I had a good friend post a comment on how we got our information stolen..so for anyone who wants something to read because you are bored, interested, or want to learn form our mistakes here ya go!
YOu would think after the first time we woud be smarter huh. We first Had our credit Card number stolen when I ordered some DVD's for Ty's birthday last year on the internet. ( the old dexters laboratory from cartoon network ;) - which we still never got ) And it turned out to be a bogus site- even though it said it was secure. We found out because we got a package for a coffee subscription that came to our house, complete with coffee maker and gourmet coffees. With a bill for a monthly subscription to a gourmet coffee club. Obviously we did not order this so we called the company who helped us trace down who ordered it. The person who had ordered started with small music purchases to see if we noticed (we didn't) so then went for a small monthly item - but forgot to have the item shipped to a different address than the billing address. Lesson Learned: DOn't order stuff on the internet until you can guarantee the site is good, and check your accounts often for small purchases you did not make. (apparently good theives do not go on shopping sprees, they milk it out as long as they can with small stuff not noticed)
When our e-mail got hacked it wasa because of "Windows Live" we never had a problem with hotmail until they started that- you can google it and see a lot of people got hacked into. So we deleted our contacts so they (whoever it is) could not keep sending people stuff from our account...but we have kept the account open for now because we still keep getting a few e-mails from important places or people and we want to be sure they don't get lost in the shuffle. whoever broke into our account has now been looking through all of our old e-mail looking for information. Ty had a work credit card from american expreess- he used the same account name and password as our e-mail- so once they found that out it was easy to request the card information. luckily we were still checking that e-mail and caught it before they could use it. Lesson Learned- NEVER use the same account name and password for important things as you would on say...e-mail or facebook, etc...and we need to not only delete the contacts list , but also all of the old e-mails.
So there you have it!
Anyone else have an expereince to share we can all learn from ..or just some plain simple good advice?
1 comment:
Since I work in the online payment industry, I'll add my two cents.
1. I never go a business day without checking my bank, credit card, etc. accounts online. If there are any purchases out of order, I immediately investigate. (My company offers recurring payments for customer to pay their bills, and you wouldn't believe how many people forget to cancel the recurring payment after they move - and don't realize it for months! Checking your account regularly solves a lot of potential problems.)
2. Like you said, don't use the same password for your online financial accounts as you do for email, facebook, etc (I have 3 levels of passwords: Good (financial), casual (email), and who-cares (misc. unencrypted sites)). If you have to create an account on a site, ALWAYS look for the "https" on the address bar. If there is no "s", your information is getting transmitted in plain text (it is not encrypted). There's usually nothing wrong with that, but you don't want to be submitting your good passwords and sensitive personal information in plain text.
Post a Comment