Anonymous Threatens Robin Hood Attacks Against Banks 529
gManZboy writes "Just in time for the holidays, hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced that it has teamed up with like-minded group TeaMp0isoN to donate to charity. The catch: they're using stolen credit data from big banks to make donations, in a campaign they're calling Operation Robin Hood. Is the #OpRobinHood campaign for real, or like previous threats against Wall Street and Facebook, just another hoax? Aesthetically, at least, the OpRobinHood video ticks all of the traditional Anonymous aesthetic requirements: a mashed-up 'p0isoaNoN' logo (green on black), a liberal dose of swelling choral music (via that movie trailer staple 'Europa,' by Globus), together with selected clips of Kevin Costner as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."
Probably not that smart (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure the big donation targets won't mind the hassle of dealing with angry people trying to get their money back... and likely police involvement. That's just what charities need.
This is why I don't like Occupy (Score:5, Informative)
The point is to help the people at the bottom. You know, the ones who are homeless, living on scraps they fish out of the trash of idiots like you who don't give a damn about anybody but yourself.
What the fuck are you on about? I pay my taxes and I donate to charity when I feel like it. I assure you I'm far from the 1% the Occupy people are always talking about (otherwise I wouldn't have a one and a half hour commute, both ways, every day).
This operation is talking about taking money from stolen credit cards and donating it to charity. Let's disect that a bit.
First, you're stealing people's livelihoods. Credit cards are often attached to bank accounts. You could be bankrupting people, or putting them in a state where they can't pay their bills. I have a problem with that from the get-go. But it gets worse.
When the fraudulent transaction goes through, the banks will take an interchange fee [wikipedia.org] averaging about 2% of the transaction value straight from the top before the charity even gets it. So the banks are already laughing their asses off at this plan, since what Occupy thinks is going to hurt them is going to GIVE THEM MONEY.
So when the unfortunate person owning the credit card sees that they've had their money stolen, they're going to try a chargeback. Their bank may refuse this, but especially if it's a credit card, they'll likely get their money back. In the middle of this, the bank will likely take a chargeback fee [wikipedia.org] from the charity since they'd have a hard time taking it from the person who's had their money stolen.
Now, in this circumstance there are likely to be a large number of chargebacks against the charity, which may further increase their liability:
Currently both Visa and Mastercard require all merchants to maintain no more than 1% of dollar volume processed to be chargebacks. If the percentage goes above, there are fines starting at $5000 – $25,000 to the merchant's processing bank and ultimately passed on to the merchant.
All of that money goes to the banks and the credit card companies.
So what's the final score here?
Victim: Either has their money back after losing it for potentially several days, or if they're unfortunate, has simply lost their money entirely.
Charity: Probably doesn't have much extra money after most people chargeback their fraudulent transactions.
Banks: Got around 2% of every single transaction involved here, more in the cases of chargebacks. Stole money from both the target and the charity without being culpable for any of it.
I'd say I was shocked that nobody thought of this, but it completely matches with everything else Occupy has done: sitting on their asses, breaking the law when convenient to them, proposing no actual solutions, and splitting their focus in a million different directions without putting any real effort into a single one.
Re:Great (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're factually and provably wrong. I suspect that you know this, and are lying in hopes of scaring members of the middle class away from any policies that might fix the distribution of wealth in this country.
The bottom 80% of Americans, a group that includes both the poor and the middle class, owns just 7% of the wealth in the country. Redistributing that 7% evenly among the 250 million people that make up the bottom 80% won't do a damn thing.
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you can. Learn banking math.
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:5, Informative)
No, you really can't. However, certain institutions (the Federal Reserve Bank and other equivalents) can effectively create cash by creating an equal amount of debt, which works much like cash but with a negative value. Then that institution can issue both the cash and the debt to a bank, effectively giving a value of zero. If a bank wants to lend out the new cash it just received, it's still stuck with the equivalent amount of debt to pay back at some point. The bank could make arrangements with other banks to pay back the debt for them, and raise fees to cover the debt, but the debt still exists. There is no non-existent cash, and there is no free money, either.
