Originally Posted by
The Mileage Millionaire
They appear to be legit cards with 4 digits of the PIN removed. I'm guessing that someone takes the cards from the store, scratches the coating off the back, records the full 10-digit PIN, removes the last four digits of the PIN (so you can't use it before they do), re-applies the coating (should be cheap to buy the equipment), and then returns them to the store. Then, they probably run a script (or pay meth heads to enter the codes manually) until they successfully steal your money.
Any other theories?
This does not make any sense.
What is to be gained by removing some of the digits of the PIN?
In order to (fraudulently) use these cards, all you need are the two numbers - one of which is readily readable without any shenanigans, one of which needs to be revealed by scratching off the silver coating stuff.
Obtaining a machine that you could feed a card into and then re-cover the PIN numbers with the silver stuff seems like an awful lot of work and well beyond the crack-heads and other usual fraudsters.
I have a different theory.
This is an "inside job" - someone who works at the place where these are printed/produced. They pull a handful off the production line
before the silver coating goes on, they record the numbers (photocopy, scan or take a picture with their smartphone), then they put them back on the production line. The silver coating goes on, they get boxed up and sent out for distribution.
But there are two pieces I don't get...
1. These cards have no value until loaded at the register. And there's no way a fraudster would know when a particular card got loaded (unless they had hacked Incomm's system - in which case they have much bigger problems than a rogue employee at the printer). So I would guess that there's another step involved that took place before the card even arrived at your local CVS: armed with the card numbers, somebody fraudulently loaded the VR card (using a stolen credit card?) then quickly unloaded it.
2. Once the employee lifted the card, and got the numbers, why even bother putting the card back in the production line? Maybe (probably) they account for each piece printed, so cards gone missing would make the klaxons sound, but cards removed then reinserted wouldn't. Hmm.
The missing digits are interesting. Could
some of the digits be printed at one stage of the production line, then the remaining digits applied later? Maybe the cards were re-inserted into the production line at some point
after the second set of digits should have been printed.
Then again, how did the card get loaded/unloaded without all the digits?
For that matter, shouldn't there be a check at the register when loading a card to see if the card has already been used? I mean, try taking a used card to your CVS and ask them to put another $500 on it - that's not going to fly.
Hmmm. It's quite the puzzle.