A friend of mine in law enforcement sent me this. This is a slick scam…BE CAREFUL
This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the
information, except the one piece they want.
Note, the callers do not ask for your card number; they already have
it… This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA &
Master Card Telephone Credit Card Scam works, you’ll be better prepared
to protect yourself.
One of our employees was called on Wednesday from ‘VISA’, and I was
called on Thursday from ‘Master Card’.. The scam works like this:
Caller: ‘This is (name), and I’m calling from the Security and Fraud
Department at VISA. My Badge number is 12460. Your card has been flagged
for an unusual purchase pattern, and I’m calling to verify. This would
be on your VISA card which was issued by (name of bank). Did you
purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497..99 from a Marketing
company based in ?’
When you say ‘No’, the caller continues with, ‘Then we will be issuing a
credit to your account. This is a company we have been watching and the
charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500 purchase pattern
that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the credit will be
sent to (gives you your address), is that correct?’
You say ‘yes’. The caller continues – ‘I will be starting a Fraud
investigation. If you have any questions, you should call the 1- 800
number listed on the back of your card (1-800 -VISA) and ask for
Security.’
You will need to refer to this Control Number. The caller then gives you
a 6 digit number. ‘Do you need me to read it again?’
Here’s the IMPORTANT part on how the scam works. The caller then says,
‘I need to verify you are in possession of your card’. He’ll ask you to
‘turn your card over and look for some numbers’. There are 7 numbers;
the first 4 are part of your card number, the next 3 are the security
Numbers that verify you are the possessor of the card. These are the
numbers you sometimes use to make Internet purchases to prove you have
the card. The caller will ask you to read the 3 numbers to him. After
you tell the caller the 3 numbers, he’ll say, ‘That is correct, I just
needed to verify that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you
still have your card. Do you have any other questions?’ After you say
No, the caller then thanks you and states, ‘Don’t hesitate to call back
if you do, and hangs up.
You actually say very little, and they never ask for or tell you the
Card number.. But after we were called on Wednesday, we called back
within 20 minutes to ask a question.. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA
Security Department told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a
new purchase of $497.99 was charged to our card.
Long story – short – we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA
account. VISA is reissuing us a new number. What the scammers want is
the 3-digit PIN number on the back of the card Don’t give it to them.
Instead, tell them you’ll call VISA or Master card directly for
verification of their conversation. The real VISA told us that they will
never ask for anything on the card as they already know the information
since they issued the card! If you give the scammers your 3 Digit PIN
Number, you think you’re receiving a credit. However, by the time you
get your statement you’ll see charges for purchases you didn’t make, and
by then it’s almost too late and/or more difficult to actually file a
fraud report.
What makes this more remarkable is that on Thursday, I got a call from a
‘Jason Richardson of Master Card’ with a word-for-word repeat of the
VISA scam. This time I didn’t let him finish. I hung up! We filed a
police report, as instructed by VISA. The police said they are taking
several of these reports daily! They also urged us to tell everybody we
know that this scam is happening.
Please pass this on to all your family, friends and neighbors. By
informing each other, we protect each other.
by Mike on February 21, 2010
I struggled with the instructions, push with thumb just was not cutting it. This might be a little tough to pop the first few times.
What I had to do was this;
- Place phone in face down in the palm of your left hand with the USB jack pointing towards you.
- Place your right palm on the back side of the phone just above the USB jack.
- Press your hands together and try to push the back away from the USB jack.
The first time it popped off with almost a click feel. Seems like it will get easier over time as well, once you know how to actually get the damn thing off.
by Mike on February 3, 2010
Watch out for this one readers. This has been advertised in several prominent media outlets( I just watched this on comedy central) as being able to fix any pc. It can “make a 7 year old computer blazingly fast, even faster than a new computer”. This is just plain horse pucky. Closer inspection reveals that this web site is owned by a company called cyberdefender ( a known spyware company )
Do yourself a favor and stay far far away from this product or any product that makes such ridiculous claims. If you are experiencing a slow computer, download malwarebytes and super antispyware. Update them both and let them run…preferably in Safe Mode. Another good program worth mentioning is the venerable and most awesome Spybot search and destroy available form safer-networking.org or this direct link.
Be warned the WOT and McAfee both list mycleanpc.com finallyfast.com and doublemyspeed.com as severe threats.
Have an experience you would like to share…leave a comment so other’s may avoid these mycleanpc.com types of traps.
Geek out
by Mike on December 18, 2009
After reading about this on Tech crunch, this geek is glad he’s not hosted with Rack Space. My time with media Temple may be short but I have yet to see one hiccup from their service. several large and prominent websites were taken down due to Rack Space failure. Which leaves just another blight on the eye of his company.
Some of these sites affected by this recent outage were 37 signals, the laughing squid, Tech crunch and the custom tumblr site.
From the TechCrunch Blog
The failure apparently originated in the company’s Dallas-area server farm. But unlike previous times, this does not appear to be a power issue, the company says. Some other sites that are currently affected include: 37signals, Brizzly, Scoble’s blog, all of the sites hosted by Laughing Squid, Tumblr custom domains, and many others.
This is another black eye for the company, though they are generally responsive with other issues we’ve had throughout our time with them. But until they can prove to be more reliable, we’ve decided to get a backup version of TechCrunch up and running at another datacenter, for when someone inevitably trips over a power cord at the Dallas Rackspace center again.
Let’s hope rack space can overcome these glitches and keep their network running to back up their claims of fanatical support.
by Mike on December 18, 2009
It’s come to my attention that a fair amount of traffic can be had if your blog is approved for Google News. With that in mind this blog post will attempt to chronicle the steps necessary in order to to have your blog approved for Google news consumption. one important thing to keep in mind here is that news will not just index or accept any content.
Google is rather picky about what they except for syndication, they look at a few factors to determine which news sources to accept. After all if they were not picky Google News would be full of spam and junk and no one would be interested in what was there. Instead you must create a trustworthy and useful news resource.
Of course, not just any site will be accepted into Google News, it is recommend that you should be producing real news content on a daily basis. this should be done before you even consider submitting your site to the Google News service. We don’t want to see SEO shams competing to get past the editorial filters.
Okay, Now that that’s out of the way let’s take a look at the technical requirements:
- You can help the Google crawler gather articles correctly by ensuring that each that displays articles full text has a unique URL that ever changes. Google will not include sites in Google News at this point multiple copies of the same articles at the same URL.
- The URL for each article also should contain a unique number consisting of at least three digits.
- Remember that Google cannot include sites for which the URL of your main page includes the date. URLs with dates in them often change. This prevents Google from crawling the site for new content, as Google is unable to detect the most current URL to be crawled.
- Google’s automated bot works best when it is crawling with regular HTML links. Google is still unable to crawl image links or links embedded within JavaScript.
In addition to the technical requirements you must still make a case as to why your blog should be accepted. You could do this by providing relevant information about the site including the historical background, describing any awards site has received. In addition you wish to provide stats about the site. You can also discuss who links to your site (especially popular sites). In addition make sure you have news related or mostly news related content.
