Identity Theft

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Canada have a website devoted to prevention of identity theft.? The Phonebusters site describes the various scams on the internet, phishing, email scams and provides strategies to protect yourself and your computer.

Check out what the Mounties have to say CLICK HERE
 
We are having one of our computers - a PC rebuilt and the retired Army Intelligence Corps signal electronic guys doing the work are suggesting we get away from ZoneAlarm, Norton and Windows spyware and anti-virus stuff.  They claim the "Crackers" have been working against those programs for so long now they have found ways to run junk in along side that is no longer detected.  It was like Apple being free of intrusions for a long time because there were not as many on the market as IBM style units and Windows.  They have some program that they can run on a test basis to see things that are in the system but not detected.  We are removing all the current long time anti-virus and spyware and going with a new one.  Think is is called "penguin?" One purchase is good for three computers.  Don't know much about it as the PC is still being rebuilt.  Two 80g hard drives runing in the mirror phase.  High grade CD/DVD + R RW.  No more Segate Tape nor PCMCiiA card readers and maybe no floppies.  Up graded vidio if they think it will help with Daisy's work in old, old family pictures and new scenic ones we take and we get from others.  Also a program that will let us use a laptop while on the road to work the home PC and other home laptops as if we were sitting in 
front of them.  They and I put in a system that allows us to control and watch TV programing and to control the TIVO from the road via the internet.  The remote is shown on the remote computer and is activiated by clicking on its buttons.  That is Slingbox from SlingMedia and can be seen using Google to find them.  Could add video cameras to the house and see how things look there from the remote but internet connected Wi-Fi places.

We found out last week that all of our "telephone" outlets throughout the house were wired with Cat 5 and are actually combined phone and ethernet outlets.  Put a switch in connecting all the ports to a four and an eight port router with a switch for a bridge.  With no home land line everything is now ethernet but with changing one wire can be converted back to land line usage if we - or our estate sell the house.

 
Fred, you're really getting high tech :)  SlingBox is a really neat device, but you do need a broadband connection at both ends to make use of it.  The old analog cell phone just won't cut it anymore.  You can do a show and tell when we get there in a few weeks.
 
"For online and telephone purchases, you are usually asked for the CVV/CVC code, a 3 or 4 digit code on the back of the card.  This proves that you have physical possession of the card."

I am a recent victim of on-line credit card fraud. Those three digits didn't help at all. An employee of a place I was doing business with (on-line) must have sold all the information to somebody else, who was using it for expensive downloads  on line ($700.00 bucks worth).

The good news is I know which business ripped me off because the fraud was a few days after the one time I used this credit card in about a year. That made it quite obvious. A police report has been filed in this case.

This is the third time that I have been a victim of credit card fraud, but this was the only time from on-line. I noticed the $700.00 worth of charges no more than a day later after it was fraudulently used.

The time before this, somebody made an illegal copy of my credit card with a different name on it. I have reasons to believe this was done at a Chinese Restaurant in San Francisco. In this case, the credit card company discovered the problem before I did and called me.

The other time was when I charged  $200.00 worth of gasoline for $15.00 worth of gasoline into a small car.  I had the receipt with much different numbers than the bill.

Anyway, fixing all these problems went smooth at no cost to me.

                                                        -Don-

 
Don,

Thanks for sharing your experience.  Your stroy proves the necessity of closely following our credit card transactions and checking the transactions online, especially after dealing with an online vendor.

Though you may not want to identify the online vendor by name, would you share they general type of online vendor this was....electronics, RV supplies, music download etc?
 
Steve,

There is no reason for me to not mention the name were my credit card was illegally used. These two companies were nice enough to reverse the charges to make it faster and easier than dealing with the credit card company. However, the credit card company was notified of the fraud as well.

I am not sure what type of software these places are selling  even after I visit the websites, so perhaps somebody here can tell me.

