It is a human market to get a discount on various preferential policies for financial or consumer products: ordinary consumers get an extra discount while using products normally. They gathered in groups, even organized and systematic, waiting for opportunities to obtain loophole

"Our party goes to war, no grass grows."

This slogan is an announcement from a WeChat group where I am gathering the "Wool Party". The slogan

reminds me of the transit of locusts.

Locust transit

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Full amount cashback, points preferential treatment, equity exchange... It is a human market for various preferential policies for financial or consumer products: ordinary consumers get one more discount while using products normally; financial institutions or merchants achieve customer acquisition while making concessions or increase customer stickiness, activity and loyalty. This logic is a win-win situation.

However, the story is different when it comes to the malicious wool party. They gathered in groups, even organized and systematic, waiting for opportunities to obtain loopholes in preferential policies, or used illegal or illegal means to obtain those "privileges", then sold them at a discount, and withdraw cash.

In the Internet era, the malicious wool party has taken a step forward, operating in gang-style and high-tech ways, forming an integral part of the online "black industry". Relying on conventional tools such as mobile phone black cards or three/4-piece sets (ID card, mobile phone card, bank card, online banking shield), we use big data capabilities that are almost comparable to Internet companies, making amazing profits.

Let me tell you a few numbers first:

- Currently, direct practitioners of the domestic online "black industry": more than 400,000 people;

- The online "black industry" assists upstream and downstream personnel: 1.6 million people;

- The ID card free in the market: about 10 million;

- The price of three-piece/four-piece set: 500 to 1,200 yuan;

- The annual growth rate of bank card fraud caused by: about 40%;

- The annual output value of the online black and gray industry: estimated to exceed 100 billion yuan. (Compared with the total output value of network security is less than 30 billion.)

Of course, the Internet "black industry" has a large territory, and extortion and mobile phone fraud are all included. So what are the "black industries" related to finance?

- Payment link: bank card stealing;

- Loan link: impersonating identity information to cheat loans, applying for credit cards, maintaining cards, and withdrawing amounts to cash out;

- Consumption link: malicious wool party, etc.

"Yujian Finance" shows a backstage picture of the "black industry" crime I asked for from a network security expert. Let's take a look:

How powerful are the malicious wool parties? It can be seen from these two news I randomly found:

The party goes to the expedition

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Tell me a few cases of malicious wool parties that have heard or interviewed by "Yujian Finance". From small to large.

At that time, the central bank's "card restriction order" had not been implemented. When this bank designed preferential activities, it was probably unexpected that the wool party might go to apply for dozens or even 100 savings cards a day, and then use these 100 savings accounts to recharge to Taobao in a cycle. A savings card can indeed only get points equivalent to 8 yuan, but 100 yuan is 800 yuan. After redeeming points for oil cards, they will be sold in the QQ group to make a profit. And if a wool party loses 800 yuan, what about 100 wool parties? The bank had to stop its activities and modify the rules.

Rule "loopholes" like this actually happen from time to time. In the "our party going to fight" mentioned above, some people call this loophole "hair loss". They exchange "hair loss" they find in groups and forums every day. For example, a bank launched the activity design of credit card points to exchange for Starbucks coffee, which also "lose". Some people in the group can produce dozens of cups of coffee a day, and then sell the coffee coupons to cash out. As soon as the "secret book" was released, the whole group followed suit and went to war.

This malicious method of fleece that has been working hard for a long time is still at the bottom of the contempt chain of the wool party and the masses. What makes this much more fierce than this is the method used in the above post "A man born in the 1980s earns nearly 10 million yuan a year by making credit card points arbitrage": repeatedly swipe cards on multiple POS machines he controls, and use huge false transactions to obtain credit card points.How do you monetize these points in

? Generally, wool parties will choose to exchange for air miles with better circulation (equivalent to free air tickets for people), or airport pick-up and drop-off services, and then sell them in fixed online acquisition groups (some ticketing agents will acquire them specifically).

Wuhan police have previously cracked a case of illegal arbitrage with large amounts of credit card points and arrested more than ten criminal gangs. These wool parties have used the credit card consumption points reward mechanism of various commercial banks, especially banks have launched special discount measures for specific periods, specific commodities or specific consumption occasions. They have frantically swiped cards through a large number of credit cards and POS machines to create false transactions to defraud high points, and then cashed out after redeeming gifts. According to the police, the criminal gang has accumulated a total transaction amount of 800 million yuan and illegally made more than 30 million yuan.

The net of the law is endless. The essence of this behavior of the malicious wool party is to "illegal possession" and is a defrauding public and private property. The above-mentioned gang was held criminally responsible for fraud.

