RiflemanLax

The amount of fraud I have investigated in the last year out of that town... staggering. They really don’t give a fuck.

Fraud investigations for a bank. They do all sorts of shit, but mainly the first party stuff- points gaming, bustouts, and bogus fraud claims.

A bustout is as simple as quickly maxing out all your credit cards without the intent of repaying. It’s historically done by folks that are intending to leave the country- usually folks her temporarily- but sometimes they stay. Often they may claim fraud on the bulk of the charges and repeat the scam over and over again until shut down. Then they sent disputed to the credit bureaus to have the trades removed. And then apply for new cards.

Points gaming is fairly complex. It depends on what the bank has for a promotion. Often a new card comes with a promotion for a certain number of miles if you spend a certain amount within a set time frame. Some of these folks will open a card, meet the promotion, transfer the points, and close the card. Then open a new card and repeat. To the point where someone might do this 10 or 20 times until they’re flagged. Not illegal, but still gaming the system.

Another means I’ve seen is creating fake businesses to transact with in order to stockpile points. So basically you start ‘ABC Consulting Company’ and your buddy comes over and runs his card. In small amounts, this isn’t going to make sense, but the charges are usually well into the thousands and are even amounts. So your buddy gets the points from that charge and then you throw him back his money, minus the amount to cover the fees and a fee for yourself. And the whole community knows you’re the ‘points guy’ to go to.

I remember a popular game a while back where the US Mint was allowing customers to buy coins with free shipping. And these people would buy 10k )or more) worth of dollar coins on their cards and have them shipped to their homes. Then go straight to their bank, deposit the 10k, and send us a payment. The mint ceased that practice once it became clear what it was being used for, and it was costing them a lot to ship.

Another scam I’ll see is where a customer’s bank gives them an incentive of say $0.10 to make a payment via ACH to encourage them to both not use checks but also use that account more. So these people will set their account up to make a large number of payments daily or monthly.

Is the mythology- I.e. Xenu, thetans, etc.- as bizarre as we're led to believe, or has it been exaggerated?

I’m a big supporter of asylum but... if they were under that much of a threat, why go back for 3 months a year?