ARC: Card thieves targeting agents

WASHINGTON -- ARC again warned travel agents that con artists with stolen credit card numbers are posing as potential corporate clients and using the Internet to entrap agents into doing business with them.

"They're looking for someone who is blinded to the risk [of credit card fraud] by the lure of big profits," said Allan Muten, ARC corporate communications director.

The message is a variation of one repeated by ARC during the years to agents who take business via the phone: know your customer.

In the high-tech version of the scam, con artists from abroad contact agents via the Internet, often posing as representatives of credible accounts such as religious groups or international organizations, Muten said.

Some agents have accepted their credit cards sight unseen while other agents have asked to have a copy of the card faxed to them. In either case, the agent gets an approval code from the credit card company, but the card belongs to someone else.

The so-called "client" has no intention of paying, and the agent is left liable to pay for the chargebacks.

With the Internet, prosecution often is difficult because the guilty parties are outside the U.S. and can be hard to track down. Last July, ARC issued an alert about credit card fraud that occurs via the Internet.

ARC subsequently participated in an investigation in which the Peruvian National Police arrested a man and identified three fugitives for alleged involvement.

Since then, Muten said, several other incidents have occurred, "and we're concerned it will escalate."

He said agents have been contacted by parties in Peru and western Africa, "but it really could be any country."

ARC supplied the following tips to agents contacted by strangers via the Internet:

If the person hesitates or gives some excuse why he can't respond, that might indicate he has only a number stolen from a charge slip in a restaurant.

Muten said ARC will post its scam alert in the travel agent communication (TAC) section of an upcoming sales summary and will mail agents a longer version and post it on the Web at www.arccorp.com.