What is more serious than this is the Internet "black industry" wool party industry chain with stricter organization and much higher technical means. Their capabilities are beyond the imagination of the general public. Cybersecurity experts told "Yujian Finance" that from BAT, bank credit card centers, e-commerce giants, to unknown Internet companies, as long as they hold market activities, they may face huge threats from the Wool Party.

In July 2015, a Internet finance company in Guangzhou started a discount for giving more than 100 yuan in vouchers by opening an account to invest. The vouchers can be redeemed in cash maturity and principal. This subsidy plan was targeted by a group of wool party gangs from Hunan. As a result, in a short period of time, all the investment accounts were leveraged to buy 7-day ultra-short bids and collectively redeemed when they expired. (It is worth mentioning that the technology has developed to the point where you can use robot technology and robot accounts to make money in the application process.)

At that time, this Internet finance platform was still raising 200 million yuan, but it still failed to recover from the heavy pressure of the incident and finally went bankrupt - it died alive at the hands of the gang of wool parties.

Bank dilemma

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Talk to this end, if you still feel that eating melons and watching the show is not your business, it may not be possible.

butterfly effect, everything is connected. From the perspective of the entire social and economic ecology, the value lost due to the "black industry" of the Internet will eventually be conserved in the system where you and I are, and the consequences will spread in the ecology; and from a small perspective, if the discounts given by the promotional agency are swept away by the wool party in large quantities, it means that the rights and interests of us real consumers will be damaged.

For example, we often encounter some rewards, discount coupons, red envelopes, limited-time redemption, etc. with large discounts, and they are "sold" in a very short time. Our first reaction is either to be upset that we did not come early enough and the speed was not fast enough, or to suspect that the promotion agency was not sincere and must have only sent a little red envelope. But in fact, there is a hidden "murderer" behind this: the wool party "locusts cross the border".

As mentioned above, after the Wuhan police cracked the illegal arbitrage case of credit card points, the local police made a statement, recounting the banks' prevention measures, including using big data monitoring to screen for abnormal card swiping transactions, and also including some banks improving the credit card points system, such as setting an annual points upper limit.

From this set of logic, "Yujian Finance" will accompany you to observe banks that have "improved" credit card points and equity systems in recent stages.

Minsheng Bank Credit Card, starting from September 1 this year, will adjust the credit card points accumulation rules: within a single natural month, the upper limit of the points accumulated quota will be set according to the 2 times the customer-level credit limit of the activated card (excluding official cards and loan cards) under the customer's name, and the excess will no longer be accumulated in the account of the cardholder.

Guangfa Bank Credit Card, starting from July 1 this year, the monthly payment of aviation, business and travel joint credit cards will enjoy the cumulative airline mileage or points of partner (points) of the customer's card consumption shall not exceed the specified multiple of the customer's card consumption limit (3-star and above customers shall not exceed 1.5 times, and customers below three-star and below customers shall not exceed 1 times); and the annual cumulative airline mileage or points of partner (points) of each card shall not exceed 600,000 yuan (depending on the card type, the annual cumulative airline mileage of each card shall not exceed 30,000 or 50,000 miles).

Ping An Bank Credit Card (involving multiple cards), starting from December 15 this year, the airport/trail station pick-up and drop-off service that is redeemed with points will be only used by the cardholder who obtains this benefit. This right could be used for the cardholder’s designated object, just like when I was busy with work and didn’t have time to pick it up, I often used this gift to help my parents order cars. But now, my normal needs are also disturbed.

However, for the adjustment, Ping An Bank’s official explanation is to "guarantee the safety of cardholders' rides", which is of course very reasonable. The judgment I made can only be regarded as external guesses. But I believe that in their adjustments, they have more or less preparedness and avoidance against the "wool party". Because blocking the transfer of rights and interests is equivalent to blocking the monetization path of the wool party.

However, the product designers of the above banks are probably in a dilemma and entangled. I believe that if it weren't for various external factors, they would be willing to maximize the rights and interests of cardholders who use cards to enjoy loyal users. On the other hand, in the bank's actuarial logic, only by truly satisfying this group of high-quality customers in the service can they exchange their activity, stickiness, and good businesses that are truly profitable with interest and can be developed in comprehensive products - this is a virtuous cycle of win-win results between financial institutions and financial consumers.

is all about malicious wool party! The real money invested by banks in providing points and promotions cannot be targeted into our hands, and they are stolen by them using illegal or even illegal means.

This article comes from the WeChat public account: Yujian Finance

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