PayPal Continues to Accept Illegal Items --- Monday, March 31, 2003
Merchant 911 recently contacted PayPal enquiring about their policy of accepting - and thereby condoning - the sales of hand held card readers, blank magnetic strips, and blank plastic cards.
Here is their reply, a bit - but only a bit - better than eBay's:
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
The items you listed are not specifically outlined in the Acceptable Use
Policy, however a potential use for these items is unauthorized credit card
fraud. If you identify any merchants selling these types of items, please
report them through the complaint form and we will review each one on a
case by case basis. We also will record this as a suggestion of items that
you would like covered by the Acceptable Use Policy.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely,
Richard
PayPal Compliance Department
PayPal joins eBay in their promotion and sale of items used to defraud their merchants. They even go so far as to admit it can happen.
eBay Continues to Ignore the Problem --- Monday, March 10, 2003
A month after calling eBay's attention to the illegal activity in the sales and auctions of magnetic stripe readers, blank plastic cards and credit card embossing tools, Merchant 911 is dismayed to find these items still offered for sale at eBay's web site.
"I find it beyond my understanding," says Tom Mahoney, Merchant 911's Founder and Director, "That eBay continues to sell these instruments of crime under the guise of them having 'some legitimate uses,' especially when they are advertised in the carder sites as a good place to buy them."
Mahoney points out that the 'legitimate use' policy is weak at best. "It skates on pretty thin ice, if you ask me." Mahoney continued. "My liver will have legitimate use when I die or donate it, but you can bet they wouldn't allow THAT on e-Bay."
Merchant 911 is calling on all merchants to appeal to eBay. "It affects E-commerce AND brick and mortar operations since you can find enough tools and material to start making fake cards with legitimate information," said Mahoney. "Identity fraud is rampant enough without eBay's contribution."