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The underground world of credit card network exploitation

chargebackstop.com

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Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#161

Post by i_am_jl »

tlogan wrote: post #83
nerdawson wrote: post #42

Why does the US seem so far behind when it comes to banking? - Chip and PIN has been in the UK since 2004 and mandatory since 2006. It wasn't until a decade later that the US caught up. - Faster Payments allow for instant bank transfers (usually) between any bank account for free. Receiving transfers from clients in US (even with a US Wise bank account) was always a nightmare. - Since the EU introduced Strong Custome…

In my view, the U.S. is leading the way in this area. Europe seems to be shifting the burden of fraud prevention onto customers with methods like SMS notifications and pins. In contrast, in the U.S., banks and businesses are primarily responsible for dealing with fraud.

On the other hand, the EU caps credit card fees at 0.5% by law while in the US merchants will pay 3 times that at a minimum.

I suspect that in the US CC processors are incentivized to increase their processing fees to cover the cost of fraud instead of building features to prevent it because they can and it's easier than building features. Businesses are incentivized to increase prices to cover the cost of fraud (and CC processing costs) since processors offer such poor tooling to prevent it.

In the US the burden of fraud prevention is squarely on the honest consumer's wallet.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#162

Post by chankstein38 »

appplication wrote: post #27

What was most surprising about this is not the fact that there is a group of people exploiting Stripe’s payments, but that the author had ChatGPT write a script to automatically handle payments processing, specifically for chargebacks. And based on the context in the article, the author sounds like they lacked the technical skill to write or validate these scripts themselves. This author is jumping out of the frying…

They really wanted us to know they used ChatGPT too. It felt unnecessary how often they mentioned "I got ChatGPT to write a script that did this" like.. ok?

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#163

Post by pixl97 »

libraryatnight wrote: post #146
pengaru wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terrible, but not far removed from what's been already happening with "developers" copying and pasting StackOverflow comments into a text editor and making uninformed compiler-error-guided-edits until it runs then done! The root of the problem here is people making production stuff who don't know wtf they're doing. If they turn to SO posts, LLMs, or "developers" on fiverr/upwork doing the same thing, is there re…

Just seems like programming will be joining the ranks of most tools. There will always be craftsmen, there will always be professionals, and then there will be the guy bolting together ice chests and garbage disposals to make margarita mixers on his patio or the kid with a duct tape exhaust rig on his Honda Civic. I guess, to your point, it's only trouble if the margarita mixer guy is put in charge of something that…

>Just seems like programming will be joining

I'd love to know about the nirvana you've been in up till now, because working around code from numerous large companies the vast majority of it is the crappest ass crap straight from the crapper with no redeeming qualities, and it has been this way forever. I'm not saying their isn't good parts, there are general core routines that sheer need for them to be performant and non-data corrupting forced some Sr engineer to fix them.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#164

Post by Vicinity9635 »

fxleach wrote: post #130
linuxftw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use ChatGPT to write code for work constantly. The quality is quite high, it saves me lots of time, on the order of hours typically. If a company prevents me from using ChatGPT, I will use it clandestinely unless they offer an equivalent. There's no going back.

This is outright false. I have used ChatGPT many times over the last couple months and I have caught it give me un-working code, unfinished code, and terribly buggy code. When you point this out it will say Oh sorry about that here is an updated version, and I've caught it give another bug, and another after that. If you are telling me the quality of code that ChatGPT gives you is high then it pains me to say but you…

[dead]

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#165

Post by carlosjobim »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #46
paxys wrote: post #25

If you are a foreign company accepting payments from the USA, you should simply expect this as a cost of doing business. Credit card fraud here is socialized. The end consumer is never liable, and so we don't bother with chip and pin, 2FA, 3D secure or whatever else. If we notice a suspicious transaction we simply tap a button in the bank's app and the charge is reversed in minutes. Banks and payments processors are…

