Identity Theft

I have been fortunate with my accounts. I never use my debit Card on line. I use the ATM at the bank. If either of us travel to a place that we do not normally visit we notify the bank and credit card company in advance. I have had both my credit card and debit card declined when I was outside of my usual stomping grounds. It was a small pain to contact the credit card company and the bank but worth it.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
That's horrifying. Are they trying to collect damages from you?

This just confirms what I've suspected about many credit agencies:

1) They're primarily reactive: there's no day-to-day monitoring of all activity in most cases. In your case, the left hand literally didn't know what the right hand was doing.
2) Even though they want you to feel reassured that your credit is being protected, they really don't want to give you the money back if they can pin it on you. Hopefully, that's not what's happening to you!
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I can't drive, legally either, but the dealership had my licence details(I can't hold one on medical grounds) and bank details as they were given. Which weren't mine either, and now oddly empty.

I think they may have tried taking my car. had I been able to turn up in one. But the final nail in the coffin was "me" having driven the car away from there.
 
Elawin said:
I am very wary about using ATMs because of the risk of fraud. Two local ones were terrible - one was at a building that used to be a bank, but that has now been taken out completely (it was also hidden behind a row of trees, which didn't do it any favours), and the other is at a garage about 3 miles away. That one is round the back of the garage out of view, and again is decidedly dodgy. Many people have had their accounts emptied when they used that one. If I used an ATM now, it's either the one at my branch of my bank and has more CCTV cameras covering it than I can even count easily), a local building society (more CCTV cameras again), or the one at Tesco (although I used to feel safer using that one when it was inside the supermarket itself). Luckily the bank usually phone up if there is any strange activity on a bank account including money that is paid in. This was a godsend to my friend who had several very large transactions queueing up in Hong Kong, all the same day as she had gone into her bank to pay in a cheque. Even she couldn't be in two places at once. They did however not stop two transactions the following day at the ATM at the garage, but these were soon refunded when it was pointed out that she was a work at the time and could not possibly have travelled to the garage and back in her lunch break. Which also reminds me, my bank card only covers the next few days, and I do not have the (new) replacement card yet. I think a phone call to my bank is going to be in order this afternoon.
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On the corner of the building on the left. Owner is unknown, but it's in use.
ATM.jpg
 
Not identity theft but another credit card hack. While reviewing the cc account G found a charge through Pay Pal. Their research found that it originated in China. So - cc cancelled. Waiting for a new one. Now we have to reset all of our auto pay accounts. A pain.
 
I was thinking of the song by Rockwell "watching you" lol

Maybe the illuminati is out to get you!!!????!?!?!? Or the Federal Govt. is watching you to catch everyone else around you that are guilty of something serious!!!#$@!! Yeah Feds will do that to you.

Im not worried about stuff like that. Its a crazy story with me and you wouldnt believe this stuff with me but I feel secured online its actually kind of cool how this works.
 
I'm not sure how this slipped my mind...maybe because it has nothing to do with cooking. Anyway:

1) Lifelock got me my money back...it only took a year and a half, but I got it back!
2) They liked my story so much that I'm going to be in a TV commercial.

They are flying me out to California from Thursday to Sunday to shoot a testimonial about my experiences. I had a back-and-forth with a representative of Symantec, which owns Norton Anti-Virus (and Lifelock). They asked me to record a short video as part of the "audition" process. I could never seem to find the time to record something, and I didn't want something to appear too artificial. So, one day, I was taking my dogs for a walk, and I recorded this:


They liked what they saw so much that they are flying me out to the Bay Area, all expenses paid. This is pretty exciting...not to mention a great way to get away from the cold:
  • Forecast for Michigan: High of 36°F (2°C) / Low of 22°F (-5°C) - Chance of ❄
  • Forecast for San Francisco: High of 72°F (22°C) / Low of 51°F (10°C) - Lots of :sun:
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I'm not sure how this slipped my mind...maybe because it has nothing to do with cooking. Anyway:

1) Lifelock got me my money back...it only took a year and a half, but I got it back!
2) They liked my story so much that I'm going to be in a TV commercial.

They are flying me out to California from Thursday to Sunday to shoot a testimonial about my experiences. I had a back-and-forth with a representative of Symantec, which owns Norton Anti-Virus (and Lifelock). They asked me to record a short video as part of the "audition" process. I could never seem to find the time to record something, and I didn't want something to appear too artificial. So, one day, I was taking my dogs for a walk, and I recorded this:


They liked what they saw so much that they are flying me out to the Bay Area, all expenses paid. This is pretty exciting...not to mention a great way to get away from the cold:
  • Forecast for Michigan: High of 36°F (2°C) / Low of 22°F (-5°C) - Chance of ❄
  • Forecast for San Francisco: High of 72°F (22°C) / Low of 51°F (10°C) - Lots of :sun:
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Good result.
 
Mewmew said:
Holy crap, how awful...! Hope you get it sorted soon, The Late Night Gourmet.
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It's all good now. The mess started in late 2017. By May this year, PayPal finally agreed that I didn't make the 115 charges myself, and they credited my account (as well as paying back all the months of payments I had made against the fraudulent debt). It took a report from a security expert to prove to them that my system was infected with "backdoor" viruses that allow access from other computers. It shouldn't have taken so much time and effort to get a company that's worth $100 billion to forgive the debt, though.

But, it seems that companies with money generally want more of it, and don't like parting with it. They had what seemed like a legitimate claim that the charges could have been from me: the hacker was ingenious enough to make the sign-in attempts appear to be from my location. PayPal knew that someone with a good credit rating was more likely to pay them money than the hacker who actually took it, even if it made no sense.
 
I recently had cause to get a new debit card. I wanted to buy a particular book but it was out of print. The usual suspects such as Amazon who sell second-hand books on behalf of various establishments drew a blank. I searched on Google and found one shop that had a copy. I clicked on the Google link and there it was in all its glory and at a reasonable price. I ordered it and was redirected to their payment page. I put in my name, address, and debit card details, and a message flashed up that the debit card details were incorrect, so I tried again. This time I was extra careful with the details but again got the message that they were incorrect, so I cancelled the order.

For some strange reason, decided to log in to my bank account immediately after logging out of that site. There were two strange transactions, one under the name of that shop and one under the name of someone else, both for fairly insignificant amounts (testing the water?). I phoned the bank and explained what had happened and they immediately cancelled my card. Unfortunately it was going to be a few days before I got my new card, and I had two transactions (both for my food shopping) which were due in the next day or so - Riverford, and the milkman. I phoned them both up the next morning, and both said don't worry about it. Just fill in your new card details when you receive it and we'll take it then. A few days late won't make any difference; you're a regular customer. Can you imagine Tesco or Sainsbury's saying that?
 
A few years back we were dining out with friends and met a information technology executive friend of theirs that works for Bank of America who was dining out with his family too.

He said as soon as you start banking online you are wide open to ID theft. Wife and I have yet to experience it because we still bank in person, still write checks to pay our bills, have one credit card for online purchases, and never, ever give out financial info like Social Security, driver license numbers and the like.

You can keep your info somewhat secure. Not 100% failsafe, but we haven't been stung yet.
Absolutely nothing on our computers, cellphones, no doorways for the bad folks to get in.
 
A few months back, we used the phone to deposit a check from my second job. We have done this before. This time someone (had to be an inside job) took a copy of the check and redeposited it for more money than the original was for. My bud had to close the account and open a new one. Beware if you deposit via phone. I'd also be careful with any other smart phone transactions.
 
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