[asterisk-biz] Preventing Fraud in VoIP Transactions

[SIP]

Peter Beckman wrote:
> Has anyone noticed that almost all the fraud perpetrated lately has all
> come from AOL IP's?  It's driving me nuts.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions on how to detect people using stolen US/Canada
> credit cards for VoIP services?  We're doing all sorts of stuff now, using
> MaxMind, Payflow Fraud Protection Services, and even automated phone-based
> verification, but these fraudsters keep on getting through, using what I
> assume to be Skype or other VoIP provider phone numbers to confirm their
> accounts.
>
> I guess I could just block AOL from signing up, but for a lot of people
> that is their ONLY connection to the net.
>
> Beckman
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
> beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ** PLEASE NOTE PurpleCow.com IS NOW AngryOx.com DO NOT USE PurpleCow.com **
> ** PurpleCow.com is now owned by City Auto Credit LLC as of May 23, 2007 **
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It's not just AOL. It's all over. Any computer that can be used as a 
proxy.  We see, on average, 3-5 fraud attempts a day. Some get through. 
Some don't. 80% of these originate (if you follow the trail) back to 
Link.net in Egypt. Until we firewalled them out completely, we saw so 
MANY from Link.net, we decided that either every other IP address 
belongs to a computer that is unsecured, or it's simply a front network 
for a more involved organisation. As yet, the Egyptian Cyber Crime 
division has been unable to offer any assistance. The other big source 
for us is Russia.

They purchase through AOL, Comcast, Rogers, Time Warner, Optonline 
(Cablevision), Bellsouth.net, AT&T, etc. Anything they can get into to 
avoid fraud filters.

But don't feel you're alone.  You're not. The same people that hit us 
time and time again also hit AT&T, Comcast, Vonage, and many of the 'big 
boys.'  That, unfortunately, is the nature of accepting payments over 
the internet for services. There's no product trail, so it's MUCH harder 
to catch the perpetrators.