Secrets of a credit card thief

The Secret Service says identity theft and credit card fraud are among the fastest growing crimes in the United States billions of dollars are lost every year and recently we got a first-hand look at the cat-and-mouse game between federal law enforcement officials and the online criminals trying to steal your money how much time would you have spent in one of these chat rooms back when you were doing this I spent all day every day for more than three years 30 year-old dandy philippi cashed in on other people's credit cards on his way to becoming a professional hacker and personal identity thief well most of the stuff I did was was straight credit card fraud but I did do some identity theft where I opened accounts in people's names did you feel powerful yeah I mean there was some power to it you know knowing that I could walk in a store and walk out with whatever I wanted pretty much for free how much money had you spent on other people's credit cards I spent about two hundred and ten thousand dollars on discover cards that doesn't include Visa and MasterCard probably upwards of a half a million but his high-end shopping spree came to an abrupt end when authorities tracked him down through a fake card he'd created in exchange for a lesser sentence he agreed to pay back all the money he stole and work with Secret Service and breaking up cyber gangs it actually worked with them for two years doing training teaching them how these online communities work we have 45 field officers across the country catching criminals like D Philippi is a major priority 480 Smith the assistant director for investigations of United States Secret Service how big of a problem is credit card fraud here in the United States this large problem and it's pervasive and certainly with the continued use of technology and the Internet it's become even more of a problem over the last several years last year alone the agency arrested 1200 cyber criminals with the loss of nearly half a billion dollars this is our command center and we can do a number of things from here recently they invited us in to see their high tech command center where they track and monitor one of the fastest growing crimes in real time protecting unsuspecting companies and consumers who are the perpetrators of these cyber crimes they could be sitting next door behind a keyboard there or they could be on the other side of the world quite frankly one of the things that cybercrime credit card fraud and the like has made it easy for is the kind of person that doesn't have to actually go out and break into your house since here's a chat room where people are buying and selling pretty much anything you can think of when we met D Philippi he showed us how quickly and easily someone can purchase credit card and other personal information just by going online how much does it cost to buy someone's credit card could cost anywhere from $1 to maybe $20 depending upon the type of car the information that comes with it and how many you buy the more you buy the cheaper it gets so here you have two people you have their credit card number their expiration that looks like the secret number yep that's the CBB right there that credit card number belonged to this woman so we tracked her down to warn her that her financial information was compromised so how does it make you feel to see your name your address your credit card information in this public place it's I mean it's unnerving it's my identity and it's for sale on a website it's really scary and it definitely makes me think about what I'm gonna have to do going forward to keep something like this from happening again these are two criminals that are negotiating 480 Smith and his agents staying one step ahead in the virtual world is no doubt their biggest challenge in the real world for every advance we make the criminal is able to find a way very often to perpetrate their crime and to continue their efforts so it's always a game back and forth it was cause for concern there yeah it was really shocking to me just to see how easy it was to track this info down best way to protect yourself first of all you only want to work with vendors merchants that you know never put your credit card on a website you don't know clear your passwords never respond to an email from a bank or a credit card company because there are people out there who will use the logos they'll make it look legit but it's not monitor those statements right and also get that annual credit report if you do think you've been compromised contact the credit card company or bank immediately Rebecca very eye-opening

Channel: CBS

Views: 148,998

Keywords: cbsepisode, the, early, show, credit, card, fraud, theft, theif, secrets, hackers

Id: vgFcGA7URZI

Length: 4min 40sec (280 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2011