21 million German bank accounts - yours for only €12m Identity thieves who claim they stole details of 21 million German bank accounts are offering to sell the data on the black market for €12 million (US$15.3 million), a German magazine reported over the weekend. To prove they weren't bluffing, the crooks produced the compact disc containing the names, addresses, phone numbers, …
As far as I can tell from what they say on the TV there are no money left and everybody including the banks have massive loans. So what exactly are these guys planning to steal. They should have done it earlier when everybody thought they had cash.
I am always going for the goat, but I never really leave.
Oh, they've got money to loose alright.
They've been investing in their infrastructure, saving their money, and developing new industries based around environmentalism, rather than war. I wish we could say the same for Britain, otherwise we'd be in a position just as strong as the Germans.
So the Germans don't like the banking secrecy as practised in countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg and are now taking the wholly opposite road. Good for them. May their "banking information wants to be free" show them that sometimes it's important to control who has access to what.
Well Germany did buy stolen bank details of Lichtenstein bank accounts, (so did UK) so they can hardly complain. Indeed perhaps Lichtenstein should host the broker of the details.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/26/hmrc_disc_tax/
I wonder if Lichtenstein complained whether the MET would raid the Home Office or Tax Office to seize the computers and investigate?
I have never used e-Bay or similar things, I do not believe in webcommerce, I order book in the local bookstore (which by the way allow to give me back immediately some title unless they are too much specialized [to be resold) however.. suppose that a crook as all information,
can he log on an site, buy something and get delivered to an address different from the invoice address?
P.S. I am also worried, what is planning to do the other poster, Mr.K. , "going for the goat"?
"what exactly are these guys planning to steal" - if you pay off your CC at the end of the month to save interest, they will spend that nice margin for you (which is why it's worth keeping that as low as possible - a 10k spending limit is taking a needless risk).
As a matter of fact, I am currently having a fight with a UK bank who handed off my money to a criminal without there being a valid mandate to do so, and they then came after me for not paying my credit card. Will be a fun court case, I think, my lawyer is looking forward to it as they also filed an Equifax notice without going through the right process.
If you get done by a criminal, do NOT expect the bank to help. Their priority is to make it appear they are without fault (even if they are directly and actively involved), and they will try every stalling tactic in the book, including but not limited to referral to the Financial Ombudsman. So it's up to *you* to stay safe.
I have used the German banking system for some time and have found it light-years ahead for the North American systems. From this article though I wonder if this information has any real use. In order to transfer money you need either a chip and PIN, or a TAN number (one-time password for on-line banking). I have the names, addresses and BLZ (Bank routing number) of several of my friends so that we can transfer money to one another. However, I'd never be able to take money from their account without also possessing either their bank cards, or their on-line passwords and TAN lists.
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