driving to different stores in your city.
And where do you get the cash? This scheme is part of how you convert illegitimate money (usually stolen CCs in the case of eCommerce) into cash.
You set up a bank account and amazon seller account you control in someone else's name. Then you use your stolen CCs to buy the "book" from yourself thereby converting credit card details into money in an account you control. From there you can get the money out in a multitude of ways (or launder it again through the same or another method) depending on your risk tolerance.
You set up a bank account and amazon seller account you control in someone else's name. Then you use your stolen CCs to buy the "book" from yourself thereby converting credit card details into money in an account you control. From there you can get the money out in a multitude of ways (or launder it again through the same or another method) depending on your risk tolerance.
>And where do you get the cash? This scheme is part of how you convert illegitimate money (usually stolen CCs in the case of eCommerce) into cash.
why not just buy it from amazon directly? does ebay/paypal have looser anti-fraud systems than amazon?
>You set up a bank account and amazon seller account you control in someone else's name. Then you use your stolen CCs to buy the "book" from yourself thereby converting credit card details into money in an account you control.
That doesn't work because if you funnel a bunch of stolen credit card purchases into that account, it will quickly get flagged for an unusually high chargeback rate.
why not just buy it from amazon directly? does ebay/paypal have looser anti-fraud systems than amazon?
>You set up a bank account and amazon seller account you control in someone else's name. Then you use your stolen CCs to buy the "book" from yourself thereby converting credit card details into money in an account you control.
That doesn't work because if you funnel a bunch of stolen credit card purchases into that account, it will quickly get flagged for an unusually high chargeback rate.
>why not just buy it from amazon directly? does ebay/paypal have looser anti-fraud systems than amazon?
Every additional step is an additional level of obfuscation.
I don't get what you mean by "buy it directly". You don't want the book and you don't want to be buying things for yourself using illegitimate money.
>That doesn't work because if you funnel a bunch of stolen credit card purchases into that account, it will quickly get flagged for an unusually high chargeback rate.
I shouldn't have mentioned CCs. Nobody is buying $500 books with credit cards that are likely to charge back. You generally use those for drop-shipping scams where you list $5 toilet brushes for $4.95 on another site and then use the stolen CC to pay. Say you list on eBay and buy on Amazon, the people will dispute Amazon charges but it doesn't matter because the happy customers of your eBay account are getting their $4.95 toilet brushes just fine. $500 books could be an intermediary step where you have $24k sitting in a sketchy account you control (toilet brush business is booming) and you need to siphon it out. You'll be the only one buying the book so no charge-back risk.
Every additional step is an additional level of obfuscation.
I don't get what you mean by "buy it directly". You don't want the book and you don't want to be buying things for yourself using illegitimate money.
>That doesn't work because if you funnel a bunch of stolen credit card purchases into that account, it will quickly get flagged for an unusually high chargeback rate.
I shouldn't have mentioned CCs. Nobody is buying $500 books with credit cards that are likely to charge back. You generally use those for drop-shipping scams where you list $5 toilet brushes for $4.95 on another site and then use the stolen CC to pay. Say you list on eBay and buy on Amazon, the people will dispute Amazon charges but it doesn't matter because the happy customers of your eBay account are getting their $4.95 toilet brushes just fine. $500 books could be an intermediary step where you have $24k sitting in a sketchy account you control (toilet brush business is booming) and you need to siphon it out. You'll be the only one buying the book so no charge-back risk.
> I don't get what you mean by "buy it directly". You don't want the book and you don't want to be buying things for yourself using illegitimate money.
I took it to mean buying the gift cards from Amazon/physical store, rather than going through ebay.
I took it to mean buying the gift cards from Amazon/physical store, rather than going through ebay.
I missed the context of the parent comment. In that case you would be using stolen CCs or something like that to buy the gift card codes. Then you'd use the gift card balance to buy the "book" from Amazon with proceeds going to an account you control. The charge-back will go to the gift card seller if the $5-50 transaction is noticed at all.
Money laundering typically implies taking illegitimate sources of income and making them seem legitimate. In this case you could sell yourself $100 gift cards for $120. You wouldn’t even necessarily have to send yourself a gift card. You now have a legit source of income aka your eBay sellers account for illegal income.
And the IRS is totally cool with you selling thousands of dollars of gift cards each week with no corresponding invoices on how you obtained them? Money laundering business tend to be cash based with high margins (eg. car wash), so you only need to buy $10 worth of supplies to launder $1000 worth of cash.
