$9 Here, 20 Cents There and a Credit Card Lawsuit

Randall Stross writes in The New York Times:

It's easier to steal a million dollars a dollar at a time than a million dollars once. So goes an old saying.

If the allegations in a civil case filed in a federal court in Chicago hold up, you can even haul off $10 million if you stick to $9 here or 20 cents there.

The suit, filed in March by the Federal Trade Commission, contends that over at least four years, scammers placed more than $10 million in bogus charges on consumers’ credit and debit cards. Then, the suit says, they moved the money to bank accounts in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan. The suit was filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The scammers evaded detection by keeping each charge under $10 and stealing from each cardholder only once, spreading the theft across more than a million cardholders, the suit says.

The identity of defendants has not been discovered; it may have been only a single “John Doe.” All the F.T.C. says it currently knows are the names of shell companies.

“No one has appeared to defend the companies,” said Steven M. Wernikoff, a trade commission staff lawyer overseeing the case.

When the commission filed a motion to seize the United States assets of the companies, less than $100,000 was recovered. It hopes to recover sums transferred abroad, but Mr. Wernikoff says that “it’s going to take some time.”

More here.