With all the bank fraud that exists, it surprises me that there isn’t more–now and historically. You could set up a fake web site with fake products and take orders and collect all the credit card numbers you can eat. I’ve done a lot of electronic check transactions online, and all you need are routing numbers and account numbers. Which are on every single paper check you write. Before ACH, you could counterfeit checks with a rudimentary understanding of how they are printed and a little special equipment.
I have only two theories:
[ul]
[li]As many bad people as there are in the world, they are still vastly outnumbered by good people[/li][li]The banks are way smarter than most people who think they can make money by bank fraud[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Because the anti-money-laundering laws make it so you can’t just go open a bank account stating you’re “John Doe” who lives at 123 Main St; you need various forms of proof that you are who you say you are, a DL, a utility bill, etc.[/li][li]Because the banks do background checks against your information to rate it’s accuracy percentage. [/li][li]Because banks will get hit will all sorts of fines & sanctions if they don’t comply with the AML laws (which benefit the government).[/li][li]Because banks do thinks like put limits on new accts; all perfectly legal if in the new acct disclosures. Most fraud occurs on new accts. More time & more risk of being caught the longer you have an acct.[/li][li]Because the bank can be on the hook if they introduce fraudulent ACH activity into the system. [/li][li]Because banks can suffer consequences if they introduce too much fraud into the ACH network, from fines to ultimately being kicked out of the network. Besides limiting their ability to grow their business, it would bring all sorts of scrutiny from the rest of the banking regulators. [/li][li]Because banks have all sorts of internal reporting, including on large dollar txns. [/li][/ul]
I’ve worked in banking, I know a lot of the details about the safeguards & what I could get away with from certain places that I’ve worked at. Besides having morals & values, the risk/reward benefit isn’t there for me. I could get away with a couple hundred bucks, but what’s that really getting me? The big score I’d want for my efforts would get noticed/noticed much quicker. While I might not get jail time for a small theft, I would certainly lose not just my job but my career since I wouldn’t be able to pass the pre-employment background check. anymore.
There is a lot of fraud. The issue is you get stopped fairly quickly before you can do a lot of damage. I had my wallet taken and in less then 20 minutes they rang up over $2,000 worth of charges. This was at physical and online stores.
Citibank reversed everything immediately and to get it permanently reversed I just had to submit a notarized copy of the police report.
I doubt anything was done to find out who charged this, but it should be easily traceable. But the Citibank doesn’t care because two months later my interest rate was raised and I cancelled the card. Honest people will pay either way.