Posted on 06/12/2004 7:52:11 AM PDT by ijcr
A man who admitted illegally using credit card information of about 900,000 people to sign them up for pornographic Web sites was sentenced Monday to more than 11 years in prison. Kenneth H. Taves, 52, was also ordered to pay restitution for the scheme, which prosecutors estimated netted him $37.5 million.
About $12.8 million has been recovered, and another $8.1 million is believed to be in banks in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. The rest of the money has not been found, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Whittlesey.
Taves, of Malibu, ran a business called NetFill that provided access to porn sites for $19.95 a month. In 1997 and 1998, he charged that fee to about 900,000 credit cards of people who had never used the service, prosecutors said.
He bought the credit card information from a Southern California bank for $5,000. Taves, who pleaded guilty to the fraud charges in 2001, was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison. The sentencing delay was due to efforts to determine the full amount lost in the case and because Taves switched attorneys several times, officials said.
a) He made $37.5 million dollars... and people wonder why the scammers do it ?
b) The 'dumb' bank sold the scammer the personal data on 900,000 people for $5000 - what is the point of securing infrastructures when the banks sell the info...
c) When this dude gets out of jail in 11 years he will still have about $20 million that the cops did not find - and after 11 years of running 'security web sites' I will probably have only $20 saved in my bank account.... hmmmm....
I had a case where I was defrauded by mail. Bill Clinton's Arksansas (he was governor at the time) fined the 2 brothers most of the $10,000 that they got from about 800 people (I lost $72 buying merchandise that never shipped).
Even in the big "CD price fixing" class action lawsuit, the states took most of the money the labels paid out.
Anybody dumb enough to provide a credit card number to a porn site is too dumb to get credit in the first place.
He bought the credit card information from a Southern California bank for $5,000.
Oops, should have read the whole article. Maybe I shouldn't have credit.
They didn't.
He bought the credit card numbers for a bank.
Sometimes it is useful to actually RTFA.
Why would people pay for porn anyway? There's plenty of free Internet sites available, uh, I've been told.
That was the whole point of the article...people did not provide their credit card numbers...the bank sold them.
Demi Moore and I take exception to your opinion.
Uhh...why is the bank selling credit card info? This should have been the lead of the story not the porn scam.
An oxymoroon. Unless "demi" is short for demimonde.
She was married to Bruce Willis. Perhaps that is what he meant.
She married a gay man?
He bought the credit card information from a Southern California bank for $5,000
WHAT BANK!?? Which banker is in jail and begging bubba to go easy?
That was no accident or "mistake"
***Uhh...why is the bank selling credit card info? This should have been the lead of the story not the porn scam.***
ABSOLUTELY!
Did you know that Security News Portal has copied your reply here? It is not cited to you. Or maybe you added it to their comment section. I'm curious.
The poster is probably the man behind SNP.
Yes, 11 years with lots of sex-starved boyfriends named "Bubba". They'll also have a curiosity about easily acquired funds. So, all-in-all, crime does not pay.
Isn't this electronic world comforting? Knowing that our personal information is being collected by every agency in the world and then being shared with all the foreign countries.
My banker told me to call the few credit card companies I have cards from and change the account numbers annually. I wonder when this will be a monthly ID security measure?
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