There's probably enough money on the books to acquire the "inventory". Especially if the "company" never pays out the profits.
I.e, a $10,000 outside "investment" allows you to sell 100, $100 gift cards for $120. Those profits get reinvested on the books, and now you have $12,000 to sell 120, $100 gift cards. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I.e, a $10,000 outside "investment" allows you to sell 100, $100 gift cards for $120. Those profits get reinvested on the books, and now you have $12,000 to sell 120, $100 gift cards. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That's still sort of pointless because you need to generate a ton of turnover, which increase costs (credit card processing fees) and generally raises suspicion. With a carwash you might only need 1000 fake car washes at $60 each ($60,000 turnover) each to launder $50,000, but with the amazon gift card scheme you'll need to do $250,000 in turnover which is suspiciously high for a small business selling gift cards.
$250k per month is $3 million a year. That's not high revenue for a mom-and-pop online reseller. Especially given the margins for typical resellers. Plus, it's far more efficient than something like a car wash. You can have one automated platform that sells through various businesses to keep revenue figures where you need them. So if you want to stay under $50k/y revenue, then split the sales among five various "companies."
With a car was, 1000 washes, at 5m per wash is 84 hours of active operating time. This creates an upper limit on the amount of money that can reasonably flow through the company, since 84 hours is roughly 3 hours a day of utilization per month. You might be able to get by with about double that many washes without raising suspicion. But all it takes is a peak at the company's water bill to determine how accurate that figure really is.
Plus the operating expenses are much higher, as it requires a specialized building, land, etc. Whereas the online retail requires a computer and some software. It's easier to move and hide. There's just so many benefits to using online retailers over brick and mortar operations.
With a car was, 1000 washes, at 5m per wash is 84 hours of active operating time. This creates an upper limit on the amount of money that can reasonably flow through the company, since 84 hours is roughly 3 hours a day of utilization per month. You might be able to get by with about double that many washes without raising suspicion. But all it takes is a peak at the company's water bill to determine how accurate that figure really is.
Plus the operating expenses are much higher, as it requires a specialized building, land, etc. Whereas the online retail requires a computer and some software. It's easier to move and hide. There's just so many benefits to using online retailers over brick and mortar operations.
>$250k per month is $3 million a year. That's not high revenue for a mom-and-pop online reseller
What kind of a mom and pop store sells $3M year in amazon gift cards?
What kind of a mom and pop store sells $3M year in amazon gift cards?
Not necessarily gift cards. But $3 million in revenue is right about the time a small online business can afford to move from the garage to a dedicated space with staff. I would expect that Ebay/Amazon/etc all have many resellers in that $1-5MM revenue range.
What if it's just a big game between friends for Credit Card Points?
We just keep going back and forward between you and I, always getting the $1k Credit Card sign up bonuses and a TON of points each month.
We just keep going back and forward between you and I, always getting the $1k Credit Card sign up bonuses and a TON of points each month.
Pardon me, but how is gift card price related and how could gift cards ever be cheaper than face value (surely someone somewhere would be working at a loss)?
Lots of lower income areas have places (some of which are legit, most of them not) that will purchase gift cards for 50 cents on the dollar or less. The idea is that someone might gift you a giftcard to, say, Home Depot, but you need food rather than lumber. So you sell the gift card to a broker at a steep discount and pocket the money.
But this also a good way to launder money, most often for low-level drug transactions. Drug addicts steal credit cards or pass bad checks to buy gift cards. Then either give the cards to a dealer directly, or to a broker. The broker gives them cash, which they take to the dealer.
But this also a good way to launder money, most often for low-level drug transactions. Drug addicts steal credit cards or pass bad checks to buy gift cards. Then either give the cards to a dealer directly, or to a broker. The broker gives them cash, which they take to the dealer.
That's not money laundering. The gift card in that scenario is still "dirty".
Functionally, the gift card is clean as long as it continues to be valid. And most of them do. The user of the gift card isn't the purchaser, so they can use it without (much) fear.
People can also abuse return policies. Most places will give you a gift card if you return unused merchandise without a receipt. So people will shoplift small, high-value items from one store and return them to another. Get a gift card, and then sell the gift card. The cash isn't traceable, and the broker gets a tidy profit.
