Online scammers are lurking around every corner of the internet, just waiting to snag a few bits of data that can lead them to a jackpot. Most people believe that they are not in danger of being stolen from because they don’t think of themselves as big targets. True, most people aren’t, but this confidence is what attracts thieves to go after ordinary folks. This week, Swedish payment provider Payson cut access to anonymizing services after being ordered to do so by the credit card companies. VPN provider iPredator is one of the affected customers. Online thieves would have a hard time trying to crack the accounts of business or wealthy persons because these are more highly secured than the average working man’s savings. But there are a ton more ordinary bank accounts than there are rich people or profiting companies. Online thieves go for the average Joe. The only way to stop them is to be careful how your money is accessed and to setup VPN services to protect your data. How Scammers Walked Away with $1800 Clean In less than three hours, online scammers took $1800 from a New York City working woman. Being a New Yorker, she has always been very careful about using ATMs at night and walking around on pay day. She always kept close watch on her bank accounts and took care where she used her cards. But these scammers were able to clean out her savings account without her or her bank noticing that anything was wrong. She was aware about bank account hacking and was always careful about where she logged on. But it happened anyway, through her debit card. Many people use debit cards these days because in many cases it’s safer than walking around with cash. For others it is simply more convenient than having to withdraw money every time you need lunch or toiletries. It has been marketed in the past as a safe alternative to cash, but now we need a safer alternative to debit cards. This is because it turns out that debit cards are easier to steal than cash. That is, if you take into account the risks of getting caught. Thieves have moved the game online because they are able to get at people’s money without being noticed. That is almost impossible when trying to take cash from a person’s wallet or purse. It is also many times easier to take cash through online schemes because the perpetrators can take it at their leisure. What happened to this New York lady is proof of that. She was very vigilant about her finances. ![]() ![]() Her bank account was set up to inform her of subway pass purchases and she used an online service to help her budget her money. In a way, this helped her find out what happened shortly after it happened. The service sent her a warning that she had spent almost $500 on coffee, and this was just four days into the monthly budget. She immediately checked her banking statement and found that small amounts were successively charged to her debit card. Most people would not notice anything was wrong until they received their monthly bank statement. Scammers were able to skim her debit card number, probably from a subway vending machine or an unsecured local merchant. In the span of just two and a half hours, they took a total of $1800 from her bank account. The bulk of the charges that reflected on her bank account were marked as Starbucks Card Reloads. She alerted her banks fraud agent immediately and even the agent was surprised. She then called the Starbucks hotline and figured out exactly how it happened.
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March 2019
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