Arrgh! I've been compromised

[Spudman]

When I turned on the computer today I discovered that someone had accessed my Paypal account and charged several hundred dollars. Paypal caught it and shut down my account. That's good. The bad thing is that this will delay all the early June gifts I was going to send out to all the Fretters.

Advice: if you have a Paypal account make sure to use a dedicated password specific only to that account.

[Algonquin]

A valuable PSA from your friendly neighborhood Spudman.

Thank you!

[M29]

Thanks taterman!! That darn paypal scares me to death:D

M

[Spudman]

I called Paypal to discuss it and actually got a very nice English speaking lady who was quite helpful. That was different than any prior experience I'd ever had. We got it cleared up very quickly.

I also called the place that the charges were made to and found out that they caught it as fraudulent at about the same time as well. I'm glad both places have this type of protection. Maybe smaller merchants don't and that could be scary if the criminals were able to avoid businesses that have built in protection. The person that tried to pull this off is located in the Philippines.

[Robert]

So someone just guessed your password, or how did they get it?

[Spudman]

So someone just guessed your password, or how did they get it?

According to both company reps I talked to the criminals make this a full time job. They might have software that can calculate passwords or something. My daughter has also been on my computer and I've told her not to so it's possible she clicked on something she shouldn't have. Who knows?

[SuperSwede]

These kind of internet related crimes are growing in numbers all the time and the people behind are getting smarter too.

[Monkus]

I've found that linux works well. A lot of the hacks or spyware that works through holes in Windows can't work in Linux. Ubuntu, especially UbuntuStudio, is recommended.