People can also abuse return policies. Most places will give you a gift card if you return unused merchandise without a receipt. So people will shoplift small, high-value items from one store and return them to another. Get a gift card, and then sell the gift card. The cash isn't traceable, and the broker gets a tidy profit.
> Most places will give you a gift card if you return unused merchandise without a receipt.
Usually only if you paid with a credit card, so there's a record you made the purchase no?
Usually only if you paid with a credit card, so there's a record you made the purchase no?
That hasn't been my experience. Policies may have changed, although I'm not sure how they'd know if purchased something using a credit card if you don't have your receipt.
Most places typically will provide the refund if you have the merchandise and an ID. The ID helps loss prevent determine if someone's returning an abnormally large amount of goods, but there's no shortage of mules for this kind of scam.
I'm not in the loss prevention field (anymore), and my knowledge of these sorts of scams is a few years old.
Most places typically will provide the refund if you have the merchandise and an ID. The ID helps loss prevent determine if someone's returning an abnormally large amount of goods, but there's no shortage of mules for this kind of scam.
I'm not in the loss prevention field (anymore), and my knowledge of these sorts of scams is a few years old.
>> Most places will give you a gift card if you return unused merchandise without a receipt.
> Usually only if you paid with a credit card, so there's a record you made the purchase no?
This makes absolutely no sense. If the store demands that it demonstrate to you that it knows you made the purchase, before it will allow a return, then you can easily demand to be refunded in cash. What purpose would the receipt serve?
> Usually only if you paid with a credit card, so there's a record you made the purchase no?
This makes absolutely no sense. If the store demands that it demonstrate to you that it knows you made the purchase, before it will allow a return, then you can easily demand to be refunded in cash. What purpose would the receipt serve?
> Usually only if you paid with a credit card, so there’s a record you made the purchase no?
No. Usually, if you can prove that you made the purchase at the store, by any acceptable means, they will refund you (for credit card purchases, usually exclusively to the card used for the purchase).
If you can’t, but they let you return anyway, they’ll typically give you store credit (if they don’t issue gift cards) or a gift card, so that the “money” you get ultimately is going to be spent at the store (or not at all.)
No. Usually, if you can prove that you made the purchase at the store, by any acceptable means, they will refund you (for credit card purchases, usually exclusively to the card used for the purchase).
If you can’t, but they let you return anyway, they’ll typically give you store credit (if they don’t issue gift cards) or a gift card, so that the “money” you get ultimately is going to be spent at the store (or not at all.)
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> and how could gift cards ever be cheaper than face value (surely someone somewhere would be working at a loss)?
Gift cards are always cheaper than face value. The basic economics tells you they can't be more expensive than that, since they are similar to money, but worse. They can easily be cheaper; $300 at Starbucks is not as good as $200 wherever you want.
Your incredulity is pretty shocking; if you want to see gift cards sold cheaper than face value, all you need to do is walk into a Costco.
Gift cards are always cheaper than face value. The basic economics tells you they can't be more expensive than that, since they are similar to money, but worse. They can easily be cheaper; $300 at Starbucks is not as good as $200 wherever you want.
Your incredulity is pretty shocking; if you want to see gift cards sold cheaper than face value, all you need to do is walk into a Costco.
I use gift cards regularly to unlock country-specific content stores (such as Steam and others) other than where my bank or physical location is. Not once have I seen a gift card supplier that sells them cheaper than face value.
Where does your experience come from? It seems appallingly out of touch.
Where does your experience come from? It seems appallingly out of touch.
At Costco and other stores, you can often purchase gift cards for a bit below face value.
When Apple, Amazon, etc, seek to have retailers carry their gift cards, the retailer needs to have an incentive. So the gift cards are usually sold for below face value to the retailer. In turn, some retailers will sell gift cards for below their face value.
So, e.g., at this moment, Nintendo eShop $50 cards are $44.99; XBox/Sony Playstation $100 gift cards are $89.99; a $500 gift card on Alaska Airlines is $449.99; $100 at Hulu is $89.99.
These are not particularly good prices. Oftentimes Apple $100 gift cards will be $79.99.
The other incentives at Costco still hold, too; you can get the Executive Membership 2% back and the 2% credit card cash back.
When Apple, Amazon, etc, seek to have retailers carry their gift cards, the retailer needs to have an incentive. So the gift cards are usually sold for below face value to the retailer. In turn, some retailers will sell gift cards for below their face value.
