47-55.1 Soooooo, I was hacked, scary stuff!!!

[MARTINSR]

Ok you all, this is my life, DON'T LET IT BE YOURS!!!!!

Last Wednesday I was scammed, luckily I took control before they got money, but I was well on my way to being taken over! My head spinning has slowed down allowing me to post this.

I have had my computer "scrubbed" and they found nothing. This really blew my mind but I have learned how the scum was able to do this.

Search "Scammer Payback Answers Scam Questions" on youtube to see videos on this subject. MIND BLOWING how these videos a friend gave me walk you through exactly what they did to me!!

Watch these videos! It blows my mind how close I came to them getting money from me. Watching the video now I feel like how in the world could I have been so stupid? But it's EMOTION they take control of!

I'm still scared and don't want to put any details. Basically, watch these videos, it blows my mind how so many stories are exactly what I experienced! I have even seen this very screen you see here on these videos and this is a photo of MY screen that I took.

It just blows my mind that I was a bodyman a week out of high school and fed my family and put a roof over our head all these years doing honest work. All those years, and it was so easy to just be honest.

Brian

[vintovka]

Sorry to hear. Scammers are aware there has been little risk in defrauding folks and it shows. The number of scams via phone, text and email is alarming. BS texts warning of missed payments, unpaid tolls and other stuff seem a common occurance. Most are coming from outside the US. Now skeptical of all offers and messages to point that even legit stuff gets the 3rd degree. The proliferation of having to use verification codes has resulted in even them being corrupted by scammers.

[MARTINSR]

I was so lucky to change directions about an hour into the call! No kidding! They kept me going and going and going, "You need to get dressed and go to a store and buy an encrypted debit card to protect your money." It was CRAZY!!!!!!!
But I am an emotional guy and they had me going!!!!! There was some red flags that added up like them not wanting me to go to my bank and others. Thank goodness those red flags added up in my brain and I escaped!

I have been thanking God for the help!!!!

Brian

[nvrdone]

Be very grateful you caught it before they got $$$$. My son works in I.T. for a large chain of car dealers. He always tells me about scams they get hit with & is always changing our scam protection. So I'm very grateful for his watching out for us.

[brandnew72]

Scamming on the uptick is one reason I will not use a debit card. I was having to get new cards 2 or 3 times a year and sometimes waiting on money to be refunded and then the possibility they have direct access to funds is what is really scary. It's just numbers to the scammers but it can ruin your life.

At least with a CC it isn't your money. Just had one this morning for my Chase Business Card. Two denials at Castlok, a streaming service. Cancel the card, send a new one. And I don't use that card just anywhere. It'll eventually be impossible to stop I'm guessing.

[MARTINSR]

Yeah, some of the things I am learning are just crazy and I NEVER would have thought about such stuff.

Wondering when we will be going back to using cash.

Brian

[dsraven]

sorry to hear you got scammed. they are pro's at it. too bad they couldn't put that much effort into an actual honest days work.
here is another thing to watch out for, it happened to me at an international airport in texas on a layover, just long enough to stop for a lunch between flights.
I had my wallet in my hip pocket, zippered enclosure on the pocket which was not easy to open. seemed safe enough. stopped at an airport "sit down" style restaurant, found a table and a couple of chairs for the wife and myself. the restaurant was set up so there wasn't much room between the chairs which made it hard for others to get past. another "traveller" carrying a handbag, like a bussiness traveller would have, passed behind me on his way to a table but seemed to take extra time to get past and in doing this his handbag stayed behind me, near my wallet area, for the longest time as possible as he passed. I thought nothing of it at the time except that he was being thoughtful not to disturb me while we were eating.a few days later, after we arrived at our final destination, we checked our email and there was a note to say tere was a transaction on my visa card from the carribean. since we were in Panama that was not our purchase. we called visa and they cancelled the charge, and my card/ I watched a video showing how the scammer had been able to do that without having my physical card. inside the bag is a reader that picks up the signal from the visa card chip. the same chip that is used on the "tap" option at a store. then the scammer uses his electroni eqipment to transfer that to another card and he has a copy of my visa card. the video shows a fellow who stops a lady in the mall, tells her what he wants to do, he walks past he with his bag, showing how he swings his bag forward as he comes close to her, then as he passes her the bag naturally swings behind him but this acton keeps his bag next to her purse for the longest time possible as he seems to naturally walk past. the scanner reads her card and stores her info. then he shows her how he copies that info from her card onto his hotel swipe card, it clearly has the hotel logo on it. then he takes her to the fast food place in the mall and orders a soft drink and uses his hotel card, with her embedded info, to pay for the drink. the clerk doesn't even look at the card just allows it to happen like a normal visa card. then he shows her how those little paper sleeves that are available to slip your card into can make your credit cards safer by blocking the ability of the chip in the card to transmit through the sleeve.
now I use those little sleeves. they can be a pain to get the cards in and out of but better than being scammed or having no visa card on your holiday

