If you've ever considered using darknet financial services, you had better think again.
It's not unusual for people to find themselves in a hard financial spot sometime in their life.
For the average Joe, being in a hard spot means going to the payday loan place down the street, pawning some jewelry they no longer wear or asking around to borrow money from friends and family.
For the more creative individual, hard times gets them pondering what kind of side "business" they can launch.
The average person has little knowledge about the dark web, while a smaller number may still believe it's nothing but a myth.
However, when a "noob" haphazardly finds his way onto the other side of the Dot Com universe, it can be quite overwhelming: all the cheap drugs, counterfeit cash for 20 percent of the supposed value, and, of course, the many fraud services.
Before you know it, all sorts of visions start going through your head: yachts, beaches, financial freedom, and so on.
However, are these services found all throughout the dark web selling the real deal, or are they just selling you dreams in order to steal your Bitcoin?
Though many genuine vendors are operating for the anonymity on the dark web, a lot of what you find in darknet markets (DNMs) are pure scams.
Furthermore, some of the darknet markets are themselves operating huge scams, better known as "exit scams."
These issues that plague the dark web are well known and discussed in detail all throughout the internet, both on the surface web and in the dark web.
Nonetheless, two areas that seem to keep people losing money hand over fist is the financial services and fraud services sector.
Many times, listings in these two categories are the same: hacked porn accounts, eBay accounts, Amazon accounts, bank accounts, and any other type of account you can think of.
They also include credit card dumps, virtual credit cards, debit cards and other financial products.
One of the services within this realm taking the dark web by storm are Western Union, Moneygram and PayPal transfers.
They're not hard to miss because these vendors offer big payouts for a small investment.
Typically, they claim 10 percent on the dollar with a minimum order of $200 for a return of around $2,000 transferred to your account.
However, how trustworthy are these kinds of services? Also, what exactly are they achieving by offering such a service?
If It's Too Good to Be True, Then It Usually Is
The fact of the matter is, if someone is skilled enough to run a carding operation targeting all sorts of financial accounts, then common sense would scream that they would be wasting their time selling you $2,000 or more for only $200.
Nevertheless, you find those who run these sort of "services" claiming a number of justifications for why they do so.
- They're cleaning the dirty money.
- They're already rich and want to help you get started.
- They get thousands of card data a month and can't possibly spend it all themselves.
- They make more money selling transfers than if they sold the card data.
Whatever their reasons, you have to question something that good. Imagine if you found someone selling $2,000 transfers for only $200. Before long, you would have hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Moreover, this doesn't include offerings that claim to transfer up to $20,000 to banks accounts for only $2,000 or $3,000.
It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume you could become a millionaire by just buying these so-called "transfers."
Needless to say, most, if not all, of the vendors making these claims are scammers. I've tested the waters a few times to see whether such individuals were on the up-and-up.
The first one I contacted didn't want to do the deal through the darknet market venue. Instead, he or she wanted to make the deal off-site and person-to-person via WhatsApp (which is a known red flag).
When I offered to receive the transfer for a 50/50 split without my sending them the money first, their true motive came out.
I've seen this type of behavior before. When scammers work hard to reel in their mark, only to have their mark back out, their typical reaction is to become irate.
They're angry over losing time more so than about you backing out.
That was the time they could have spent scamming someone else; or maybe all that faking, pretending to care so much, is like acid to their dark little souls.
Whatever the reason, genuine business people understand that's all a part of doing business. People are going to get cold feet.
Also, the business person's response to these kinds of situations usually is, "Well, that's not how we do business.
If you change your mind, feel free to contact me at a later date, and we can work something out."
Then there was the time I had the privilege of actually getting someone to admit they were trying to scam me (long story).
This "vendor" warned me, "Never trust a site like this. We're all scammers. No one is going to give something to someone else for little to nothing."
Need I say more?
Carding Vendors Are Nearly the Same
The most common route people take is buying credit card data and trying to card online. Granted, there are some genuine vendors out there who sell real card data.
However, you can bet your bottom dollar that you're not getting the best they have. Carders often keep the best card data for themselves and sell (or resell) crappy cards.
Then you have those who merely sell dead cards. If you complain about it, they usually respond as if you're an idiot who didn't do it right.
How can you argue? There is no way of proving you didn't kill the card yourself.
Moreover, who can prove they're a master carder? Common sense would say that if you are an experienced carder, you wouldn't need to buy cards from a vendor on the dark web.
Whether it's physical cards, card dumps or any other kind of credit card data, you're gambling with your Bitcoin.
You have about the same chance online gambling and getting paid as you do if you were to buy card information from most of these vendors.
Oh, they promise "freebies" galore-updated cashout methods, still working! They offer free tutorials, ebooks, ATM hacking guides, and the list goes on.
However, most of this information is overused and outdated.
Credit card companies are always changing and upgrading their security protocols-on a daily basis.
That means something that worked last month, or even last week, might not work today.
A Final Thought
By no means am I condoning illegal activity. Nevertheless, as food for thought, if you want to get into such endeavors, you're going to have to make your own way.
A perfect example would be if someone approached you and said, "I got a deal for you. Give me $200 to buy a gun.
I'm going to rob this bank and give you 90 percent of the proceeds." Why do you think people without guns use notes or fake bombs?
Because even though they're crazy enough to rob a bank, they're not stupid enough to make that kind of deal.
Use your head before making deals with people who list their business as "scammer."