So, e.g., at this moment, Nintendo eShop $50 cards are $44.99; XBox/Sony Playstation $100 gift cards are $89.99; a $500 gift card on Alaska Airlines is $449.99; $100 at Hulu is $89.99.
These are not particularly good prices. Oftentimes Apple $100 gift cards will be $79.99.
The other incentives at Costco still hold, too; you can get the Executive Membership 2% back and the 2% credit card cash back.
If I wanted to use a US content store and in fact lived in the US (which sounds like a prerequisite for being able to enjoy those Costco discounts), presumably I would not need to purchase gift cards in the first place.
Where gift cards are available, they are never cheaper than face value due to basic market dynamics.
In retail stores in non-Western countries I have never seen a gift card with e.g. 100 unit value sold for less than 100 units either, although I haven’t specifically looked for such.
Where gift cards are available, they are never cheaper than face value due to basic market dynamics.
In retail stores in non-Western countries I have never seen a gift card with e.g. 100 unit value sold for less than 100 units either, although I haven’t specifically looked for such.
I didn't say you could go to Costco. Just that the market often values gift cards at less than par, because they are generally less useful than normal money.
In degenerate cases, I can see that the reverse could be true.
In degenerate cases, I can see that the reverse could be true.
I peeked. (A) Cards I use are not there, (B) an Apple Store US$100 card is sold for $100, and (C) US payment method is required, which kind of defeats the entire point. Good try though.
In this thread, a fundamental misunderstanding of how gift card market works seems to prevail.
There’s basic arbitrage. Vendor Acme in region X locks out people from region Y (e.g., based on payment method address); Alice lives in region X and can buy an N value Acme gift card for N-1 at a local store; Bob lives in region Y and wants to transact with Acme; Alice buys a gift card for N-1 and sells it to Bob for N+1 online; Bob gains the ability to transact with Acme, Alice gains 2 as revenue.
Thus, gift cards going for higher than face value does not automatically imply anything beyond a market acting as it should and is not specific to Amazon in any way.
In this thread, a fundamental misunderstanding of how gift card market works seems to prevail.
There’s basic arbitrage. Vendor Acme in region X locks out people from region Y (e.g., based on payment method address); Alice lives in region X and can buy an N value Acme gift card for N-1 at a local store; Bob lives in region Y and wants to transact with Acme; Alice buys a gift card for N-1 and sells it to Bob for N+1 online; Bob gains the ability to transact with Acme, Alice gains 2 as revenue.
Thus, gift cards going for higher than face value does not automatically imply anything beyond a market acting as it should and is not specific to Amazon in any way.
> and (C) US payment method is required, which kind of defeats the entire point. Good try though.
You... are aware that the primary market for USD-denominated gift cards is US residents, right?
You... are aware that the primary market for USD-denominated gift cards is US residents, right?
You still don’t get it. The original poster uses gift cards going for higher than face value on eBay as evidence of money laundering. I am pointing out that on eBay there is a demand for gift cards from buyers whose payment method is accepted by eBay but not accepted by gift card vendor. Those buyers may be located elsewhere in the world but want to use that vendor’s content or services, so they buy gift cards and use them as primary way of payment. eBay sellers respond to that demand by setting higher prices for gift cards.
I live in Asia and I can buy amazon gift cards without a problem using a non US credit card. they warn you that they are denominated in USD and hence might not be able to use one's preferred method of payment, but that's about it.
The original poster is simply wrong. First, most of the gift cards are selling close to or below face value. Second, people have other reasons besides "money laundering" for doing so. It can be eBay cashback promos, Paypal cashback promos, etc.
The original poster provided an eBay link, and my personal experience confirms that gift cards for US-only services relevant to non-US residents are sold for above face value on online marketplaces accessible to non-US residents. I only disagree about the reason, I don’t necessarily see anything nefarious about selling them at higher prices than face value.
One black friday season I went in Office Max or Depot and bought 20 $100 gift cards for Amazon because there was a very slight discount. This enabled me to purchase a laptop and save $100 approx
Remember Amazon has the credit card fee margin of savings if someone uses a gift card instead of a credit card.
Remember Amazon has the credit card fee margin of savings if someone uses a gift card instead of a credit card.
That's not really savings, though, because they need to sell it to Office Max for a price where A) Office Max can pay credit card fees, and B) make a small profit.
Well that was kind of exactly my point. It is in their interest to do gift cards because they don't lose anything or incur a cost on themselves, once someone is locked into a gift card they only gain sales.
