[MERGED] Banks, Fraud and the Internet

[tmknowl]

The Transaction Came through on my CC Statement as being on the 19/04/05 and posted to my statement on the 21st.

It reads: www.IBUYIT.BIZ +442070601419 164.EUR £114.97

I have left several messages on the answerphone for the contat number and e-mailed them, but I do not expect to hear from them, so I will be waiting for Natwest to charge it back and refund me.

[WorriedFella]

Interesting ... myself and a colleague have had debits from our accounts dated 21/4/05, www.ibuyit.biz. We didn't buy anything from here. We both bank with Smile, but we don't think they've been comprimised. We've both also recently bought a bicycle from http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/ with our cards, this is the only other transaction we have in common, and it's too much of a coincidence we have both been hit.

Has anyone else who has been debited by www.ibuyit.biz also recently bought a bike from this company?

FYI - got a reply to my email to www.ibuyit.biz querying this payment:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am glad to inform you, that your card has been refunded. Your money
should appear in your account within 15-20 days.
Best Regards nad Have a nice day!
Andriy

I'm sure you agree that isn't satisfactory!

[bob_builder]

WorriedFella!

I would not worry about http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/ too much. They are based in Southend-on-Sea and have been around for years so I doubt they would be doing anything on purpose.

If you read back in this thread you will see that it appears the people are generating credit card numbers using another website so I would say it is just a coincidence. It may be that both your Smile cards are close in number so they got generated consecutively.

[WorriedFella]

Yes i did read the whole thread before posting. Agreed, they wouldn't do anything on purpose. I know the shop, dont live far from it. But... I doubt their infrastructure is as secure as, for example, a bigger organisation would be. They could have been comprimised ("hacked"), or they may have an employee who has sold CC numbers. We have been in touch with them and they're eager to help.

I disagree in regards to the random generator, I think it's much more likely to have been somewhere we both used our cards. Especially when you take into account another 10 colleagues bank with Smile (i work in IT, most use it), none of these people have had this debit, only the 2 who ordered from sterlinghouse ... Thats, you've got to admit, hell of a coincidence ... Certainly requires investigation. Interested if tmknowl, for example, ordered something from here. Doesn't matter how long this company has been there, or how good their reputation if they have insecure infrastucture (and you'll be amazed how many do ...).

[Flubflow]

I am strongly doubting that generated card numbers & guessed expiry dates are to blame. There would be more misses than hits. Too many misses from too few sources for card companies to ignore. Add the requirement for a vaild cardholder name and you'd have billions upon billions of combinations.
You can't even make a valid online transaction with just a card number and an expiry date anyway. You need the cardholder's name and the CVC code (which is not linked to the card number mathematically so can't be generated). Most places also require the card holders address for AVS (address verification system).

If we are to believe Check&Bill then just the card number & exp date alone would not go through their system and they require the CVC code etc then how could these customers have been debited?

Well, I am more and more conviced that this is an inside job either by an employee(s) of credit card companies or the post office who are intercepting and passing full card/cardholder details onto a colluding third party (e.g. to someone running fake shop website) for a cut. See my previous link to the new story about woman temp worker at VISA who got caught doing precisely that. There was no indication that the 3rd party was caught and those details could still be in that fraud network (plus the fact that there are quite probably others still planted in the credit card companies who have not been caught yet).

[Kazzy Mojo]

Originally Posted by WorriedFella

Interesting ... myself and a colleague have had debits from our accounts dated 21/4/05, www.ibuyit.biz. We didn't buy anything from here. We both bank with Smile, but we don't think they've been comprimised. We've both also recently bought a bicycle from http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/ with our cards, this is the only other transaction we have in common, and it's too much of a coincidence we have both been hit.

Has anyone else who has been debited by www.ibuyit.biz also recently bought a bike from this company?

FYI - got a reply to my email to www.ibuyit.biz querying this payment:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am glad to inform you, that your card has been refunded. Your money
should appear in your account within 15-20 days.
Best Regards nad Have a nice day!
Andriy

I'm sure you agree that isn't satisfactory!

Hi
I too was scammed by ibuyit.biz and have also recently purchased 2 bikes from sterlinghouse. Reading the thread and doing my own research I still think Bingham Trading may be behind it all. Interestingly there are some very dodgy sounding companies registered at the Worldcharge Ltd address at 12 Charlton Church Lane. Solicitors, who are not registered anywhere, specialing in finance and the registration of offshore companies and also have law companies in Moscow - back to the Russian link. Also the designer of their website specialises in designing websites for financial and legal companies. Interesting also that both Ibuyit.biz and hardware4u.biz websites are often inaccessible. I have a local journalist doing some research and have also reported the scam to Private Eye magazine.

