It almost sounds too easy. According to one scammer, teens as young as 13 are scoring stolen credit card info on sketchy websites and living large through a scam called “deetsing.”
In a 2022 episode of VICE’s Crimewave documentary series, journalist Tir Dhondy spoke with a young fraudster who goes by the name D2. Inspired by other—even younger—students in his school, he claimed he was able to acquire enough funds to cover lavish experiences and hefty purchases: iPhones, flights, holidays, fancy sushi dinners, clothes, and food deliveries.
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“I’ve been able to get all-inclusive trips and holidays, and my Netflix accounts and Spotify,” D2 said. He showed off his account on Deliveroo, a British online food delivery company, where he had 65 credit cards saved. When one card stopped working, he’d simply move on to the next.
The seasoned scammer said he learned about deetsing at age 14 or 15. A few years later, at the time of filming, he said his “plug”—the person through which he’d get his credit card information—was also only 14.
To pull off these credit card scams, D2 and other fraudsters would sign onto sites on the dark web and simply pay a small fee—as little as $35 — for victims’ credit card information.
“Most websites have, like, 100 hackers working for them,” he explained. “And they just upload everything at once.”
Once they had access to the victim’s account info, scammers would estimate their wealth to gauge the types of purchases they could make with the card.
“The zip code’s really important,” D2 said. “Let’s say, for example, you find a zip code for someone in Westminster, and their house values, let’s say, 4 million pounds. You know they’re probably going to have quite a bit of disposable income.”
In other words: “They’re less likely to notice what’s going on and they’re less likely to report it.”
D2 said he never stole from people within his current city or home country. Instead, he would mostly target the rich from other regions of the world. He’d then use the funds to cover all-inclusive vacations, rental cars, 5-star hotels, fancy restaurants, and other lavish experiences.
He said some fraudsters would go as far as setting up entire businesses using merchandise bought with stolen credit card information, like a guy who flipped refrigerators, beds, and mattresses.
When asked whether he felt any sort of guilt or remorse for stealing and scamming, D2 quickly rejected the idea.
“When you’re a minority or you’re young, there’s not a lot of ways to make money,” he said. “A lot of people got to feed their families. I knew people who were doing it literally to feed their little brother. They help their mum and dad pay the rent.”
He said it felt more like a “victimless crime” because he thought most people would end up getting their money back anyway.
“At the end of the day, the bankers are stealing from us,” he said. “So why can’t we steal from them a little bit as well?”
And he said he’s not worried “at all” about receiving a prison sentence.
“I’ve never actually seen anyone get convicted,” he said. “Once you start fucking with the government or you start fucking around with big business, that’s when you get prosecuted. When you’re just doing a little Robin Hood thing, taking from the rich, giving to the poor, you’ll be alright.”
This is a common mindset these scammers maintain—especially the younger, more naive fraudsters.
Unfortunately, needless to say, credit card fraud of this type is not a victimless crime. There are plenty of reasons people won’t always get their money back, and dealing with the fallout can be stressful at the least and traumatizing at the worst. Plus, scammers do get caught—often ending up with a lengthy prison sentence or hefty fine.
