[proxy_user]

Nearly every financial and subscription service, including the IRS and Social Security, has a web site where you can log in a check the status of your account. In almost every case, you’ll find that the email or phone call you received doesn’t correspond to the actual status of your account.

[rlmorel]

Thanks for the heads up...glad you picked it up!

[School of Rational Thought]

Secret VPN service

[rktman]

They are some sneaky MOFOs.

[Sgt_Schultze]

For several years, I have been using a service from a site called privacy.com. By using this service, I create credit card numbers on the fly. They can be persistent cards or burner cards. I can set the maximum charge per incidence, per month, per year or total, or no limit. Privacy.com draws directly from my checking account. I setup a separate checking account for this card which only funds these “homemade” cards.

I use these for all subscription services. When I stopped Comcast, I “paused” the card so no further charges would be authorized. No “accidental” charges, no dings for anything, no need to have to beg for my own money back.

Once you assign a card to a merchant, THAT number will ONLY work at THAT merchant. When you need a card number to activate a service that promises to bill you later, you can create one and set the value to $1. Then if you decide to cancel, no accidental charges.

[Twotone]

I had something different happen last week. I subscribe to The Blaze & I got an email saying that my subscription had been cancelled as requested. I didn’t request any such thing. I contacted The Blaze, but so far have not received an answer. My logins are all still good. Very odd...

[Pollard]

Dear fellow FReepers, likely the majority of you use a VPN along with more secure browsers and also add-ons like Ghostery.

um, no

But yesterday morning a very official-looking notification (a pop-up) appeared

You must be using Windows

[Tacrolimus1mg]

I use TorGuard. They don’t pop up messages; that message comes up right within the program window itself.

[glorgau]

The general rule for all of that stuff is “never use a link some popup or email gives you”. Navigate to it yourself.

[Cats1]

Might be a good idea to virus check your computer and then run malwarebytes on it. —Hopefully that will take care of your problem.

p.s. And thanks for the post. I’ve been doing research lately on how to make sure computers are safe.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

SM, been meaning to ask about Norton360 - germane to this discussion because it includes a VPN - and wonder if 360 is worse than useless on a Mac.

[Uncle Miltie]

I got one of these approximately one year into my three year pre-paid plan.

[mass55th]

Thanks for the info. I've had Express VPN for many years now. I pay automatically every month, and it's fine with me that I pay a bit more that way. I had thought about paying yearly, but then didn't want my kids to have to try to get the money back if I died within that year. They're both on my checking account as co-owners, so if I do die, they can initiate a stop-payment with the bank, and notify the VPN company.

I've been getting phishing emails from someone claiming to be Amazon, and another for a Chase account I don't have. I ignore the ones from Chase because I don't do business with them, but forward the Amazon emails to Amazon's fraud department.

The other day I started getting a series of calls on my cell phone, and the call would then go to voicemail. I don't answer any calls that aren't in my contacts. The calls were all from my area code, with the first three digits of my phone number. The last four numbers changed each time they called. These calls were coming every 30 minutes, then the number sped up to every 11 minutes. I'd block the number, and delete the voicemail. The voicemail gave a different number to call them back on. I searched online for the voicemail number, and found many complaints for that number, and that they were spoofing a phone number for Apple iCloud support.

I finally got tired of blocking and deleting the calls from my phone, and called Verizon to find out how I could stop them. I thought I had a Verizon call filter on my phone, but was told that I would have to download the app, then select the options I wanted. He also told me I could use "Do not disturb" on my iPhone to block unwanted calls. I decided to download the app in Apple's App Store, and viola!! it works! All those spam and robo calls are automatically terminated when they call. If they're calling me, I don't know it.