September 23, 2000: Page moved due to current location
due to legal pressure. This also stimulated more updates and housekeeping,
including the final verdict.
Oct 29, 1999: Updated section on Heartland Bank. No
evidence of their participation in any criminal activities.
Oct 27, 1999: Extensive additions from a new source
regarding CP Bank and some of its associated enterprises. The net expands
...
Oct 20, 1999: More journalist requests, removed
sentence indicating my interest in being interviewed!
Oct 6, 1999: Charter Pacific Bank allegedly has a
history ...
Sept 13, 1999: Charter Pacific provided the credit card
numbers!! Legally????!!!!
Sept 10, 1999: Minor formatting changes, updated
journalist request. Added references to the
American
Express "Blue" Card, not sure yet if it would really prevent this type
of fraud by a Merchant Account holder.
Aug 14, 1999: Updated security bureau numbers and
information.
Aug 9, 1999: Added links to check fraud, more on credit
bureaus.
July 22, 1999: Just as things are pretty quiet, a piece
comes out in
Scientific American.
June 16, 1999: Added links to
Rahm's AVS article (thank's
Bob), some small attempts at noting which sections of this page are, by now,
purely historical. Nihon Denpa news showed their documentary in Japan on May
8th, it was well received.
May 5, 1999: incorporate some unsettling background
from Jeff Leeds' articles in the LA Times:
May 4 &
May 5th
1999
May 1, 1999: A local news channel televises an
interview I did in January. [10]
April 13, 1999: Link to excellent Wired article on
credit card fraud. (See links)
April 7, 1999: Updated Cybernet Ventures entry, and
entered data from available court filings. Cleaned up the introduction a
bit. I still get emails every week or so from 'new' victims.
Mar 10, 1999: Videotaped interview with
Nihon Denpa News. Look for a one
hour documentary from Japan on credit card fraud sometime in 1999!
Mar 10, 1999: Added micropayment links and comments.
Mar 8, 1999: HTML cleanup, validation, doctype fixes.
Mar 1, 1999: Scattered updates, corrections, a few more
relations identified.
Feb 29, 1999: FTC witness request.
Feb 17, 1999:
Early report from
Los Angeles hearing. I'm interviewed by representatives of Nihon Denpa News
(NDN). NDN requesting interviews with insiders and victims. There are now
few reports of new J K Publication frauds; mostly discoveries of old
attacks.
Feb 8, 1999: Thought of a new twist on the credit card number generation
angle. See [2].
Feb 7, 1999: Lots of catching up on various emails. Continued low level
of reports from persons discovering old transactions. FTC hearing on Netfill
et al has been rescheduled. Added revision dates to table of contents.
Jan 22, 1999: More cleaning up, esp. section on actions by
Banks/Visa/MC. Added reference to Apple's problems with their "new" APS
validation system. How to report a really unhelpful bank.
Jan 20, 1999: Corrected an early count of victim comments (I counted
wrong, sorry). Added appeal for input from a tech journalist. Citibank makes
it to the Hall of Shame. Steady flow of additional reports and comments
which I have to incorporate. Scattered reports of other frauds that appear
to be unrelated -- I'll add a section for them soon. Updated section on
Banks, Processors, and CC companies.
Jan 16, 1999: Interview with MPR's Future Tense. More general clean-up.
Revised title, added TAL Services to list of Netfill affiliates. Since Ken
Taves was named publicly in the FTC complaint, I switched back to using his
name along with the initials KT.
Jan 15, 1999: Distributed copies of a credit card generator to selected
journalists. Updated page with latest FTC news. Revised and clarified
implications for e-commerce and recommendations for victims.
Jan 13, 1999: Netfill assets frozen, the FTC Acts. More
journalistic interest, interview with Mike Brunker of CNBC. Cleaned up a
disorganized subsection.
Jan 11, 1999: Added section soliticiting victim references for various
international journalists. Removed references to Cybernet and TAL Services
as they may have been spurious. More links, including
January 9, 1999 New Scientist Article and Union Tribune reference.
Jan 5, 1999: Fewer changes, some corrections. Daily reports from
victims, but volume may be decreasing.
Jan 1, 1999: More updates from Yakei. OnLine Billing Fax. New names?
Dec 30, 1998: Back from holidays. Fill in a few more details, more KT
ventures discovered. Assist Online involvement extended. Netfraud.com domain
discovered. BG submits a report to Le Monde through a journalist friend.
More on AVS and Netfill.
Dec 21, 1998: Increased communication and assistance from
Japanese site.
French translation pending in Belgium. Added screen shots of a credit card
number generator as a second page.
Dec 20, 1998: Learned more about other activities by principal actor.
Revised understanding of roles of different names for the operation.
Dec 18, 1998: Included the GIF outlining the fraud. Roles of merchant
account holder vs. vendor are still unclear. Extensive clean up of Vendors
section.
Dec 16, 1998: Reformatting, additional data from incoming mail, physical
address links. Suggestion that American Express may be less vulnerable than
Visa/MC to this fraud.
Dec 13, 1998: Revised after input from the president of a credit card
processor company. Greatly improved accuracy and reduced speculation.
Dec 8, 1998: Rapid growth of reported persons affected, now about 100.
Still trying to attract attention of the news media or of enforcement
officials. Many countries affected. First reports from Japan.
Dec 6, 1998: Many more reports, spoke with office of secret service,
learn of their lack of interest. More emphasis on negligence of credit card
companies.
Dec 5, 1998: many reports incoming of persons victimized through Webtel/N-bill.
More worrisome details on extreme weakness of credit card authentication
procedures, and that even terminating the card may not end the billings.
Report that Netfill is another alias for the same company.