[leegreen]

The credit card companies could stop this if they wanted to, but they make so much money by making their service convenient they accept the fraud.
In Canada, if your CC is from a federally regulated bank your liability for fraudulent use of your card is $50, unless you are grossly negligent with the card. So the banks/merchants eat the cost of fraud. We have never had to pay that $50 in the 3 or 4 occasions that our cards got caught up in some deviant behavior.

I am not a security expert but I do work in IT so some of it has rubbed off....

In Canada all the banks forced us into chip/PIN cards a bunch of years ago as the swipe cards were too insecure. Since then merchants have dialed back their security in search of sales, if a merchant does not implement the public key/private key handshake of EMV chips and force PIN verification a workable cloned chip can be made to scam that merchant. Worse, if they still accept 60 year old mag swipe cards then it is easy to swipe the unsecured details of the card (card number) and program a new mag strip. Banks that take a lazy approach to the cards they issue and merchants that are lazy about their POS security are the reason we all suffer from fraud.
Even with chip/PIN in use Canada wide in the last couple years many gas stations and most grocery stores allow you to tap for up to $200 without PIN

When my wife's purse was stolen some years ago CHIP/PIN was still pretty rigidly enforced. Her CC was used to locally buy $1500 of fuel AFTER we reported it stolen. I did not think it was possible until I filled up at a low rent independent station and saw they still used mag swipe!
So why wouldn't that station upgrade pumps? They must be a magnet for stolen cards and the CC companies must reject most of the fraudulent charges back into their laps. My guess is that the fuel sale itself was rigged, the fuel never actually left ownership of the 'station' and they make money when a fraudulent charge goes unreported. In any case, I have decided that a gas station that takes shortcuts with the transaction may also take shortcuts with the fuel quantity or quality and I wont fill up at places like that if I can avoid them.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by dsraven

sorry to hear you got scammed. they are pro's at it. too bad they couldn't put that much effort into an actual honest days work.
here is another thing to watch out for, it happened to me at an international airport in texas on a layover, just long enough to stop for a lunch between flights.
I had my wallet in my hip pocket, zippered enclosure on the pocket which was not easy to open. seemed safe enough. stopped at an airport "sit down" style restaurant, found a table and a couple of chairs for the wife and myself. the restaurant was set up so there wasn't much room between the chairs which made it hard for others to get past. another "traveller" carrying a handbag, like a bussiness traveller would have, passed behind me on his way to a table but seemed to take extra time to get past and in doing this his handbag stayed behind me, near my wallet area, for the longest time as possible as he passed. I thought nothing of it at the time except that he was being thoughtful not to disturb me while we were eating.a few days later, after we arrived at our final destination, we checked our email and there was a note to say tere was a transaction on my visa card from the carribean. since we were in Panama that was not our purchase. we called visa and they cancelled the charge, and my card/ I watched a video showing how the scammer had been able to do that without having my physical card. inside the bag is a reader that picks up the signal from the visa card chip. the same chip that is used on the "tap" option at a store. then the scammer uses his electroni eqipment to transfer that to another card and he has a copy of my visa card. the video shows a fellow who stops a lady in the mall, tells her what he wants to do, he walks past he with his bag, showing how he swings his bag forward as he comes close to her, then as he passes her the bag naturally swings behind him but this acton keeps his bag next to her purse for the longest time possible as he seems to naturally walk past. the scanner reads her card and stores her info. then he shows her how he copies that info from her card onto his hotel swipe card, it clearly has the hotel logo on it. then he takes her to the fast food place in the mall and orders a soft drink and uses his hotel card, with her embedded info, to pay for the drink. the clerk doesn't even look at the card just allows it to happen like a normal visa card. then he shows her how those little paper sleeves that are available to slip your card into can make your credit cards safer by blocking the ability of the chip in the card to transmit through the sleeve.
now I use those little sleeves. they can be a pain to get the cards in and out of but better than being scammed or having no visa card on your holiday

I have never heard details on how they do that, amazing. I have a card in my wall that is supposed to not allow that from happening to my other cards.

