Sunday, September 14, 2008

Retailers stung by credit card fraud

Retailers stung by credit card fraud
There is a new form of credit card fraud going around New Zealand. It involves customers using fraudulent cards made overseas that either, not linked to a bank account or the bank does not exist at all. They have been hitting retailers throughout New Zealand. Their modus operandi is to be friendly, chatty, well dressed as well as talking on a cellphone. Primarily they are of Asian decent, and use credit cards link to Asian banks.


The credit cards have all of the signs of being genuine, embossed numbers match front and back, signature matches for of ID (which is usually and passport) as well as the name matching. They always know what they are after, and do not mind mixing and matching goods if certain colours are not available.
The retailer will not know what has happened until they find that a few weeks later the funds are never transferred into their bank account.
They are confident enough to ask for goods to be put aside if their card declines, and then come back with a different card. Transactions can vary between just under $1000 to just under $2000.


Purchases can include Apple products, Playstation products and prepaid mobiles. To help ease the retailer into the suspicious looking sale, they will ask for a cheap mobile, stating that it is to be used as a spare. The perpetrators are usually Asian, and are dressed very well. They are usually using a high end cellphone to talk to their mates in a near by vehicle.



ihug Limited will no longer exist from 1st August
A lot of things are happening at Vodafone on this very special day:

It's not surprising that ihug will soon be completely part of Vodafone (rather than the current rebranding) as this fully makes their fixed line products to become part of Vodafone, and reduce confusion.

Things to note:
  • Phone numbers won't change
    Here are the numbers, just for reference:

    Residential: 0800 438 448
    Business: 0800 438 458
    Red network: 0800 800 215 <- they finally release this!
     
  • Billing is still separate, but pay Vodafone New Zealand Limited directly
    Currently, we get a statement which needs to be paid to ihug Ltd, even though it's completely branded Vodafone
I better hope that they clean up the My Vodafone interface as part of this, as it's currently quite messy and unprofessional compared to other ISP account management sites.


The webpage with the information about this changed from welcome to our place to our place is your place:




The Internet Home Users Group
IHUG

ihug / The Internet Group

(1994-2008)



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