Is this in the US. I'm tempted to call BS on the story.

I live in a country with bad policing and these type of crimes are taken seriously. Like if you use the card for 50-100$ purchases, your next will probably jail time.

Another point: Did the card owner complain? Usually, when a complaint happen multiple parties are involved. The shipper gets a charge back on his account, so he'll actually care to pursue. MasterCard/Visa also pursue these issues as well as the banks involved in these transactions.

tl;dr: probably BS in the US. And from what I read the only countries where you can get away with are Russia, Nigeria, etc...