Stolen Card And Loyalty Credentials For Sale On Facebook Says LFPA

The newly formed Loyalty Fraud Prevention Association (LFPA), launched in September of last year, has made a bold claim in its latest release.

While the image conjured up when imagining the sale of stolen card credentials is likely some seedy back-alley of the internet or within the depths of the dark web, the LFPA has found that these illicit transactions are taking place out in the open.

Notably, the LFPA has said that fraudsters, once they’re able to steal credit card information and loyalty program account data, are selling the credentials in plain sight on Facebook.

The LFPA was formed to support the fight against fraud across loyalty, with member organizations including airlines, hotels, IT providers and financial services companies, among other industry verticals. The organization is calling on Facebook to police the issue to protect consumers from card and loyalty fraud.

“Any quick search for pages in Facebook for stolen credit cards will yield many pages and users selling stolen account data,” said LFPA Secretary Peter Maeder. “These fraudsters are now finding loyalty program accounts to be an easier target.”

Maeder claims that LFPA member organizations have reported the issue to Facebook in the past but have had little to no success removing the pages used to sell stolen data.

This is far from the first time illegal activity has made its way onto the social media giant’s site.

Facebook has grown to see over 1.93 billion monthly users — 1.28 billion of whom access the site daily. Chances are that a few of these users are up to no good. (Look no further than the violent live-streaming content controversy Facebook has had to deal with recently.)

In the company’s latest earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that, over the next year, Facebook plans to add 3,000 more people to its community operations team to review millions of user reports the company receives on a weekly basis. Given the breadth and depth of data on Facebook’s websites, the question then becomes if this will be enough to put a dent in the problem.