Cyber Scam

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LovelyLadyLux
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Cyber Scam

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I've never heard of this one ......

One of the latest tech fraud probably not many of you heard about is porting someone's phone number without the owner's consent. I didn't knew about it either until two days ago. First I've got notified by Paypal to check my account as they noticed some suspicious activity. When I logged in, there was waiting for me a close to $1,900 transaction. Someone from Quebec purchased from England two pare of shoes. I notified Paypal about the fraud, and I've got my money back shortly. Meanwhile my wife came home asking me why I'm not answering my phone, that was the moment I realized that I have no service.
I called Virgin Mobile to check what is wrong, to find out that my phone number was ported over to Telus without my consent. After I convinced them that I never gave up my number, they managed to get it back for me for the next day.
That was a relief for me, but not for long.
Next I started to change passwords, as I didn't knew how deep this will affect me and my family.
The problem is that when you wish to change your password, nowadays most of the time there is a secondary layer of security, which is your phone.
So here I am changing the password code sent to my phone, everything looked good until I checked in the Security tab that actually who had stolen my phone number was in my email. So they could see where I was going to try to change passwords as all the notification and codes came to that number which was the name number on my account.
I signed out the computer from Quebec from the security tab, and change the phone number for the secondary layer of security to my wife's number hoping that this will end the story.
Trying again to change the password, requested the code to be sent to my wife's phone and could not believe, the code came to my phone again.
Somehow these guys redirected my wife's phone to my number again...
This got even more interesting when an interac e-transfer from my inbox was returned to the sender due to failing to answer the security question for three times by the guys from Quebec.
Now I lost my hope that I'll be able to fix this. I felt overwhelmed as nobody was giving me the help I needed. I reported with the RCMP, but the answer I've got is that, if PayPal reimbursed the money, then I should be okay. I told the RCMP that I'm receiving the DHL delivery notifications for the purchase was made on my expense, I offered to forward them to the RCMP, but they been not interested even though there is the guy's name and address showing.
My next desperate idea was to change the phone numbers and start from scratch.
I called Virgin again, explained what was happening after I've got my number back, and requested to provide me with new numbers for all the phones, which they did.
Through conversations with different agents from different organizations, I learned that this is a new fraud, and actually all service providers are facing this.
THE ONLY WAY TO BE SAFE, IS TO HAVE YOUR SERVICE LOCKED SO NO PORTAGE IS POSSIBLE.
YOU NEED TO CALL YOUR PROVIDER TO REQUEST TO MAKE YOUR NUMBER NON-PORTABLE
With the new numbers looks like I managed to change the passwords without having visitors in my email account, at least until now.
I was lucky that I had the time to deal with this nightmare almost as it happened, butl I know that now I'm an identity theft victim.
I called Equifax and Trans Union to request a note in my file that my identity was compromised.
Thanks for reading, and I hope none of you'll experience this in your life.


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Re: Cyber Scam

Post by Grandad »

Not heard of that one LLL. I don't have a mobile phone monthly contract, I pay as I go so maybe that gives me some protection, who knows.
With regards to Paypal I do occasionally get an email from Pay pal but I NEVER open them. I always go direct to my Paypal account and if there is anything untoward or any messages, I will find them there.
And I make this my normal practice for any email that COULD be suspicious..... But I am suspicious by nature, don't trust anybody :lol:
:gg:
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Re: Cyber Scam

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Daily I seem to get one to three or so "suspicious" emails. I never open any of them. I've told most people I know who email me that if I ever do NOT reply back it is possibly because I deleted your email by mistake and if I did I'm apologizing in advance but I don't necessarily open anything that look suspicious.

I definitely do not open emails from quite a few businesses, Banks, Paypal either. I'm like you and go directly to my account.
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