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:5, Informative)
It's good to see at least few slashdotters are aware of MMT principles. The only beef I have with your post is using the word debt, because even though it is debt in name, it's quite different from microeconomic debt in the way most people understand it. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11218 [economicoutlook.net]
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:5, Informative)
You can't lend non existent cash. Learn math.
In banking terms, you can. You just overstate your "assets" to say that you have all this valuable stuff lying around that you can liquidate at any time - which means that you can then lend against those assets - which actually gives you more assets.
Where the bankers got caught though was that their overvalued assets started to literally fall apart. By having to write off those assets, the cash pool started drying up. In a effort to curb losses, many bankers and investors started to dump their assets that they knew were shaky at best - which then caused a flood into a market further devaluing anything due to supply and demand.
Where the world got caught though was when the bankers had screwed their own business up to a point where it was going to (and did in some instances) cause entire nations to become effectively bankrupt. The world (governments that is, not the ordinary folk) then had to bail out the banks under the theory of mitigation - where bailing out (through nationalization, or stupendous loans at next to nix interest) a bunch of banks, securities (oh, the irony of that) and fund groups was going to cause less harm then to allow them to crash and kill off retirements, investments and allow that cancer to spread at full speed into the everyday lives of pretty much everyone.
tl;dr - You most certainly can lend cash that you don't have.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:4, Informative)
Banks refund their consumers in the case of stolen cards data / fraud.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:2, Informative)
First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then they crush you.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:5, Informative)
The recipient of an invalid transaction (in this case the charities) often have to pay expenses for the reversal.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:3, Informative)
If the inflation rate is 3% per month and I'm able to secure a 30 year loan from the federal reserve at 0% interest, is the federal reserve not in effect GIVING me free wealth?
If you received (for example) $10,000 from the Federal Reserve Bank with no interest, you would still owe $10,000 in 30 years, which with 3% per month inflation, will be worth about what $0.23 is worth today. The original $10,000, if you were to invest it such that it would bring returns equal only to inflation, would eventually be $400 billion, which would be worth what $10,000 is today.
The biggest effect of such inflation is that people whose investments didn't meet or exceed inflation now have worthless savings. That means retirement savings, business investments, and many other facets of daily economic life all grind to a halt, because the person (or company) saving can't get money fast enough to compensate for the loss of purchasing power their money has.
Fortunately, the Fed doesn't work that way. It usually charges an interest rate (called the discount rate) that is, on average, equal to the rate of inflation (which is about 3% per year) on each loan it gives out. That interest rate effectively controls the money (and debt) supply in the United States economy. Money(increased with a low interest rate) allows people to handle short-term business. Debt (increased with a high interest rate) minimizes inflation as people save to meet future needs. The goal of the Federal Open Market Committee (which sets this interest rate) is to ensure that both needs are met.
The Fed does not give wealth to anybody. It provides a buffer in the amount of money available to the public, to keep money available even during a recession.
Re:I dont see any issues with them. (Score:4, Informative)
With fractional reserve banking you kind of can ... If you add all the money in bank accounts it will be a higher amount than what the central bank issued. (up 10 times higher with a reserve ratio of 10%)
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/banking-3--fractional-reserve-banking?playlist=Banking+and+Money [khanacademy.org]
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe this is a UK thing but twice my card has been ripped off and both times Visa literally just read out each transaction one after the other and cancelled everything I replied "no" to. Took a matter of minutes with no kind of arguing. I didn't even have to queue for the handler. New card in the post day after next.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:2, Informative)
If your credit card / account was used in a different country or obviously not possible to be you making the transactions then you are damn lucky. In most cases though you are dealing with identify theft in your general area like a city or state. In these situations you have to prove that you are Innocent which is damn near impossible. In fact the credit card companies try to make it as difficult as possible for you to prove your Innocent.
This is not true of credit cards in the US. The burden of proof falls on the bank. If you say something is a fraudulent charge then they have to prove it wasn't if they want to fight you on it. This is written into law as part of the consumer protection stuff.
If your credit card gets stolen the most you are liable for is $50. Again, this is written in law.
This is why credit cards are much better for consumers than debit cards. Debit cards only offer whatever protection your bank is in the mood to give you, there are no laws whatsoever protecting you.
Re:Ready, fire, aim (Score:5, Informative)