Archive for February, 2010

I’m very grateful for confirmation emails and 24 hour online banking!  The ability to check my bank account any time day or night helped me stop a thief from receiving merchandise ordered online with my debit card!

On February 3rd at 6:54 pm an email was sent to me saying I requested password help for my Sam’s Club account.  No, I didn’t make that request.  Just two minutes later another email went out confirming ‘my’ purchase of two cameras from Sam’s Club to be sent to Chicago.  I live in Dallas.

I was fortunate enough to see these emails only an hour after the transaction happened.  I immediately went to my Sam’s account, but the password had been changed.  I then checked my bank account online and saw a transaction in the amount of $1,293.67 from Sam’s Club.  It was too late to reach them (I tried), but I did reach someone at my bank’s 24 hour line for stolen cards.  The transaction was immediately put on hold.

Of course, my card had to be cancelled, which means I have to notify everyone who has that number for a recurring payment.  Plus I couldn’t  access those funds from my bank account until the matter was resolved. 

The next morning I called Sam’s Club to cancel that card and stop the shipment of the two cameras.  It took 5 calls to get to the right person.  But Julie in Chicago didn’t get the two cameras.

This is identity theft. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I believe it was a professional hit. The delivery address may just be a place where stolen goods are shipped.  Electronics and cameras are great for that.  The ‘forgot password’ email would give the thief an opportunity to use a program (called a packet sniffer) that tracks and reads specific emails just to get password information. It wasn’t casting about for whatever might bite, but after a specific, accessible target to access the account and place an order.  It’s possible that initially only my Sam’s account was compromised, and ordered from Sam’s using my card on file.  However both accounts were compromised in the end and had to be cancelled.

I asked a lot of questions about Internet safety and banking and online accounts. I’m fortunate that my husband Mike is extremely knowledgeable about Internet technology and what can and can’t be done to compromise email.

The person I spoke with at Sam’s told me almost no one calls to stop a stolen order from shipping.  My taking this action made it easy for Sam’s to void the charge to my bank account, and the funds were released back to me sooner than they might have been.  Catching the transaction so soon made the entire unfortunate and inconvenient situation much less painful and easier to resolve.

I’ll still order online at secure sites, and I’ll continue to check my email and monitor my online bank accounts, especially when my intuition tells me to check things at odd hours like it did February 3rd.

We may be early adopters on a lot of techie stuff, but we’ve held off on the ebook readers. I can’t use my highlighter on them.  

Then last fall we started seriously checking out what’s available.  First the Kindle, then the big screen Kindle DX.  Several lesser known names.  Then Barnes and Noble’s introduced the Nook.  They missed their Christmas target date (that had to hurt).  The Nook has some very interesting features like highlighting.  For me that’s huge.  Then I discovered the Kindle has a cut and paste function that can string together what I would’ve highlighted.  That sounds very useful!

Then Apple introduced the iPad eReader with incredibly cool features.  Interestingly enough, the only negative comments I’ve heard seem to be Mac fans who want the iPad to be a full functioning computer rather than a really cool eReader.   If those comments drive Apple to further tweak the iPad, great!  Most non-Mac fans think the iPad is totally awesome.  A big brother to the iPhone.

That’s where we find ourselves.  I just got an iPhone last October (birthday gift from my iPhone owner husband).  Until then, a cell phone was just a convenient way to communicate when I wasn’t near my land line.  I had text messaging, but I didn’t have Internet access, email from my cell or any other techie features.  Of course, Mike did, and he’s always been up on all the latest and greatest tech toys, looking for fancy cell phones that did everything but laundry.  When my son got an iPhone, Mike checked it out and had to have one.  My son gave my daughter-in-law an iPhone for her birthday, so it was only fitting that I should get one too.  I took a power leap into communication and technology on the go.  Do not try to pry it from of my fingers.

Until the iPhone I wasn’t sure if I’d really use an ebook reader since I was still clutching my highlighter.   I got a Bible ap for my iPhone and discovered I enjoy reading that way.  The ap I use lets me bookmark passages to a growing list of my ‘highlights’.  An ebook reader will just make it easier than reading from a  2" x3" screen.  So I’m doing my due diligence on the features of all of the eReaders to see which one will best fit my wants and needs.  Mike’s already got his hand raised to say ‘I want the iPad.’ 

Here come the Scams.  I started writing this because I ’m now getting emails saying the iPad is great and I can have a chance to get one for free.  You might get those emails too.  Don’t fall for it.  The free chance will cost you!  Here’s the tell-tale sentence:  ’For simply completing a brief survey, and fulfilling all offer requirements, you could be on your way to a new Apple iPad! Participate now before this offer runs out.’  ‘Fulfilling all offer requirements’ means they probably will be showing you lots of things to buy to keep your name in a very large hat for drawing (if they ever really do a drawing).  The loophole, of course, is that if you’re supposed to get 3 from this page and 3 from that page (yes offers like that are real), and you find 4 on one and 2 on another or don’t want 6, then you simply don’t get entered into the ‘chance to win’.  But they get to keep your information already submitted.

Right now the Apple iPod is hot, so that’s the hook they use to get you to buy stuff.  Oh yes, they also add your information to a list that gets sold to a lot of other lists.   I entered my name and a unique, different email address one time only for something online and discovered that list has been sold and resold so many times it took nearly three years to unsubscribe from them all.  Sometimes these lists (where you originally entered your contact information)  are sold to List Brokers who then sell them several times to people buying leads. 

Not all offers are scams. Just beware of the ones that require you to accept other offers to win the original item.  Read the email offer completely and don’t feel obligated to buy things you didn’t intend to get.  You might also wind up on a lot of email lists offering even more ’stuff’.