And that is in addition to the outrageous fees CC companies charge merchants. In the US it's typically around 2% of the transaction! The EU caps it at 0.3% maximum, which still seems like a lot when you consider how much money they move. That's another cost that gets socialized and passed on to the consumer of course, even shoppers who pay cash have to pay for this through higher prices. People should know btw that w…

> The EU caps it at 0.3% maximum

That's completely untrue. Most European businesses pay much more than that.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#166

Post by tlogan »

pests wrote: post #102
ActivePattern wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, it does feel like stepping out of a time machine when you pay at restaurants in the USA. Instead of using a terminal at the table to pay yourself, you need to give the server your card and wait for them to manually process it somewhere. Maybe things have progressed in recent years. But we haven't done it that way in Canada since the early 2000's.

I've started to see more and more servers using a mobile POS with built in credit reader and receipt printer. They hand it to you for tip and signature and you don't have to hand your card to anyone.

Definetly not a better experience for all consumers. Or waiter.

I do know that some restaurant owners are removing these things. They do not want to look like Olive Garden :)

But it really depends on a restaurant: is it high end, type of food / drinks, it is a date place, etc.

Majority of restaurant is all about experience and event payment system should match that experience.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#167

Post by cubefox »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #81
cubefox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of banks in the US seems perfectly normal. Germany has ~1500 for 80 million inhabitants, the US has ~4800 for 300 million.

First, compared to the rest of the EU, Germany is a weird outlier with the number of banks they have (which, by the way, has been declining steadily for 15 years). Setting that aside, you missed the "deregulated" part. As I understand it (and I grant my understanding is pretty cursory) Germany has a much stronger central regulating body, and is subject to overall EU regulations as well. The US has multiple regional b…

> First, compared to the rest of the EU, Germany is a weird outlier with the number of banks they have (which, by the way, has been declining steadily for 15 years).

Still, the absolute number itself seems to be not really the issue here. (I assume the number of US banks has similarly declined in the US, as fusions reduce cost.)

> Setting that aside, you missed the "deregulated" part.

Yeah, that part I don't object to.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#169

Post by rimunroe »

linuxftw wrote: post #156
rimunroe wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that mean we should never use junior devs? No, because junior devs usually improve over time. I've tried Copilot and a few other AI codegen tools. Aside from producing overall low quality/nonworking code, the only times they seem to get better long-term are when a new update to the model comes out.

copilot is straight trash compared to ChatGPT 4. It's not even a contest.

I should have been clear but ChatGPT was one of the "other AI codegen tools" I mentioned, especially as it's the one I used most recently. I tried it for a month or so but then canceled my subscription. I got some use out of it for answering questions for friends who were learning CS for the first time in languages I didn't know, but I didn't get much else from it which felt like it was high enough quality that it really saved me time or effort.

Edit:

And to contrast with junior developers: I find pairing with them something that makes me not only help me figure out the requirements of the things we're working on--which admittedly ChatGPT does do, but I think that's mostly by virtue of rubber ducking--but it helps me figure out approaches I wouldn't have thought of before, or encourages me to write more maintainable code by seeing when another person's eyes start glazing over.

Re: The underground world of credit card network exploitation

#170

Post by _cenw »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #81
cubefox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of banks in the US seems perfectly normal. Germany has ~1500 for 80 million inhabitants, the US has ~4800 for 300 million.

First, compared to the rest of the EU, Germany is a weird outlier with the number of banks they have (which, by the way, has been declining steadily for 15 years). Setting that aside, you missed the "deregulated" part. As I understand it (and I grant my understanding is pretty cursory) Germany has a much stronger central regulating body, and is subject to overall EU regulations as well. The US has multiple regional b…

And also, a lot of german banks are actually federated with centralized IT departments (like Finanz Informatik) providing the entire bank as "blueprint". Yes, even if they aren't called Volksbank or Sparkasse. For instance, if you get an EC/GiroCard from DKB, the letter is suspiciously typeset in Sparkasse's corporate font.
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