[GTALUG] [OT] Phishing is no mirage...

[Slackrat]

Alvin Starr via talk <talk at gtalug.org> writes:

> I got a message from someone phishing as UPS.
> The interesting thing was that I was expecting a package on the same day from Amazon.
> I do not get a lot of UPS tagged spam and this one was written to slide through as a plain text message with a word document
> attached.
> The closeness to an Amazon delivery makes me wonder if someone has access to Amazon delivery information.
>

Interesting.

But on 29 August my "Bank A" accounts were cleaned out leaving $1 in
each of 2 accounts.  Account "Bank A-2" has an overdraft given (ie Never
requested) many years ago. "Bank A-2" including the overdraught
accomodation were transferred into "Bank A-1" where the total balance
apart from the $1 was Interac transferred to some recreant presumably
with a throwaway account elsewhere in Canada.

"Bank A" accounts are a sort of imprest accounts where I transfer in only
enough to cover my monthly expenditures plus a couple of hundred for
impulse items.

"Bank B", my "main" bank luckily was not affected

Some time later "Bank A" rectified the situation by reversing the
fraudulent entries. But what they did not do was reverse the 10 NSF
charges at $48 each leaving me $480 out of pocket before I could use
"Bank B" to cover deficiencies.

No banking information is stored on any user agent and bank contact on
my iPhone is voice or digitally authenticated.

However, recently, I got a letter from a corporation called "Financeit"
who admitted to a security breach on August 26 and 27 but that only Loan
Applicants were affected. I've never applied for a loan, am quite
recently arrived in Canada from Portugal, and in any instance  was 80
years old yesterday which I surmise might preclude anyone advancing me
money even if I had applied.

The closeness of the dates of the security breach and the defalcation of
my funds makes me wonder.

And adding insult to injury, a second page accompanying the Financeit
confession/apology is blatant SPAM to sign up for their "Protection"
service.

It's a good job I retain a sense of humour.

-- 
William Henderson
aka Slackrat
http://billh.sdf.org/slackware.jpg
9HS5203 ON HamSphere Ham Radio