This is made possible at least in part because they have savings on the credit card cut
This is made possible at least in part because they have savings on the credit card cut
I think you're not understanding me.
They have to sell it to retailers for less than they'd get after credit card acceptance. E.g. Apple sells gift cards for $88/$100 to a retailer, who then uses the remaining $12 on transaction costs (including paying their credit card fees) and profit margin.
Vs. Apple likely loses ~2% on credit card acceptance-- and gets to keep $98/$100.
It's still worth it, because they capture money from last-minute gifts, etc...
They have to sell it to retailers for less than they'd get after credit card acceptance. E.g. Apple sells gift cards for $88/$100 to a retailer, who then uses the remaining $12 on transaction costs (including paying their credit card fees) and profit margin.
Vs. Apple likely loses ~2% on credit card acceptance-- and gets to keep $98/$100.
It's still worth it, because they capture money from last-minute gifts, etc...
Hmmm yeah.
Though $88/100 is super unrealistic with margins on electronics of 1-2% Amazon would be taking a loss of what the profit from 10 laptop sales every time they dealt with someone buying a laptop all in gift cards.
Or maybe gift cards are so rarely used in this way they write it off with higher margin uses
Though $88/100 is super unrealistic with margins on electronics of 1-2% Amazon would be taking a loss of what the profit from 10 laptop sales every time they dealt with someone buying a laptop all in gift cards.
Or maybe gift cards are so rarely used in this way they write it off with higher margin uses
You can buy unlimited gift cards directly from the merchant for face value, so that sets the price ceiling. Gift cards are strictly worse than cash, and individuals with gift cards who want to sell them value them less than face value, otherwise they’d keep/spend them. The only legitimate cases I can think of are if you are spending an eBay gift card to buy one you value more, or if you somehow get extra cash back or etc to justify buying from eBay over the gift card issuer.
Interesting. I thought gift cards were used by people who lack a supported payment method, and face value was the floor.
we aren't talking credit card gift cards (i.e. visa/master card brandedc cards, we are talking store branded cards, and while amazon cards are the closest to cash of all of them, due to the the number of products they sell, you can still buy them for face value from amazon, why pay more?)
Ever been to Costco? They sell $50 gift cards for a bunch of different stores, and you only pay like $45 at the register.
I know, $5 isn't much, but it is still lower than face value.
I know, $5 isn't much, but it is still lower than face value.
That explains why people would pay less for a gift card but not more??
The parent of my post was asking how it was possible to have a gift card sell for less than face value....
The question is why wouldn't someone buy from Amazon
My credit cards regularly offer 5% cashback for grocery stores, drug stores and other physical locations that sell gift cards. They also offer 5 percent back for pay pal purchases which can be combined with places like Raise.com to get a lot more than 5 percent saved in total, and gift cards almost always go for under full price.
If you're doing an online purchase you can combine with a coupon collector site, credit cards, and gift cards to get steep discounts. When I shopped at H&M their gift cards regularly had 15-35% discounts from gift card sites and they will accept any piece of fabric in store for a discount coupon, making the clothes close to fifty percent off in total.
When shopping online it adds possibly two minutes extra to check out once you get used to the flow. It's not recommended for gifts as it mucks up the return flow but gift cards are usually only for large retail outlets so it's always possible to hold on to it and purchase something later.
This is all legitimate use and not a flow for money laundering.
If you're doing an online purchase you can combine with a coupon collector site, credit cards, and gift cards to get steep discounts. When I shopped at H&M their gift cards regularly had 15-35% discounts from gift card sites and they will accept any piece of fabric in store for a discount coupon, making the clothes close to fifty percent off in total.
When shopping online it adds possibly two minutes extra to check out once you get used to the flow. It's not recommended for gifts as it mucks up the return flow but gift cards are usually only for large retail outlets so it's always possible to hold on to it and purchase something later.
This is all legitimate use and not a flow for money laundering.
If they're using fraudulent payment sources (stolen credit cards) it may be harder for them to use them on Amazon versus somewhere else.
Yeah, I was sort of implying "unless there is something dodgy going on"
The buyer may not have supported payment methods, especially overseas.
E.g. most German cards don't work at amazon.com (unless things have changed recently), but work at PayPal.
E.g. most German cards don't work at amazon.com (unless things have changed recently), but work at PayPal.
I wouldn't, and haven't, bought anything from Amazon since Amazon facilitates and perpetuates fraud.
