The recent story involving two young men, Truong Duc Luong and Nguyen Tien Cuong, using foreign accounts to shop online only scratched the surface of a much larger issue. For years, in the underground world of IT professionals, the practice of “shipping” (using someone else’s account to make illegal purchases) has been rampant.
At a birthday celebration in a dormitory, Le Van Hung opened a huge gift from a friend in the IT community. Inside was a list containing hundreds of account numbers from foreign accounts, along with a note that read, “Happy birthday! You can buy a whole Dylan if you want. But don’t get caught using a borrowed credit card“. It’s no longer uncommon for IT professionals to gift their friends account numbers worth thousands of dollars; what happens next depends on the recipient. A few days later, when Hung met up with his friend, he said, “I’ve been craving some graphic design books, but they’re too expensive online, so I used the borrowed credit card from my birthday gift, hoping Interpol won’t come after me“.
N.T.A, a seasoned hacker who studied abroad, shared, “In some countries, students also engage in these activities, as most transactions are accepted. Some of our students even travel to Singapore or Thailand to pick up items because sometimes the automated systems of online platforms like eBay and Amazon won’t accept large orders from Vietnam“.
Finding a few foreign account numbers in the IT community today is as easy as taking candy from a baby, as there are forums like www.ma…; www.diendan…; and thetindung… where hackers have posted a plethora of stolen credit card information for members to exploit. Just by stealing $20 from each account, they could become significantly wealthy. “Going out at night doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll meet a ghost,” some individuals get caught after just starting to learn the ropes of “nightly escapades”. Nguyen Thanh T., from Thanh Hoa, recently moved to Hanoi to study information technology. One day, after logging into Yahoo, a friend in Singapore sent him a link to a forum overflowing with account numbers. Overwhelmed by the “goldmine” before him, with the mindset that “back in the day, I could climb a wall and steal a basket of green guavas without being caught, so why worry in this invisible online world“, T. quickly snagged a laptop worth over $2,000 using four of the many hacked accounts available online. However, eBay wouldn’t accept orders from Vietnam, so he contacted a cousin studying in Canada to help receive the package. Yet, things were not as straightforward as T. had imagined; he unknowingly violated the “unwritten” rule among credit card thieves of not stealing more than $200 from a single account. Consequently, his cousin faced repercussions when trying to send the package back to Vietnam. T. recounted that he had to rally family members to pay a $7,000 fine to keep his cousin from having to return home empty-handed.
To evade Interpol’s scrutiny, these “shippers” have devised numerous new tricks to steal successfully. L.V.H recounted: “Since many e-commerce sites refuse to transact with buyers using computers from Vietnam, some people have to personally go abroad. First, they choose intermediary companies that specialize in online shopping with home delivery. Naturally, the prices can be one and a half times the actual cost, but that’s not a concern since it’s not their money. They then select a rented room or dormitory as a receiving point, schedule a pickup time, and once the job is done, they vanish.”
Using this method, T.N, a student from Hanoi, made a trip to Singapore with a budget airline ticket, combining a visit to a friend with shipping some goods back to recoup costs. However, the professional Canon EOS camera worth over $2,500 was confiscated by customs during a random inspection due to insufficient documentation. To make matters worse, security personnel uncovered N’s scheme. As a result, he faced nearly $10,000 in fines, fortunately avoiding criminal charges.
Do Ngoc Duy Trac, CEO of the VSEC Information Security Network, shared: “Shipping goods has now become a key focus for Interpol, with the recent case of Cuong and Luong being a prime example. Sometimes, just for a few dozen dollars, one risks their university degree and future, which is truly not worth it“. More importantly, regardless of how young people justify their actions or the euphemisms they use to describe their illegal activities, it must be called what it is—”theft”. Stealing the hard-earned fruits of others’ labor will always be condemned.
