[thechat] Credit card fraud question

[Madhu Menon]

Hi guys.

Here's a hypothetical question (well, it's not, but it's better to work 
that way)

Suppose you found that there was a guy who had set up a domain registration 
site on the Net. It looks like a real site and doesn't have any notices 
that it's under development or not finished. On searching for existing 
domain names like blogspot.com, you find that the site lists them as 
available. It also lets you enter a credit card number to register and 
rejects invalid credit card numbers.

You suspect a scam, but can't prove it. When exposed on somebody's blog, 
the owner says the site was under development and it wasn't supposed to be 
live (however, it was linked from other sites that this guy runs)

Of course, a lot of people find this very suspicious. They wonder what he 
could do with this info.

What I want to know is: can just the collection of credit card numbers in 
this manner be considered an illegal activity in USA? Obviously none of us 
put in a real credit card number to test the system. Is there any law there 
that says you shouldn't put up a site like this, collecting credit card 
numbers, unless you have a fully working setup?

Regards,

Madhu