A California man has been charged with online fraud for an alleged scheme to siphon $50,000 from online brokerage accounts, using a basic loophole that gained him a few pennies each time he created a bogus user account.
As reported in several Web newspapers, the man created accounts at Etrade and Schwab.com, many of them using the names of TV cartoon characters.
Michael Largent, of Plumas Lake, Calif., allegedly exploited a loophole in a common procedure those online brokerages use, allowing a customer to receive a few pennies as a mini-deposit to verify a bank account to be used for funds.
Largent allegedly used a script to open 58,000 online brokerage accounts in the names of cartoon characters and other aliases. Among the names he favored, according to federal investigators, are Johnny Blaze, "King of the Hill" patriarch Hank Hill, and Rusty Shackelford — the alias used by the paranoid exterminator Dale Gribble on "King of the Hill."
A Secret Service search warrant affidavit alleges that Largent tried the same thing with Google's Checkout service, accumulating $8,225.29 in eight bank accounts at Bancorp Bank.
Largent was quoted saying he read Google's terms of service, and that it didn't prohibit multiple e-mail addresses and accounts. "He stated he needed the money to pay off debts and stated that this was one way to earn money, by setting up multiple accounts having Google submit the two small deposits," he was quoted in an article at Wired.