A Surreal Peek Into The Payment Data Underworld

If you're in the mood for a truly surreal peek into the stolen payment card data market, check out this profile of a data-seller called Joker's Stash, over at KrebsOnSecurity. This vendor's employees, solely selling illegal stolen data mind you, "set themselves apart by focusing on loyalty programs, frequent-buyer discounts, money-back guarantees and just plain old good customer service." Heck, it's hard enough to get legitimate retailers to do that.

Indeed, the Bitcoin-accepting company markets itself as proudly only selling data that it's own people stole, as opposed to selling what any lowlife on the street steals. And it offers limited guarantees: "All sales are final, although some batches of stolen cards for sale at Joker’s Stash come with a replacement policy — a short window of time from minutes to a few hours, generally — in which buyers can request replacement cards for any that come back as declined during that replacement timeframe." Even their loyalty program is better than that offered by some large retailers.