I'll look into that!

Brian

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by leegreen

The credit card companies could stop this if they wanted to, but they make so much money by making their service convenient they accept the fraud.
In Canada, if your CC is from a federally regulated bank your liability for fraudulent use of your card is $50, unless you are grossly negligent with the card. So the banks/merchants eat the cost of fraud. We have never had to pay that $50 in the 3 or 4 occasions that our cards got caught up in some deviant behavior.

I am not a security expert but I do work in IT so some of it has rubbed off....

In Canada all the banks forced us into chip/PIN cards a bunch of years ago as the swipe cards were too insecure. Since then merchants have dialed back their security in search of sales, if a merchant does not implement the public key/private key handshake of EMV chips and force PIN verification a workable cloned chip can be made to scam that merchant. Worse, if they still accept 60 year old mag swipe cards then it is easy to swipe the unsecured details of the card (card number) and program a new mag strip. Banks that take a lazy approach to the cards they issue and merchants that are lazy about their POS security are the reason we all suffer from fraud.
Even with chip/PIN in use Canada wide in the last couple years many gas stations and most grocery stores allow you to tap for up to $200 without PIN

When my wife's purse was stolen some years ago CHIP/PIN was still pretty rigidly enforced. Her CC was used to locally buy $1500 of fuel AFTER we reported it stolen. I did not think it was possible until I filled up at a low rent independent station and saw they still used mag swipe!
So why wouldn't that station upgrade pumps? They must be a magnet for stolen cards and the CC companies must reject most of the fraudulent charges back into their laps. My guess is that the fuel sale itself was rigged, the fuel never actually left ownership of the 'station' and they make money when a fraudulent charge goes unreported. In any case, I have decided that a gas station that takes shortcuts with the transaction may also take shortcuts with the fuel quantity or quality and I wont fill up at places like that if I can avoid them.

Good thinking!!

Brian

[mongocanfly]

Man that sucks.....
Stuff like this is the very reason I don't do the "normal" stuff most folks do these days..
1. I don't answer phone calls or emails I don't know
2. I don't do direct deposit or any online banking
3. No debit card
4. Locally I deal in cash or check
5. The only card I have is a credit card that has fraud protection

The guys I work with that have those debit cards have been hacked so many times it's unreal..
I refuse to get one
Some have lost thousands of dollars..they say it's not protected if you can't prove it's not you..
I guess I just like being old school....
With that said though, my credit card has been hacked twice since the 80s..so I guess I'm lucky
Covered both times so I lost no money..

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Man that sucks.....
Stuff like this is the very reason I don't do the "normal" stuff most folks do these days..
1. I don't answer phone calls or emails I don't know
2. I don't do direct deposit or any online banking
3. No debit card
4. Locally I deal in cash or check
5. The only card I have is a credit card that has fraud protection

The guys I work with that have those debit cards have been hacked so many times it's unreal..
I refuse to get one
Some have lost thousands of dollars..they say it's not protected if you can't prove it's not you..
I guess I just like being old school....
With that said though, my credit card has been hacked twice since the 80s..so I guess I'm lucky
Covered both times so I lost no money..

Believe me Greg, I am thinking that way! I still have the debit cards but I am seriously thinking of eliminating them. I have locked all my accounts from on line for sure!

Brian

[vintovka]

3 points - One is NEVER have a debit card. Two is a credit card sized piece of tin foil in wallet or purse seems to block most RFID signals. I used a piece from my tin foil hat and have never had a card or info stolen. 3 is choosing a good credit card company with great dispute powers is about the last way to protect yourself from fraud. That and treating every transaction with suspicion.

[e015475]

I went through an identity-theft crisis last summer and tried to put together a comprehensive plan to improve security. FWIW, here's what I did.