... Which would include gift cards for amazon, indirectly paying Amazon doesn't change that.
[edit] - I'm not sure parent comment was replying to the gift card point. My comment was specifically about why buy Amazon Gift Cards from a third party ever.
[edit] - I'm not sure parent comment was replying to the gift card point. My comment was specifically about why buy Amazon Gift Cards from a third party ever.
Say you got a gift card as a gift (ya know, like the name implies) for some store you know you'll never shop at. Wouldn't you be okay with selling it for 90% of the value online, rather than let it sit and collect dust?
I have a gift card in my wallet that you can have for a fraction of what it is for. I need nothing from the store issuing the gift card but I would like booze from the shop around the corner or cash for some contraband substances.
The store issuing the gift card is out of the town center and I have had it for ages. Make me an offer and, if I get enough booze or contraband for now/tonight then I am happy.
The store issuing the gift card is out of the town center and I have had it for ages. Make me an offer and, if I get enough booze or contraband for now/tonight then I am happy.
It's a simple way to launder stolen credit cards.
Buy gift cards with a stolen credit card
Sell the gift cards for cheap to random people on the internet for crypto
Buy gift cards with a stolen credit card
Sell the gift cards for cheap to random people on the internet for crypto
Nothing is laundered here though. You have a bunch of cash or crypto that has no provenance.
Going by comments here it seems that most people equate "turning stolen CC into money" as laundering, even though that money is dirty and indeed not laundered. The IRS or whoever isn't gonna be fooled.
to quote wikipedia
"Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. "
I'm not sure how turning stolen CCs into money is fundamentally different.
"Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. "
I'm not sure how turning stolen CCs into money is fundamentally different.
Because it doesn't, by itself, conceal the origins. Note that "unknown" origin doesn't count, as far as the IRS is concerned, they will still question where it came from and expect an answer.
As far as I understand it, the process of moving money through complex transactions is to make it look like it came from somewhere legitimate and making it hard to trace back to something that isn't, by mixing it with legitimate funding in a hard-to-see way or by making it come from an otherwise legitimate source[1]. The goal of money laundering is being able to point at a legitimate source and being able to claim that's where the money came from and the complex transactions are meant to make it look plausible or at least hard to disprove.
[1] eg: if I pay a utility bill with illegitimate funds and overpay and then they refund me, that refund may be seen as laundered, because the utility company is legitimate, which is why they tend to have restrictions around such things -- I came across this example when I was doing anti-money laundering training when I did contract work for a bank recently, although admittedly I might not be remembering all the details correctly.
As far as I understand it, the process of moving money through complex transactions is to make it look like it came from somewhere legitimate and making it hard to trace back to something that isn't, by mixing it with legitimate funding in a hard-to-see way or by making it come from an otherwise legitimate source[1]. The goal of money laundering is being able to point at a legitimate source and being able to claim that's where the money came from and the complex transactions are meant to make it look plausible or at least hard to disprove.
[1] eg: if I pay a utility bill with illegitimate funds and overpay and then they refund me, that refund may be seen as laundered, because the utility company is legitimate, which is why they tend to have restrictions around such things -- I came across this example when I was doing anti-money laundering training when I did contract work for a bank recently, although admittedly I might not be remembering all the details correctly.
I think we can distinguish between a technical and a colloquial use of the term "money laundering". Yes, colloquial usage would annoy people who have to deal with the technical definition, but I think instead of trying to dispute the colloquial usage, which isn't focused on the IRS, a better way for people to address it is that "it's not technically 'money laundering' in the eyes of the law, but should be referred to as 'xyz'" (whatever xyz term that describe it better). The way I was colloquial using it, was a way to get cash out of people's stolen credit cards in a way that would be difficult to track back to the thief.
some argue above that there's no fraud involved, it is people simply doing manufactured spend, that makes little sense to me, as there are cheaper and simpler ways of doing manufactured spend (I've done it!). Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
some argue above that there's no fraud involved, it is people simply doing manufactured spend, that makes little sense to me, as there are cheaper and simpler ways of doing manufactured spend (I've done it!). Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
That sounds reasonable enough, although I do question somewhat what the value of using it colloquially is, since it confuses the legality of it and, at least in my experience (which may be atypical), when people mention money laundering, its in the context of whether transactions or actions are legal or not. Although I have heard someone mention (once!) "legal money laundering", by which they really meant tax avoidance -- that is, moving money around in such a way as to minimize their tax liability. So maybe you're right about that! You're definitely right about how to address it, at least then people can correct it if they wish then.
> Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
Indeed, unless you're out to commit fraud or legal-definition-money-laundering, there seems little point in jumping through the hoops.
> Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
Indeed, unless you're out to commit fraud or legal-definition-money-laundering, there seems little point in jumping through the hoops.
A lot of time the merchants sell them at a discount since they are normally gifted, so it brings in new business, some are lost, etc. There are entire communities online that take advantage of these discounts + credit card points, and resell the cards to others.
[deleted]
This still seems to be happening two years later. A person complained about seeing a book sold under their name for 550 USD. It contained gibberish and the sales were recorded as income to the IRS even though the owner of the account couldn't find out where the money went. Amazon wouldn't tell her who had opened a bank account in her name. I suppose they prefer to deal with such accounts behind the scenes.
It's happening on eBay for over a decade. Cheap trinkets and books for insane prices. Except for the impersonation part, I don't understand that tbh.
It's not too confusing to me. It gets the IRS off the trail of the actual person getting the money - they don't care that the IRS still wants money - they are confident that it wont get traced. It's truely obfuscation.
You avoid the taxes.
Oh, so any income reported won't be in your name? Clever, although you would also need bank accounts in others' name.
Basically you'd need to use their whole identity, then withdraw the cash, possibly with fake IDs. Which is what they're doing, I guess.
Basically you'd need to use their whole identity, then withdraw the cash, possibly with fake IDs. Which is what they're doing, I guess.
Wire the funds offshore to a place more willing to look the other way for a small fee:do this a few times to other accounts in other countries, park the clean non-taxed cash offshore, get a cc or debit credit for the clean account...profit
Sure you spend sum cash on cleaning the funds, you're still not paying taxes on that cash win/win
Sure you spend sum cash on cleaning the funds, you're still not paying taxes on that cash win/win
You can open accounts online with ease. I posted about it before if you peek in my profile.
I know Patrick Reams- he is a semi well known ‘thought leader’/speaker in my industry. (Energy and Commodity markets) interesting to see what comes of this. What scares me is that somehow amazon knows where to send the 1099 but for whatever reason can’t let him access his account or otherwise verify his financial institution details? This doesn’t add up to me.
Using GPT-3 to 'write' the books instead of obvious gibberish would lead to an additional layer of evasion.
Is there a version of GPT-3 that is available for use by the general public right now? I haven't seen anything outside of OpenAPI's private beta.
GPT-2 is available. I played with it a little bit and was mildly impressed. I don't think I would read a book written by GPT-2, but it's better than gibberish.
instead of using stolen credit cards wouldn't you instead have people bring their cash to get Amazon credit at a store, pay them 10 dollars per 450 dollars, they buy 'your' book with amazon credit, you've laundered 450 dollars for 10 dollars and some small expenses related to fake book generation etc.
Yes, exactly this. In addition you don't really need other people. If you have actual cash, buy gift cards in cash yourself then purchase online. If you can publish one book thats giberish, then you can publish dozens. And it's trivial to have a dozen amazon accounts/email combos to make the purchases with.
Comments in the article are from 2018: what’s changed since then?
So odd question if anyone can answer. Did Amazon already have the author's information ( and hence the 1099 ) or did the fraudster submit it ( in which case, why did he give the correct address )?
> Reames is a credited author on Amazon by way of several commodity industry books
They most likely already had his information.
They most likely already had his information.
Given that some of the titles have 1-star reviews, I think the goal is to scam people into buying expensive crap. The books are auto generated and the content is worthless.
In many countries it’s difficult to request refunds for online payments, especially if it was clear what you were buying. There’s a look inside button you can use to see a large selection of pages.
He generated so many books probably to cover all kinds of tech topics, to reach more victims.
In many countries it’s difficult to request refunds for online payments, especially if it was clear what you were buying. There’s a look inside button you can use to see a large selection of pages.
He generated so many books probably to cover all kinds of tech topics, to reach more victims.
What I mean to say is that a launderer would not have bothered leaving bad reviews for his own fake books. The people who did this bought the books by mistake.
Not sure why this idea gets downvoted. The simpler explanation is usually right.
Not sure why this idea gets downvoted. The simpler explanation is usually right.
