January 07, 2009
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News: Less Fraud but More Expensive.
Credit card fraud is not going anywhere. The black market is, however, heading for lean times. Spokespeople for the black market credit card industry have already made a bold request to Congress for a bailout. They have become so large that they purport that when they do poorly, the whole economy suffers for it. After flying into our nation's capital in their private jets, purchased with funds from stolen credit cards, they were sent back home without much luck. Not to be taken lightly, this industry still boast about $276 million worth of product. Taken to it's full potential including special offers and discounts, the theoretical yield from their product could net as much as $5.3 billion. So, they'll survive somehow, even in hard times. For more complete information on the credit card black market industry, please review the articles entitled "("Made in the Shade Shady Business", "CC Black Market Thrives.", "CC Black Market Product Line.", "Why Do You Think They Call it ‘Bail Money'?"
Just like any other free market industry, they play by the rules of supply and demand. As such, they will not have as many victims to pick from this year, with far fewer credit cards floating around. This drain will naturally drive their market prices up and make the fewer high quality credit cards remaining worth more to steal. Higher levels of security will be incumbent on the innocent card holders of the future. Vigilance is required, here.
One unique thing about the credit card industry is that distance becomes less of a barrier. The line between nation credit card fraud and world-wild fraud is very thin. However, market worth is very different. The ‘smart chips' embedded in most cards today enjoy much more appreciation abroad then they do in this country. The added power from these small chips offers greater utility overseas. This affords greater value on the world market than our national market does.
On the other hand, the ‘smart chips' do offer higher security, provided the thief doesn't have access to the four-digit ‘PIN code' used to access it. In those cases, our national market is more favorable for fraud because the US seems to be ‘last' among those countries who plan to make use of them. The added level of security is lost in this country because we are a few years away from implementing the EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) standard and the cards are easier to ‘break'.