Internet security company Symantec claims that Internet fraudsters are donating money to charities as a way to check the validity of stolen credit cards prior to resale. Unfortunately, Symantec doesn't have any figures to indicate how much ill-gotten money has been donated to charities this way. Credit card numbers can be sold online for between $1 and $6 each and those that come with a verification code, billing address, and confirmed available balance can bring up to $300.
Javier Santoyo, a manager at Symantec Security Response, said that Symantec learned of this trend by monitoring IRC channels specially set up to trade stolen credit card and identity information. "
The advantage of using a charity is it's not a regular purchase, so it may not come up as a flag for the credit card companies. It's normally just a token amount, anywhere from a penny to $10. Normally, it's just to verify that the credit card company doesn't have the card on its cancel list."
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