May 12, 2003
VISA Fraud Detection Failure

VISA cardThe other day, I got to feel a new problem with being a very frequent traveller that I had never thought about before:

Since I have an odd tendency to suddenly show up in occationally "random" places and taking cash at an ATM using my VISA there (without necessarily having paid my travel using the same card), it seems VISA's fraud detection mechanism didn't raise a red flag when some scamster recently took out a significant amount of money using a counterfeited copy of my card.

I have no idea where they got the data from; I suspect I must have paid with my VISA in some restaurant or in a shop and have let the card get out of my view, allowing an employee to make a copy of the magnetic strip of my card:

Skimming takes place when a dishonest cashier secretly copies the magnetic stripe on a customer’s credit card by swiping it through a small card reader. These details are then used to make counterfeit cards, which are often sold on. A huge shopping spree follows and the genuine cardholder’s account is charged. As the original card has not been stolen, it can take some time before this type of fraud is detected. Most credit card companies now use software to identify “unusual spending patterns” and automatically cancel cards. (from MSN Money UK: Credit card skimming)

According to the credit card companies, they apply various technologies, including Artificial Intelligence to detect transactions that doesn't fit with an individual's spending pattern, and this is where my problem comes in: as a frequent traveller, my spending pattern COULD theoretically have seen me take a large amount of cash despite having taken out money in a different country the day before and the day after. Very unlikely, and of course in this case I wasn't there, but VISA unfortunately didn't automatically stop the transaction... I wish they had given me a call just to be sure...

Now, of course, I am facing having to make a police declaration, but luckily the bank has promised me to refund the money taken. The following question is still open (and the bank is still out on this one): should I make the police declaration I'm in now (UK), the country where my account is based (France), the country I was in when the scam occurred (Norway) or in the country where the money actually was taken (a south east European country)?

Morale: do not let your credit card get out of sight when paying at restaurants, and do check your bank statements closely!

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Comments

Another reason why I love online banking.. I can check my statements every few days.

Also, the police report problem leads me to believe that you Europeans should just get over yourselves and become one big country. Then you wouldn't have to worry about where to file the report. ;)

Seriously though, I'd say you should file a report in the country where the crime occured, and perhaps also where your card's billing address is.. But honestly, thats just my intuition, its not based on anything resembling fact. :)

You might also just ask VISA about it. I'm sure it happens enough, and they probably know the answer of which police agencies to contact about it.

Good luck, credit cards are handy, but they can also be a huge pain.. Maybe you should stop all your traveling and just be really predictable. Buy 30$ worth of groceries on each Tuesday, then a 24 pack of cheap beer on each Thursday. Petrol on Wednesday, and three games of bowling every other Friday. Maintain that consistent pattern, and never do anything else. That way if there is any fraud, they'll be able to tell immediately.

Posted by: sam on May 12, 2003 03:27 PM

This is the classic example of why using credit cards online is safer than using it in many places such as a restaurant, where the card is often out of your sight as the waitron processes the card in the back room. That sort of theft is just so much easier to pull off, and can be done by one bad employee. Hope you're able to get it all undone...

Posted by: john on May 13, 2003 03:57 AM

Oh, I have one tiny comment, that I feel bad making because it sounds nit-picky and makes me sound like a snob. However, I do remember you saying a while back that part of the reason you blog is to improve your English.

Anyway, the word 'morale' means (from Webster's Dict) "The moral condition, or the condition in other respects, so far as it is affected by, or dependent upon, moral considerations, such as zeal, spirit, hope, and confidence; mental state, as of a body of men, an army, and the like."

Morale is a level of confidence that a group has. An army that is excited, confident, and ready for battle would be said to have 'high morale'. In contrast, a company where all the employees are worried about the future, and not confident about the performance of the company, would be said to have 'low morale'.

I think the word you are looking for is 'moral', the relevant definition being, "Serving to teach or convey a moral; as, a moral lesson; moral tales."

Maybe you already know that and it was just a typo, but I thought I'd point it out in case it was a wierdness of English you hadn't gotten to yet. :)

Posted by: sam on May 13, 2003 07:23 AM

Thanks for the clarification, Sam. I appreciate it! You correctly spotted a nuance of the English language that I had missed :-)

Posted by: Anders on May 13, 2003 11:49 AM

I have been trying to locate information on visa fraud (imagration visa) and your site came up. Does anyone have any idea's on who to contact to report fraud? This girl I know is trying to con my best friend into marying her for a green card and she is planning on taking EVERYTHING he has...now that's not right. So I found out that she is working illegaly...any ideas?? Send me an e-mail! Thanks!!

Posted by: Sarah on September 23, 2005 12:21 AM

I have been trying to locate information on visa fraud (imagration visa) and your site came up. Does anyone have any idea's on who to contact to report fraud? This girl I know is trying to con my best friend into marying her for a green card and she is planning on taking EVERYTHING he has...now that's not right. So I found out that she is working illegaly...any ideas?? Send me an e-mail! Thanks!!

Posted by: Sarah on September 23, 2005 12:23 AM

Jesus Christ is a false god.
At best all Christians can hope for is partial credit.

Program on the emergence of civilization.

"14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent. "
Favor.
And disfavor.

They point out Africans’ failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it's applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.

AIDS in Africa.


Organizational Heirarchy/Levels of positioning.
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as "god"
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management
3. Evil/disfavored aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere

Terrestrial management/positioning:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - The seamless transition between Cleopatra and Julius Ceasar may be a clue alluding to a partnership.
6. Mafia - the real-world 20th century interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.


Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1985 James Bond View to a Kill 1989 San Francisco Loma Prieta earthquake.


Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying "He has more money than god." There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says "I'm too old and rich for this."

This is the system on earth because this is the system everywhere.

20 cent/hour Chinese labor, 50 cents for material.
An $80 sweater costs less than a dollar; tribute kicked upstairs vindicates the creative accounting.

I don't want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe. But these individuals become wealthy exploiting those they hurt.

They have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won't help people. They say only good (favored) would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help.

The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

I offer an example of historical proportions:::

People point to Walmart and cry "anti-union".
Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family's problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority.
Unions serve to empower.
Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an environment where there are fewer hurdles.

Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people's belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes.
Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins. They all do it. Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise. So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

The middle class is being deceived. They are being misled into the disfavored, and subsequently will have no assistance from their purchases with corporate america.

The coining of the term "Uncle Sam" was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton's WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.

They desire a system based on duality:::good and evil. They seek to set up a system of two participants, assign them polar opposites, and give people clues alluding to their affiliation:::
Coke and Pepsi
BestBuy and CircutCity
Energizer and Duracell
Republican and Democrat
The list goes on and on:::
AMD and Intel
Apple and Microsoft (?)
Lowes and HomeDepot
Sam'sClub and Costco
WellsFargo and BofA. For the longest time in CA these two banks reigned supreme.
Pier1 and CostPlus
Borders and Barnes&Noble
PetCo and PetSmart


The truth is decisions are made on each individual based on family history and individual charecter and they either push them with AI or, in this age, tell them to buy from good or evil corporations, depending on the decison, then use that business relationship as positioning to justiy their decision.


Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects. Italy sent its criminals, malcontents.
Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they decided who they didn't want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.
The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects. It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries. As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren't their real names. I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

Royalty is the correct way to organize a society. Dictatorships and monarchies are a reflection of the antient's hierarchical organization.
Positions go to those who have favor with the rulers, as opposed to being elected.
Elections bring a false sense of how the world is. Democracy misleads people. This is why the disfavored rejects were sent to the shores of America::To keep them on the wrong path. And it's why the US earns its way out of disfavor by inflicting democracy upon the disfavored::Iraq and Vietnam.


Jesus Christ is a false god. All Christians can recieve is partial credit, at best.
The Catholic Church in the tretcherous 20th century teaches of a begnign, forgiving god when quite the opposite is true.
And now they do it to disfavored people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them.
The seperatist churches formed because many conciencious thrones wanted their people to earn more than the paltry credit offered via worship through the Catholic Church. But because they were white the throne required worship to stay within Christianity.

Simpson's foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. "It's always the one you least suspect."
"You'll see lots of nuns where you're going:::hell." St. Wigham, Helloween VI:::missionary work, destroying cultures.
Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

The advent of the modern Christmas was a brilliant move. It created a vested interest among those who would prefer the Church be destroyed::::
As goes the Catholic Church so goes the majority of annual retail sales.
The similarity between the names "Santa" and "Satan" is no coincidence.

Jews maim the body formed in the image of "god", and inflicted circumcision upon all other white people.
I think about how Jews were used to create homosexuality among Slavics, supposedly retribution for the Holocaust.
Then I think of the Catholic Church and its troubles.
What connection is here between Jews and the Catholic church???
If it is their sinister motives that’s behind the evil that is Jesus Christ are they being used at all?
Perhaps it is them who are pulling strings.
Their centuries of slavery in Egypt proves their disfavor.
For their suffering the Jew leaders were granted the right to prey on the up-and-coming Europeans to try to fix their problems with the ruling elite by imposing a false god upon white people, a recurring aspect of the elite's methodology.
Jews were ostracised for a reason.


There are consequences for the peasant's resistance:::
1. Labor unrest caused the world at war.
2. Black militancy ignited the crack epidemic and gang-related deaths.
3. Women's rights/sexual freedom produced Roe v Wade and women's exclusion from contention for Planet Immortality. But on the bright side peasants don't go. Money is one way of indicating favor, and if you're not wealthy you don't have favor, so don't sweat it::you weren't going anyways. They're leading a lot of people on.


Retribution for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, the Korean War got the disfavored United States into this socially depraved environment in the latter 20th century because the disfavored attacked an antient, revered peoples. Our continued presence keeps us in trouble.
When the disfavored americans attack the wrong people again, as they suggested they will, in Korea or elsewhere, they will pay dearly.

All peoples are ranked in terms of favor and disfavor. And when the disfavored abuse those with favor there is hell to pay.
All the groups mentioned throughout are necessary to justify the will of the managing species. They conceive a strategy, devise a plan yet need a way to implement it, and without these groups the managing species would be exposed in the course of execution. So, based upon their rank they are assigned goals to accomplish and are rewarded with favors.


I question if we would even experience global warming if they didn't terraform in an attempt to destroy disfavored human life on planet earth::::they terraform the weather as they did in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina (and lots of other examples) and justify it with behavior like instructing their petroleum friends to repress alternative technologies.
This is all happening shortly after the Exodus of 2000 (clues::Hong Kong, Panama Canal) for a reason::: they are INFLICTING it upon us, they are hastening closure. Everybody they care about has come up, replaced by clones.
Just as favored European peoples got out before the ugliness of WWII, the semi-favored within the US got out before 9/11.
Armeggedon isn’t about the end of the world. Armeggedon is about the death of the disfavored left behind. And they weren’t lying::this time it is going to happen with fire.

Posted by: god is a computer on February 9, 2006 06:05 PM
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