- 'Froze' my credit at all three credit agencies - Experian, Transunion and Equifax. You will have to have an account at all three - check them about once a month
- Never answer the phone or respond to an email unless the sender is known to you - always look up the contact information on their website and respond that way. Be very suspicious if there's any sense of urgency.
- Never click on a link in an email from someone you don't know.
- Even if you know the email sender, be very wary of any link. Scammers can corrupt you're contact's email and send you malicious links (a good friend sent me a link to a birthday party and I responded - malware downloaded with the link. He was clueless)
- Never hit the 'unsubscribe' link in spam email - at best it encourages more scam emails and at worst it loads malicious software
- Never, under any circumstances, allow anyone to 'remote in' on your computer.
- Use the Microsoft Defender software at least once a month or immediatly after you've had any 'incidents'. I use Malwarebytes too so I have a 'belt and suspenders' security check
- Stop using debit cards. Get a good credit card and pay it once a month
- Favor 'Tap' over sliding your CC at point of sale stations- security is at least incremetally better
- Put the contact number on your cards in your cell phonebook so you have them handy if a card goes missing or you get a suspicious phone call from your 'bank'. Never hesitate to call them back from the known number. Never use the number/website in an email!
- Give the card reader at gas stations the once-over for obvious signs of tampering before you stick your card in/tap. Try and fill up in 'better' neigborhoods and use the pump nearest the store and visible to the clerk inside. Card skimmers favor pumps furthest away and not visible to the attendant
- Stop using checks as much as possible - washing checks is still alive and well. If you leave your house for any significant time, hide blank checks somewhere. Don't have Ids and passwords in a notebook or on a slip of paper under your desk blotter - there should be no written record of your passwords.
- Get a password vault to keep any login/password data for any account that has money/credit tied to it - investments, bank, SS, Amazon, credit cards. etc. I use Bitwarden, but find one you like and use it. Stop trying to remember/write-down passwords that can be easily compromised and let the password vault generate an unbreakable one for you and only memorize one master password.
- Any transaction that relies on crypto-currency or gift cards is a scam
- Get a wallet that has some RFID protection built-in - never carry your credit card unprotected
- If you have a car with keyless ignition, store the keys in some type of faraday cage. Mine's just a tin box with a metal lid
- If you use Google Password Manager (or Apple's) get all money/credit related IDs and passwords deleted from the data and use the password vault for those. (When I looked, Google had saved about 120 IDs/passwords and some were pretty sensitive)
- Put two-factor authentication on any money/credit related account. Not a bad idea on email accounts either.
- If you have an Apple phone, lock access to the SIM card. If you have an android, talk to your carrier and see how to protect your SIM card.
- If you ever give your phone to anyone for service, ask them to give you the SIM card and reinstall after they give it back to you. SIM fraud/theft is the key to defeating 2FA
- Put 'alerts' on all your accounts. For my checking account I have the alert set at $100 but for my credit card, I get an email every time I charge something on it.
- Put daily 'caps' on spending for your accounts. Mine's a few hundred dollars. If things go south, it gives you some time to limit the damage
- My CU flags out of state transactions for possible fraud. Whenever I travel I let them know where I'll be using the card and when I'll be back.
-Eliminate any browser extensions that you don't regularly use. Be very careful in adding new ones.


Last but not least, educate your wife or significant other on these protocals - you're only as strong as your weakest link. As I age, I'm not getting any smarter. But scammers get more convincing every day. It is not a matter of 'if' it is a matter of 'when'

If you'd like to go down the rabbit hole on how scammers work, search "pleasant green" on youtube

[MARTINSR]

VERY good info, thanks!

I am printing that out for study!


Brian

[Tempest67]

a lot of good info there.

1 other suggestion that I will add, we went to our bank and requested a Credit Card with a $1000 limit (they always try to talk you into a higher limit) and that is the ONLY credit card we use online.

Glad you realized the scam before any money changed hands.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by Tempest67

a lot of good info there.

1 other suggestion that I will add, we went to our bank and requested a Credit Card with a $1000 limit (they always try to talk you into a higher limit) and that is the ONLY credit card we use online.

Glad you realized the scam before any money changed hands.

Hey, now that is a great idea! I don't want my bank to be hooked to the internet ANYMORE! I have always used my debit card on line.

That sounds like a MUCH better idea!