An investor, Meb Faber, has written on this topic several times (2018):
> Why All My Books Are Now Free (aka A Lesson in Amazon Scams and Money Laundering)
https://mebfaber.com/2018/04/18/how-to-launder-money-with-am...
> Why All My Books Are Now Free (aka A Lesson in Amazon Scams and Money Laundering)
https://mebfaber.com/2018/04/18/how-to-launder-money-with-am...
The linked article is from February 2018 -- almost 3 years ago. How relevant is it now in 2021?
Just fraud, not laundering. They're solving the problem of how to effectively cash out credit cards. Selling items in someone else's platform has multiple upsides:
1. it's a large trusted platform, so the victim's bank is less likely to freeze the transactions
2. multiple items with arbitrary pricing means maxing out each card is simpler
3. the platform will likely have to eat the charge-backs, so where ever the seller receives money from Amazon is relatively safe for a while to further convert into crypto or whatever
4. because of the size of the platform you can keep creating new accounts indefinitely - they cannot possibly vet all new sellers - this is probably where the stolen identities for authors come in. Amazon must be doing some basic sanity checks / credit score lookups or something similar - hence they need real peoples names / SSNs.
I've seen similar things on app stores / freelancer sites etc. Yes, the accounts get flagged after a while, but there's usually enough time to cash out and creating a new one isn't that hard.
1. it's a large trusted platform, so the victim's bank is less likely to freeze the transactions
2. multiple items with arbitrary pricing means maxing out each card is simpler
3. the platform will likely have to eat the charge-backs, so where ever the seller receives money from Amazon is relatively safe for a while to further convert into crypto or whatever
4. because of the size of the platform you can keep creating new accounts indefinitely - they cannot possibly vet all new sellers - this is probably where the stolen identities for authors come in. Amazon must be doing some basic sanity checks / credit score lookups or something similar - hence they need real peoples names / SSNs.
I've seen similar things on app stores / freelancer sites etc. Yes, the accounts get flagged after a while, but there's usually enough time to cash out and creating a new one isn't that hard.
How is this not money laundering? It is most definitely money laundering. The stolen money arrives in a bank account appearing “clean” because it was “earned” via Amazon book sales. The true origin of the illicit cash is now obscured and within the mainstream financial system.
That just seems short sighted as the seller's account would be tracked down sooner or later. Entering your real details on a receiving account is way too risky.
It would be possible to launder with a similar setup - just not with stolen cards but with prepaid cash/crypto ones so amazon doesn't flag the account for charge-backs. But then there's no real need to steal the book author's identity. You could just put your own name or a pseudonym on it. For a 1099 to arrive they've clearly entered the stolen SSN somewhere. You'd want your own SSN there to prove to the IRS that you've made the money... (and then you'd want to pay the taxes).
It would be possible to launder with a similar setup - just not with stolen cards but with prepaid cash/crypto ones so amazon doesn't flag the account for charge-backs. But then there's no real need to steal the book author's identity. You could just put your own name or a pseudonym on it. For a 1099 to arrive they've clearly entered the stolen SSN somewhere. You'd want your own SSN there to prove to the IRS that you've made the money... (and then you'd want to pay the taxes).
Not if you’re transferring the funds to a non-US account via wire transfer. They time it perfectly so the money is in and out of the person’s account before the person even realizes it and by the time they do it’s too late. The money is gone.
I guess it could be. Either that or I'm overestimating the thief's long term planning ability :)
Still - if they're not paying the taxes I wouldn't call it laundering.
Still - if they're not paying the taxes I wouldn't call it laundering.
Thats an odd distinction to draw. The definition of money laundering has nothing to do with taxes.
Exactly. The same kind of money laundering happens on Steam as well. Buying and selling CS:GO skins and trading cards or whatever for hundreds or thousands of dollars through a trading platform not designed to care about shady transaction patterns.
How is this money "laundering"? It just seems like a way to use stolen credit cards to make fraudulent charges.
Needs (2018)
(2018)
I had the same with Verizon after someone opened a wireless account in my name. After supplying all the documentation they asked for, they came back to me, "our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" (i.e. that they were saying that the account, and credit tradeline, were in fact mine).
"So what documents did I use to open this account?" "We can't tell you, for privacy reasons." "Did you verify my identity at the start of this call?" "Yes." "And you're saying your investigation believes that I opened the account." "Yes." "So I can't see my own documents in order to protect my privacy?" "Well... in case the account isn't yours... umm, ahh..." "..." "..."