[mariehawkins]

hi, i just wanted to mention that everytime i have received a new card the card number has been different. this is even the case when the card expired and not just when reported stolen.
also the second mail from the checkandbill bloke sounded dodgy. it seemed rather more unproffessional than his first post. i think we chould all be cautious about who is visiting/posting on this site as people can easily deceive!
if your new on the most important thing is to cancel your card and reprt the fraund to your bank asap. if they know your number is activie they will strike again!
ta ta

[MacMc]

Originally Posted by Kazzy Mojo

Hi
I too was scammed by ibuyit.biz and have also recently purchased 2 bikes from sterlinghouse. Reading the thread and doing my own research I still think Bingham Trading may be behind it all. Interestingly there are some very dodgy sounding companies registered at the Worldcharge Ltd address at 12 Charlton Church Lane. Solicitors, who are not registered anywhere, specialing in finance and the registration of offshore companies and also have law companies in Moscow - back to the Russian link. Also the designer of their website specialises in designing websites for financial and legal companies. Interesting also that both Ibuyit.biz and hardware4u.biz websites are often inaccessible. I have a local journalist doing some research and have also reported the scam to Private Eye magazine.

i also bought a bike from sterling house and had a unautherized withdrawal from my account of £98.62 on the 21/4/05. I am still trying to get i ntouch with Ibuyit.biz but getting no reply

[alzie]

Originally Posted by WorriedFella

Interesting ... myself and a colleague have had debits from our accounts dated 21/4/05, www.ibuyit.biz. We didn't buy anything from here. We both bank with Smile, but we don't think they've been comprimised. We've both also recently bought a bicycle from http://www.sterlinghouse.co.uk/ with our cards, this is the only other transaction we have in common, and it's too much of a coincidence we have both been hit.

Has anyone else who has been debited by www.ibuyit.biz also recently bought a bike from this company?

FYI - got a reply to my email to www.ibuyit.biz querying this payment:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am glad to inform you, that your card has been refunded. Your money
should appear in your account within 15-20 days.
Best Regards nad Have a nice day!
Andriy

I'm sure you agree that isn't satisfactory!

Hi
I have just had my credit card statement in with a transaction for £105.15 to www.ibuyit.biz. Last year i bought two bikes from Sterling House. I have now contacted the police to see if they can dig something up.
Alzie

[Tiny]

Hi

Just found this forum as a result of a google search 'www.ibuyit.biz scam fraud'. Why? Because I too have had FOUR debits from two separate current accounts at the CoOp and Barclays. Both 'cardholder not present transactions' debited to WWW.IBUYIT.BIZ (ROMANIA). Two taken on the 10/5 and debited on 13/5 and two taken 11/5 and debited 14/5. What are the chances of hitting two separate current accounts using random card number generation? Very low! Here's the rub! I too have purchased two bikes from Sterling House around Xmas time using the two separate accounts! Too much of a co-incidence I think! I've informed the police and suggest others do too!

[bob_builder]

OK, MacMc, alzie and Tiny!

It does now sound like there is a mole at Sterling House or their processing house. How many others who have been previously affected have bought bikes from them?

Regarding sorting this out - make sure you report it to your credit card companies before you do anything else - any company worth their salt should give a complete refund pretty sharpish and look into the fraud for you; if they do not I would seriously suggest changing card companies.

[Flubflow]

Has any of you who have been scammed contacted the Serious Fraud Office www.sfo.gov.uk yet?
Although the SFO tend to investigate frauds of over £1milli on and these individual cases here obviously are only in the hundreds, I think collectively the fraud could be huge and hence qualify on that basis. It certainly fits the other criteria they have ( www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/cases.asp ). It does have a international dimension (something which the regional fraud squads might find difficult to deal with), there is likely to be widespread concern, it does require highly specialised (or at least privelidged) knowledge, and finally it probably would require SFO's special powers ( sec.2 of the CJA - www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/section2.asp ).
There is also the question that this also might be a money laundering crime.

Failing that, there is the.....
SCD6 Economic and Specialist Crime OCU
Wellington House, 67-73 Buckingham Gate, London, SW1E 6BE
www.met.police.uk/fraudalert
fraud.alert@met.police.uk

Check their wanted page to see if any familiar names ever come up.....
http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/wanted.htm

I know that if I had been scammed then I'd be badgering the above agencies to do something because it is obvious that the credit card companies don't give a toss about nailing the source of the problem.

BTW, Welcome to those new members to the forum thread.

[jamesreid@wightc]

My card was debited back in February and I have already posted the details. I am just adding my name to the Sterling House cycle connection as I purchased a bike just before Xmas as well! "Things that make you go....hmmm!!"

[Brendan1977]

Just joined this forum after trying to work out why I was charged 152 Euros by www.ibuyit.biz on 19/04/2005.

It turns out that the probable reason was that I bought 2 bikes from Sterling House a couple of months ago...

Has anyone yet managed to get through to ibuyit.biz - I left a message on their answer-phone on Friday but haven't heard anything since.

[sam]

Pinkvixen

You can add me to the list of people who have previously used their cards at Sterling House.