Posted on 11/18/2004 11:35:29 AM PST by Cableguy
William Jackson never thought he would be grateful for going bankrupt.
Nine months ago, the 44-year-old resident of Katy, Texas, got an e-mail message from what appeared to be eBay's PayPal online payment division. It warned him that his account would be suspended unless he updated it with his personal financial data. The e-mail directed Jackson to a Web site that looked like PayPal's. He keyed in his checking, credit card, bank routing and Social Security numbers, his birthday, his mother's maiden name and the personal identification number for his bank card.
The Web site was a fake. Within a week, the people who created it used Jackson's data to steal $200 from his PayPal account and run up $1,000 in credit card charges.
Jackson cleared up the problem with his bank after two months, and a short while later the activity ceased. But late this summer, his car insurance company sent him a letter rejecting an application for a $30,000 car loan that he never requested.
The only thing that stopped this latest attempt to use Jackson's identity was the 1997 bankruptcy filing that he and his wife made after the military base where he was stationed closed and his civilian job left them with a hefty pay cut in the face of mounting debt.
"Basically every piece of personal data about me had been compromised," Jackson said. "It's pretty simple to get another credit card number and [e-mail] address and switch banks, but what do you do when these guys know the stuff that doesn't change?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That's what crooks always say.
I keep getting e-mails promising me more size in the bedroom. I'm intrigued, because right now there's just enough room for the bed and the nightstands.
No, he's smart.
ROFLMAO. Good one. Thanks.
from the article: "Basically every piece of personal data about me had been compromised,"
No dummy, you compromised them all by yourself, by being exceedingly stupid.
--Boot Hill
I received a supposed ebay email about 2 weeks ago. It didn't look right & I forward the e-mail directily to the ebay spoof site. It wasn't from them so the crooks didn't get any personal info from me.
I got the eBay spoof message too. The way I caught it first was when I moused over the link that said "https://ebay.xxxxxx" I noticed at the bottom of my browser was showing a strange URL in the UK. I viewed the HTML source and sure enough, all the links were not what they appeared to be. I didn't reply and I forwarded it to eBay.
With some of those emails all you had to do was open them and an actice x component gave the perps a back door to your PC. Don't be stupid, sticking up for criminals by calling the victims idiots is so, so, liberal!
I also believe that scantily clad women might, just might, be asking for it. Personal responsibility is paramount in my credo.
"With some of those emails all you had to do was open them and an actice x component gave the perps a back door to your PC. Don't be stupid, sticking up for criminals by calling the victims idiots is so, so, liberal!"
You mean Active-X? Actually, you should have your copy of Internet Exploder set to not run any Active-X components, and you should have a virus-scanning program examining your email before you have a chance to open it.
You could also use a mail service like Yahoo, which automatically scans your email for you.
Or, I suppose, you could refuse to open any email at all. That would be a sure way to avoid problems. Just don't deal with email.
Most of us, however, must deal with email on a daily basis. It's easy enough to protect yourself, but not clicking on links in email is the easiest thing in the world to do. As long as you make it a habit, you won't ever do it.
Another good habit is to turn off the display of all HTML graphics in your mail reader. That will help, too.
Instead of getting angry at the people giving good advice about email, try getting angry at the ones sending it to you. You're mad at the wrong people.
Sounds like you have the infamous Mozilla Double-Post virus. Get a Mac.
Generally good advice. I'll note that it's very unlikely that you would get infected following the links included in a phishing scam. Directing you to a site that might trigger an AV or malware warning would be counterproductive to their purpose.
"I have had to wipe hard drives of family members who had their computers taken over by trojans and viruses, that's why I'm a little upset about calling people idiots."
As have I. I follow that up by installing software which protects them, and take them off AOL forever. I then give lessons in how not to be attacked by these phishers, etc.
All my family members now follow the simple rules that keep them from being attacked.
Idiots are those who will or can not learn. Are you teaching your family? Have you set them up on safe mail readers? If not, why not?
I sure do, I tell them to dump Outlook and use Eudora or Incredimail.
"I sure do, I tell them to dump Outlook and use Eudora or Incredimail."
Don't just tell them; install them and uninstall AOL. For Pete's sake, it's not enough for older folks just to tell them to do something. You have to help them do it.
Otherwise, they'll just go on harming their computers. Why? They don't understand, and they don't want to understand. They just want to email their friends and maybe buy some stuff on eBay.
Just help them do what they want safely. I have parents who are both 80. My wife's parents are 84 and 75. I would not dream of not doing whatever was necessary to help them compute safely.
When they have a question about a piece of email, they call me. Every time. So, no viruses for them. No malware, because it gets blocked. Nothing. They email people and buy stuff on eBay. That's about it.
Are all Active X controls bad? I just downloaded one from MS for my MSN Money forum for the stock charts.
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