The company names are :  Melissadata (for $99.00) and Joomlashack (for $595.90).

http://www.melissadata.com/

http://www.joomlashack.com/

The company where the employee is who I believe  ripped me off I will NOT mention here, because I cannot prove anything. But I did mention it on the police report that was filed (that this happened right after doing business with them and this was the first time this card was used in more than a year). But it is a company on the east coast that sells parts for small electric powered boats.

One thing was already discovered. The illegal download was made from Utah, far from the east coast. So it seems the credit card  information was sold to somebody in Utah.  I had a nice chat with the guy from Joomlashack from the police station. He also confirmed all the info he had on my credit card (phone numbers, etc) was the EXACT same info given to the boat parts place. He was very concerned with getting this guy busted, before the illegal downloaded $600.00  worth of  software spreads all over the internet.


                                                            -Don-
 
The bad guy may or may not be in Utah  :(  My understanding is that bad guys on the internet can appear to be on one place while actually operating from far away.

We can never be too vigilant!
 
"My understanding is that bad guys on the internet can appear to be on one place while actually operating from far away."

Yes, I was wondering about that too..

BTW,  just last Sunday a guy called me here at home pretending to be the fraud department of that same credit card. They were asking me for information in reference to my OLD account number, the same account number that was used fraudulently. They were asking me to confirm my birthday and stuff like that, but he wanted ME to tell him.  I wouldn't fall for it and reported this to the credit card company.

Perhaps I should have just given him false information and see what happens from there.

                                                                    -Don-
                                                         
 
I had that happen to me once and just for the heck of it , I told him to send info to an old E mail account  and I would forward it.  Well he did and I did, but I sent the email with his info to the FBI friend of mine    They caught him.  Don't know what the results where but it satisfied me.  I save that email account for crap like that, nothing else.
 
The fraud was against my Altura Credit Union account. They have been having other fraud problems too. You can read about it on their home page at:

http://www.alturacu.com/home.cfm


Where their website page was redirected to a fake one!  This had nothing to do with my fraud case.

See here.

                                  -Don-
 
I was a victim of the 'phishing' type of fraud last week, the information requested from me was supposedly from my bank about my on-line account and the questions they were asking appeared to be questions only my bank should know so I gave my ATM account number to them.  That was Wednesday, by Friday night a $650.00 on line ATM withdrawal was attempted through Western Union.  The 'crooks' were trying to wire money from my account to the Netherlands.  I called Western Union and was told that they would not accept the transfer at the last minute because certain security questions could not be answered, however, the funds were held out of my account until today since my bank did accept them until Western Union replaced them.  It was scary because these people were able to give Western Union my address and phone no.  I have since called Transunion and placed a Fraud alert on my credit. 
Apparently, there is an International ring and they do this type of thing a lot, and they are always trying to wire money out of the states.  I not only feel pretty dumb but very vulnerable at this time.
 
No financial institution will ask for any account information in an email.  If you receive such an email, and you think it might be legitimate, call your bank using the number on your bank or credit card and ask them about it.  DO NOT reply to the email.
 
Also, do not reply to telephone inquiries for information. People may portray themselves as police officers (FBI, ATF, etc.) doing an investigation, bank personnel, and others that you would tend to trust. Ask them for a telephone number that you can return their call to, and first verify that it is valid. Better still, tell them that you would be happy to meet with them in their office.
 
Perhaps I am paranoid about this, but it seems that when I order refill meds from either of our online pharmacies, with secure connection, over the next few days I get several emails from various places pushing low cost meds.

Same when I look for golf clubs on Ebay, the I get lots of golf email junk about free golf, golf publications, etc.

Some out there seem to have a lot of time but with my Mailwasher I can delete them in a flash.

I don't find a reason why I get all the email junk about replica watches as I only wear a Timex and have never shopped for a watch!!! :) :)

Bob
 
I get a few hundred spam on all issues every day, I can't say as ordering something increases the amount.

Though I have noticed winning an E=bay auction tends to bring out the Phish

(And I keep frying them)

Some businesses do sell E-dresses to spammers
 
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