Fortnite has become the hot favorite
What do you do with stolen or illegally obtained money? You wash it! Of course not in the machine, but makes it legal through payment transactions. An increasingly popular way to do this is Fortnite.
The great popularity of Fortnite not only attracts more and more new players, but also more criminal opportunists. In addition to scam techniques, where special items are promised for real money, one of the major new fields of work is money laundering. As Variety reports, an increasing number of incidents have been found in which stolen credit cards have been turned into cash.
How does it work? The thieves create a free Fortnite account and use the stolen credit cards to currency the in-game “V-Bucks” and part of it special skins and other digital items. Afterwards they sell the account on e-Bay, of course also with wrong user data, or other auction houses as well as on the dark net.
The accounts are usually sold for less than the actual value, which increasingly attracts buyers who expect a good deal. This means that even the crooks get less out, but at least they have turned money illegally earned with the campaign into “clean” money.
Not new, but frequently found at Fortnite
The technique called “carding” is of course not new and can also be found in other online games. The high popularity of Fortnite, however, means that the technology is now being used on a large scale. On Ebay such accounts filled with skins will be traded for hundreds or even more than 1,000 US dollars.
Until Epic Games puts a stop to the hustle and bustle, the number is likely to increase further. And yes, buying and selling accounts at Fortnite is against the end user license of the game. This means that Epic Games can and must close accounts that have been purchased or sold, but they must first be intercepted. Unfortunately, in the past, this has already held the least number of other games.
Have you ever bought or sold a game account? In your opinion, how can Epic Games prevent such practices? Write us your opinion in the comments.
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