[ams6110]

At least on the surface, it would seem that the CC companies themselves have the most motivation to put a stop to this. Why are their anti-fraud departments not forwarding these sites to the FBI, getting court orders to shut down the domains (at least those hosted in the USA) working with big ISPs to get them blacklisted...?

Is there some non-obvious reason that it's in the interest of the CC companies to let this go? Is there a lot of low-level fraud that customers never notice, and just keep making those monthly minimum payments?

[ambiate]

Ever heard of chargebacks? You use my card, I complain to my cc company, they refund my money and attack the seller with fees for lack of verification.

So, >CC Thief gets whatever he bought at an empty house >CC holder gets stuck in an infinite customer service loop >CC company avoids charges >Seller gets fined