Thousands of fraudsters are selling via Shopify, analysis finds | Hacker News Reader

Thousands of fraudsters are selling via Shopify, analysis finds

ft.com

51 pointsjuokaz21 comments

I have commented on similar articles in the past. Fraud is a massive issue with all online payment processors. It's incredibly easy to open bank accounts online and register with stripe online. Somewhere in here I have an email with PC @ Stripe, but I can't dig it out now.

This is just step one in the typical process. Once you build some level of history on your store it typically escalates to using stolen payment information. You pay $10-$15 for a card and use it on your own store.

Stripe will shut you down or ask for additional verification after ~20k in processed charges. What do you care? You can just open up a new store.

>It's incredibly easy to open bank accounts online

I didn't know this, is this country specific or available to anyone?

The USA is where I have experience specifically.

BoA, WF, PNC, Chase and Navy Federal. You can chose to deposit funds via ATM when you receive the debit card or you can transfer from a secondary account such as a prepaid debit available at Walmart. Once it is opened you can also open additional accounts within the web interface.

It was also possible to use Fidelity/TD Ameritrade accounts on Stripe for a significant period of time. It was also possible to append 0 on the account number to reuse bank accounts on Stripe after they removed your fraudulent account.

> The USA is where I have experience specifically.

Found the money launderer ;)

Not quite. I was charged by the SEC.

Awesome. To most people that would be a bad thing. To a guy like me, that's a badge of honor.

EDIT - my friend, what you pulled off was a f*cking masterpiece. Bravo. Not sarcasm, I am totally serious.

See...now, that's the hard part. Not getting caught. It's easy to do lots of shady things, not getting caught doing them is where it gets tricky.

I could see how this would be the common perception among lay people.

Except most criminals do not get caught. That's something most people do not realize. Silk road, FinCEN and the Panama Papers are the tip of the iceberg.

>Except most criminals do not get caught.

I never said most criminals get caught, I said not getting caught is harder than doing the shady thing. Just because something's hard, doesn't mean lots of people don't manage to do it.

Some times you have to take a bullet to dodge an axe.

It's not easy to open bank accounts online unless you are rich (250k deposit) or know a private banker, although due to corona it has gotten easier for Americans and probably others. However a TW Borderless account is good enough for Shopify Payments.

Source: I have opened at least 5 bank accounts via private bankers over the years and multiple TW accounts and have used many processors with many types of accounts.

Any national or large regional US bank likely allows people to open accounts online. With the advent of branchless banks, there are more than a few where you can only open an account online.

The last 3 bank accounts I’ve opened have been online.

During covid, in my experience, it was very difficult to actually get it done as the banks I talked to all had an influx of requests and couldn't keep up. Also, I'm not counting it as "opening online" if you need to do any KYC anywhere physical. I'm talking about opening while abroad which requires showing your passport on a Zoom call. I am also not counting banks that I consider to be not real banks, such as Mercury among others, altho they will be fine for many people. But it's not a real bank when you have a 5,000 or 20,000 USD daily spend limits and if sending a wire to China and getting one wire returned gets your account shut down (my experience). Any upstart bank which doesnt have it's own banking license but instead used a partner bank is so scared of losing their partnership and so purely focused on growth that they dont want any "difficult" clients.

When did you open your last 3 accounts and which banks were they and how did you do the KYC? I would love to be wrong.

At least in my Canadian experience, they’ll have one way or another of validating against an existing account that you have there or elsewhere. Basically outsourcing the physical KYC to someone else. Maybe things have changed though.

I didn’t have existing accounts at any of them. The last one I opened ran my application through one of those identity verification services that ask me questions about what prior addresses I had, other accounts on my credit report, etc.

Which bank is this?

PNC virtual wallet. Capital One 360 checking. Navy Federal, Chase, Bank of America, etc. etc.

There are hundreds of banks across the USA and you would be surprised how easy it is at a minority of them.

Long time ago I tried to open a bank account in the UK as I was moving to there. Main problem was proof of address, I couldn't proof it because I didn't receive the utility bills and/or contract as my employer was paying it. Even having money outside UK didn't count at the end my employer had to write a letter to proof I had a job, and lived at address X and then I got a shitty bank account were I could only use the bank's ATMs. Luckily a half year later I could upgrade to a normal account once I was able to get a mobile phone plan (similar proof of address issue)

https://archive.is/SqHVv

For example https://camilou.fr uses shopify but do not deliver any item ! I have orderered a big bag but the item has been delivered in the letter box ! and to another person ! They do not answer to any claims I have sent them.

In my country if the fraudster can demonstrate they made some effort to fulfil the orders but it just "didn't work out", then police will not care and tell to find a solicitor as it is a civil matter in their book. Did they use fake address? Well, tough luck.

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