It is suspected that students using Web sites that generate card numbers of hundreds of banks around the world are responsible for thousands of dollars of fraudulent orders from the online computer store.
John Taylor, managing director of Orli-TECH, which owns Instant IT, says more than $25,000 worth of fraudulent orders had been intercepted in recent days, but police in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria and the Federal Police Computer Crime Squad have told him there is nothing they can do until the ordered goods are actually delivered to the culprits.
However, Taylor says he is not willing to take the risk.
Instant IT sells computer hardware and software over the Internet, mostly to businesses, and the fraudulent orders have included one for a $16,000 plasma screen.
-It appears that there is little we can do to stop these people trying to steal from our store.
-The saving grace is that our fraud minimisation systems do at least give us a fighting chance to avoid being ripped off.
-Given that we have verified telephone numbers, verified delivery addresses and several emails from these people it seems to me that we have enough for the police to investigate. If only we could get someone interested."
-Apparently it is not an offence to order goods with someone else's credit card," said Taylor.
Police in Queensland today confirmed there were legal problems that made it difficult for police to take action until the goods were delivery but said they would continue to look into the matters.
Meanwhile, Taylor says he has traced one of the fraudulent transactions to a 16 year old South Australian student.
-I found out who he was, what school he went to and where he lived and contacted his father who said he did not even have a credit card and would speak to the boy.
-But five minutes after his father had spoken to him, the student was on the phone wanting us to hurry delivery of the order."
Taylor says he took just a few minutes to find credit card number generators and verifiers on the Internet and he was aware that details of where to find them were being circulated by e-mail.
In South America, the owner of the credit card is emailed when an order comes in in their name and they can stop it. Why bother with the police? They are not technically literate. Use some kind of checking before accepting the order like above. Be more upfront. I have lost $1000s in dodgy small business deals. Now I get paid as I go and sign off rigorously - it has made my business more bureaucratic but I get rid of the cheats out there. Tight bookkeeping is the way to stop fraud. Put a PIN number on credit card transactions.