Welcome to the Oregon FBI’s Tech Tuesday segment. This week, building a digital defense against cyber shoplifters. What is a cyber shoplifter? This scam, also called a “reshipping” scam, involves fraudsters who use stolen credit cards to buy items—usually expensive items—online. Instead of having the items shipped to the billing address, the fraudster sends them to what’s called a “re-shipper”. At the “re-shipper” location, the items are repackaged and usually sent overseas. There, they can often be sold at a high price on the black market.
The victim business is typically unaware that anything is wrong until the credit card company dings the business for the fraudulent charge in an attempt to re-coup the money. At that point, the business has lost both the merchandise and the money it thought it had earned.