Nintendo Loses Patent Suit In East Texas, Of Course

Forget Credit Cards, Scammers Now Want Your VoIP Accounts?

from the worth-more-money dept

Thu, May 15th 2008 5:18pm — Mike Masnick

Last month, we pointed out that the market for stolen credit card data was so saturated that prices were falling. Of course, that just inspired scammers to go looking for other types of data that was a bit harder to find: VoIP accounts. According to the BBC, scammers selling VoIP account info are now able to get higher prices than those selling credit card data. Of course, it's not at all clear how widespread this really is. The info seems to be coming from a company trying to sell a solution to deal with this -- which already makes it somewhat suspect. Also, you have to wonder how valuable VoIP account data really can be compared to credit card numbers which have much wider applicability. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the market deals with the "glut" of credit card data out there, and where else data scammers turn.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: credit cards, identity fraud, voip

6 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2008 @ 7:07pm

I suppose you could use VOIP lines to run up 900 number fees and such....

But then again, maybe not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Matt D, 15 May 2008 @ 8:31pm

or you could sell the minutes you hacked for 1/4th what they are worth and make millions like Pena did here.

America's Most Wanted
http://www.amw.com/Fugitives/brief.cfm?id=49218

of course this was on a much larger scale.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bob A, 17 May 2008 @ 8:34am

VoIP account scam protection
Here is a stop-loss fix. If you have an ordinary residential VoIP telephone home account like mine then get your account provider to lower your monthly credit limit right down really low but not too near your own usage. Then his billing system is protecting you. Fraudulent use will bust the limit and trigger an alert. Make sure he agrees not raise your limit later just because you are a good customer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Slick Rick, 17 May 2008 @ 9:37am

or...you could use these voip accounts to collect credit card numbers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Johnson Smith, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:57am

Forget Credit Card Number
I have forgotten my credit card number please help me out
Thanks
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- alice elorde, 20 Mar 2011 @ 5:20am
  
  Re: Forget Credit Card Number
  please help me to find it how
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]