I think there are three clear parties that need to take more active steps to try to reign in these kinds of Shysters:
1) Google - Institute a "Reputation Rank"/or other algos. internally when selling Ads thru any platform. If there is some hint that an ad-buyer is into some questionable stuff yank their ads, ban them from buying any more. Have a dedicated staff that investigates fraud ads and make it simple for the customers to file complaints about specific ads.
2) Visa/MC/Amex - The central lynch-pin - if they cannot bill, they cannot cheat. Tune your systems to ban these shysters faster.
3) Govt. - Create a dedicated Agency to help consumers with Internet commerce related fraud complaints. The nature of Internet makes it a fundamentally different animal to conduct business on - you need a fundamentally different kind of dept. to help keep track of Fraud.
For #2 I think it would be nice to see greater availability of "virtual CC numbers", where you can set some arbitrary limit for and it is not exceeded.
It seems limited to a few banks that I choose not to be customers of though, so maybe the feature doesn't work as well as I hope it would.
I would certainly like to see better tools as a card owner, which I could use to better protect myself.
1) Indeed. Google today is kinda schizophrenic when it comes to this kind of policies: super strict rules about the content and the way it gets displayed in SERPs by google Search, totally non-chalant and pretty lax about Adwords campaigns that are borderline scammy.
Sometimes they look like the totally separated departments of a dystopian government from the Future, à la Brazil.
2) Hard to do before an investigation takes place. Sure there are recognizable patterns but the easiest route is still to block and refund after the fraud has actually
happened.
3) Well, more than that the Govts should spend their money on educating people to avoid this kind of scams
1) Google - Institute a "Reputation Rank"/or other algos. internally when selling Ads thru any platform. If there is some hint that an ad-buyer is into some questionable stuff yank their ads, ban them from buying any more. Have a dedicated staff that investigates fraud ads and make it simple for the customers to file complaints about specific ads.
2) Visa/MC/Amex - The central lynch-pin - if they cannot bill, they cannot cheat. Tune your systems to ban these shysters faster.
3) Govt. - Create a dedicated Agency to help consumers with Internet commerce related fraud complaints. The nature of Internet makes it a fundamentally different animal to conduct business on - you need a fundamentally different kind of dept. to help keep track of Fraud.