Brian

[leegreen]

consider getting a prepaid credit card for online use. Transfer money to it, spend it, leave minimal balance on it. useful if you want to use some sketchy international marketplace. Could even treat them as single use.

Visa sells them in Canada, as does our national post office. Probably many others as well.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by leegreen

consider getting a prepaid credit card for online use. Transfer money to it, spend it, leave minimal balance on it. useful if you want to use some sketchy international marketplace. Could even treat them as single use.

Visa sells them in Canada, as does our national post office. Probably many others as well.

Funny you should suggest that. You see, that is what the hacker POS I talked to on the phone wanted me to do to "keep some of my money safe."

Oh what a day that was! She was walking me right through doing that because somehow they get the info so when you go and make the card, THEY can get the money off it.

That being said, you are VERY right, that is good advice. As long as you don't give the info to a POS. LOL


Brian

[leegreen]

yeah, gift cards are the target of many scams, online and offline.
A local grocery store busted some guys recently, the scam went like this:

Steal some blank gift cards
take them home and scan the barcode, reprint it as a larger sticker
go back to the grocery store and stick that barcode on top of the barcode on some similarly price items like packs of steaks
when someone buys the steak it gets scanned and the gift card gets activated

profit buy using or selling the gift card

did your scammer send you a link to activate the gift card or did she have some visibility to what was on your screen?

[MARTINSR]

It was super weird. The photo of the screen in my first post opened when I clicked on a "reel" on facebook. Just a random video like I do often of some cats or a car crash or a wheelie contest, what ever.
Once it opened it was telling me on a audio to call the number on the screen. Well geeez, I am so much smarter than that (yeah right) so I googled "Microsoft care" as it said on the screen. A page opened which apparently the scum had created? I called the number on it and that brought me to the scummer! The scummer told me how someone had gained access to my bank account and I needed to go get that money card to protect some of it. They literally took over my brain telling me to get going and they would wait for me if I had to get dressed. They told me to "calm down, have a glass of water." It went on and on, I was on the phone in my car with them. I headed towards my son's house and told them so and they were telling me I had to go get that card before my money is stolen. I said I was going to my bank and they said NO don't do that, finally I hung up and went to my bank and changed my password and locked up my accounts.

Yes I was a fool, but that's be, getting emotional is my life.

Brian

[mr48chev]

My mom never had internet but got a lot of calls from scammers including one from some little berg in Nova Scotia claiming to be Officer______ from Social Security claiming that her account had been compromised. That clown even gave a call back phone number that I looked up on line and tracked to a house in Nova Scotia. She was also getting calls from someone claiming to be from "the bank" saying that there were issues with her account. This is a woman who never was on the internet even at work as she retired before most places went computer. She never had a computer and didn't even have a debit card. Still these scammers usually don't have any of your info, that is what they are trying to get from you and trying to put you in a panic and get you to give them your info is what they are after.

[e015475]

I'm going out on a limb here and assume many of us are older and have elder parents.

My mom is 97 and for a while there it seems she was the object of every phone scam out there. If you have a land line, they are relentless. It seemed I'd get a phone call a week from her asking me about a suspicious call.

About a month ago she got a call from someone who said on of her grandchildren were in an automobile accident and she needed immediate financial assistance. My mom had the good sense to call my brother and see if this was true - it wasn't of course.

A couple of years ago, I was able to set up her phone so only known numbers would ring and this has worked pretty good for a while, but somehow a scammer figured out how to get around that, probably by spoofing her own telephone number.

The scammers are getting smarter and we're getting dumber. Protect your loved ones.

[mongocanfly]

Well... I rejoined the got hacked again club today...
got my CC bill and thought WOW..!!! Don't remember spending that much last month..
got to looking and had 1 charge from boozys in Europe and over 25 from Apple something-or-other in Ca...
So I called up the CC number.. they wiped out all those charges...over $2600 worth..
Sigĥhh..new card on the way..

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

well... I rejoined the got hacked again club today...
Got my cc bill and thought wow..!!! Don't remember spending that much last month..
Got to looking and had 1 charge from boozys in europe and over 25 from apple something-or-other in ca...
So i called up the cc number.. They wiped out all those charges...over $2600 worth..
Sigĥhh..new card on the way..

wow!!!!!

At the very least, I wish we could send them some food that would make them poop every 5 minutes for a month!

Brian