Title updated
This is my story of financial/email/cellphone compromise and what triggered it. Please don’t forget that your email(s) and accounts and passwords associated with them can be hacked at any time. To find out if yours have you can check at haveibeenpawned.com. I found that several online companies I used emails for were hacked and all information including accounts and emails were sold on the dark web at least by 2 separate sites
Good story and glad they didn't get you but scary nonetheless. I've heard of that website and never used it but after doing a little checking it seems to be well regarded.This is my story of financial/email/cellphone compromise and what triggered it. Please don’t forget that your email(s) and accounts and passwords associated with them can be hacked at any time. To find out if yours have you can check at haveibeenpawned.com. I found that several online companies I used emails for were hacked and all information including accounts and emails were sold on the dark web at least by 2 separate sites.
Right after the New Year this series of events occurred:
1. My cellphone was hacked. I have Consumer Cellular. The hacker bought a Sim card at a Target retail store and using my phone number, stated he lost “my phone”, had purchased another and needed a CC Sim card to activate it. It was easy for him to do this with virtually no security checks carried out.
2. The consequence of him using a new Sim card for my cellphone effectively “bricked” my phone and rendered it useless for outgoing calls, texts and messages.
3. Somehow, this person even had my bank account information. Specifically, my checking account number which is easily found on your check and on information stored on websites that you’ve purchased from.
4. He also had my primary email account hacked and due to my inability to receive text s, kept changing my password immediately after I logged in on my PC to reset it. He had control.
5. He hijacked my CitiBank credit account and shut my card down while attempting to have a new one issued to him in a different state using my name (probably to be sent to a scam house or P.o. box).
6. He got into my Paypal account and tried to use Xoom, a money transfer system within Paypal to send over $2500 from my checking account to his. Flagged by Paypal fortunately.
7. He attempted to wire transfer funds using my Wells Fargo account to himself.
8. He tried to charge an $800 Apple watch through Best Buy.
9. He tried to purchase over $900 worth of items via Walmart online.
How much money did I lose? $0.0.
Fortunately I had alerts turned on in Wells Fargo and all of the online attempts to cheat me failed.
It took 2 long weeks to get it all straightened out with new credit cards, bank cards and checking account. Since pretty much all of my payments are deducted from a bank account I had to change every payment being sent.
I was lucky. It started out with the cellphone so be aware!
COcheesehead said:Aren’t you giving away your email by using the haveibeenpawned site?
Email addresses have NEVER been considered confidential so there is really no such thing as having a hacked email address. I worked in operational cybersecurity, not audit and compliance, for the last 20 years of my career.
haveibeenpwned.com is run by a very reputable person who has been vetted by pretty much everyone.
I'm really concerned about identity theft since it looks like my main e-mail address has been hacked and this is the second time now. I have a bunch of CD's maturing this year and the thought of moving funds around right is scaring me a lot. I'm looking for any suggestions to keep me safe when online so tis does not happen again.
Here's what I have so far
I'm going to create a new separate e-mail address for online banking only and use a new dedicated phone number only for 2FA.
Changing passwords and using a new e-mail address for all my accounts. I'll keep the old one for the junk and subscription e-mails that I get.
I'm going to powerwash one of my Chromebooks and only use it for online banking. I remember reading somewhere I should use it in guest mode as well to stay anonymous. I always use bank websites but then I started to think that their apps might be more secure. I assume the apps might run faster but are they safe? Which method do you use?
I have not ran my credit report in a couple of years either so I need to do that. I will also be freezing my credit.
Is it safe to save my passwords in Google or Microsoft or should I just write them all down moving forward?
I currently have gmail and yahoo addresses, which do you consider safe and use?
Anything else I should do? Basically I would love to completely remove my name and address from the internet and become completely anonymous online if that's possible.
Please lock your SIM to your phone.
I did something similar a few years ago. I had a 20 year old email I used for everything and it was part of several data breachesI'm really concerned about identity theft since it looks like my main e-mail address has been hacked and this is the second time now. I have a bunch of CD's maturing this year and the thought of moving funds around right is scaring me a lot. I'm looking for any suggestions to keep me safe when online so tis does not happen again.
Here's what I have so far
I'm going to create a new separate e-mail address for online banking only and use a new dedicated phone number only for 2FA.
Changing passwords and using a new e-mail address for all my accounts. I'll keep the old one for the junk and subscription e-mails that I get.
I'm going to powerwash one of my Chromebooks and only use it for online banking. I remember reading somewhere I should use it in guest mode as well to stay anonymous. I always use bank websites but then I started to think that their apps might be more secure. I assume the apps might run faster but are they safe? Which method do you use?
I have not ran my credit report in a couple of years either so I need to do that. I will also be freezing my credit.
Is it safe to save my passwords in Google or Microsoft or should I just write them all down moving forward?
I currently have gmail and yahoo addresses, which do you consider safe and use?
Anything else I should do? Basically I would love to completely remove my name and address from the internet and become completely anonymous online if that's possible.
I think he means you have a security pin on your phone so no one can transfer the service. I have a 4 digit pin number that they would need.How do you do that?