It's not even about stealing money per se, it's a step in the process of credit card theft. Fraudsters often do the same thing on Amazon and iTunes - they'll make 1 dollar purchases that allow them to 'verify' the cards. In these cases the 1 dollar purchases aren't for any direct material gain.
Sort of. Theft isn't the primary motive, so I think it's inaccurate. A lot of what the fraudsters are (or will be) doing is transferring money from victims to innocent people. The real-life analogy I would use is going to a store and putting something in someone's bag without them noticing to test the store's security. That is arguably not theft, even though it's illegal.
I'd say the proper term is fraud. But I don't really like semantic arguments, so I'd say it's not a huge deal either way :)
edit: I should add, the reason I don't think it's stealing is because the money often gets returned; the illicit transfers can be reversed. When the real stealing will be going on the fraudsters will be taking lots of money and running.
edit2: I feel bad for even objecting, it's really not a big deal. 'Stealing money' is close enough to what's going on.
That is common law theft. Property taken, no consent, deprives legitimate owner of use of it. The thief gaining value from the property is not an element of the crime.
I think it's a valuable distinction you're making, and I don't think it's merely a matter of semantics. Knowing the motivations of the criminals involved is useful in building workable defences - the fact that they don't care if they get the money or not is important information, and not immediately obvious. I for one have learned something from this thread, anyway.
Agreed. When this kind of fraud started the anti-fraud industry was a bit unprepared because low amount transactions were historically not dangerous. Understanding why it was happening helped quite a bit.
Fair enough. "Some" money coming into Gittip from stolen cards is in fact going out into bank accounts, some of them belonging to "innocent people" (myself included)--but some of them not. Theft, strictly defined, is in fact taking place.
