What a night!, Actually, it started yesterday afternoon when I received an e-mail "from" my bank, informing me that I had to update the information in my online banking account. Like a dope, I was led right off a cliff.

Then, last night at a little before 2am, I received two e-mails thanking me for my purchases a company. I freaked, woke up my husband. I was having a hard time getting a live person on the line with my bank. I changed the password online, and finally found a person at the bank who froze my account. During that time, another $300 was taken out as a cash advance. I was actually in tears, watching my balance dwindle down. This was my checking account, and I run it tight. I don't have thousands in it. I'm fortunate they didn't target my savings account.

I ended up staying up all night, waiting until 7am so I could call the Electronic Fraud Division in the bank. Just over $500 was stolen. The bank is covering it, but it's going to take 10 days to get our money back. As cliche as this sounds, but I really do feel violated, as if somebody came into my home, like a thief in the night, and stole our money.

My husband had to go to the bank today to fill out paperwork, and get us new debit cards. I feel so stupid, but the phony e-mail that I got yesterday looked so legit, right down to the company Logo. Upon closer inspection, I think I should have been tipped off when it said, Dear Value Customer, as opposed to Valued, lol.

MAJOR learning experience. I'm having second thoughts about online banking too.

Oh no!! I hope everything works out OK.

This sucks. Hope you get everything back, and I hope they catch who did this.

Oh, wow. I'm really sorry to hear that. At least you caught it in the bud. :hug:

I'm sorry this happened to you Janice. But at least you were able to catch it and put a stop to it. And I'm glad you will be getting your money back.

I'm so sorry to hear that happened Janice. That's terrible. I"m glad that you will be able to get your money back. It's a shame that some people have nothing better to do then to rip off other people.

I'm so sorry about this Janice, it's terrible that people will do things like that. :( :hug:

ugh, i'm sorry that happened. :( that must have been really scary. hopefully everything will turn out ok. :hug:

I'm sorry that happened. You just can't trust anyone these days :(

sorry to hear this Janice. how terrible! i've had a lot of close calls with "paypal", i've had 2 or 3 emails in the past asking for me to verify my account info but luckily i disregarded them. you're fortunate that you're able to recoup your money and i'm glad everything was able to be handled by the bank.

I'm sorry about what happened to your bank account. I hope the person is caught.

I get those type emails from ebay and paypal, I send them to the spoof site where they get investigated. I get emails from legit sites saying they won't ask for any personal info.

Anytime you get an e-mail from Paypal or your bank that starts off with Dear Paypal Member, Dear Valued Customer or any other similar greeting, It should raise a few red flags. Paypal and most banks will greet you by your full name. I get spoof e-mails all the time from bogus websites that look almost identical to Paypal but if the e-mail doesn't greet me by my full name it gets forwarded to same address comedyfreak sends his.

Ugh, bank fraud is a major pain in the BUTT! I'm so sorry Janice. I know how you feel-I went through this a couple of weeks ago. My account only had $61 taken out of it (but I was charged $70 for overdrafting twice because of it). It's such a damn hassle isn't it? And it's because of idiots and losers out there that this happens in the first place. Honestly, they need to get a life or find something else to do instead of frustrating hard working, honest people. I'm glad the bank is fully recovering your money and that you guys got new account numbers/debit cards to prevent this from happening again. Just hang tight until the money is refunded back and like you said-lesson learned.

What a nightmare you are going through Janice. There are so many crooked people out there.

I'm sorry that this happened to you Janice. I hate thieves and hope I never experience anything of mine being stolen. It would upset me so much.

i feel for you janice because as i posted in one of my previous posts, just last week my bank account was hacked into as well, as i noticed payments and transactions on my statement that were being made under my name. even though i didn't make any of them. there are fraudsters out there who go out of their way to swindle other people's money, it's frankly sickening :mad: .

glad to know the bank has recovered the money. mines should arrive sometime next week. btw, the bank managed to catch the culprit and also the account has been under investigation, plus my cheque book, which they tracked down and of which payments were being made is now destroyed, from what i have been told that is.

those phishing emails and websites are everywhere and some of them are very hard to spot the phonies.

there are some good guides to spotting phishing attacks online, and tools you can use, like firefox's anti-spoofing system that tells you when a website is spoofing their address.

the bottom line is NEVER click on a link in your email; always type in the address to your banking (or whatever it is) site manually and go from there, and if you are in doubt CALL your bank or Amazon or Paypal.

http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/phishing.aspx
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html

What a night!, Actually, it started yesterday afternoon when I received an e-mail "from" my bank, informing me that I had to update the information in my online banking account. Like a dope, I was led right off a cliff.

Then, last night at a little before 2am, I received two e-mails thanking me for my purchases a company. I freaked, woke up my husband. I was having a hard time getting a live person on the line with my bank. I changed the password online, and finally found a person at the bank who froze my account. During that time, another $300 was taken out as a cash advance. I was actually in tears, watching my balance dwindle down. This was my checking account, and I run it tight. I don't have thousands in it. I'm fortunate they didn't target my savings account.

I ended up staying up all night, waiting until 7am so I could call the Electronic Fraud Division in the bank. Just over $500 was stolen. The bank is covering it, but it's going to take 10 days to get our money back. As cliche as this sounds, but I really do feel violated, as if somebody came into my home, like a thief in the night, and stole our money.

My husband had to go to the bank today to fill out paperwork, and get us new debit cards. I feel so stupid, but the phony e-mail that I got yesterday looked so legit, right down to the company Logo. Upon closer inspection, I think I should have been tipped off when it said, Dear Value Customer, as opposed to Valued, lol.

MAJOR learning experience. I'm having second thoughts about online banking too.

Oh Janice, I am so sorry for you sweetie. I can imagine how nerve wracking it must have been. These online ruses are VERY EASY to fall for - they look extremely authentic - when I saw some of the ones my Bank used as examples on their site it just confirmed my resolve to never bank on line - the only thing I'll do is look up my credit card accounts. Honestly, I am ultra-paranoid in this area.....

I fell for a phony email once too. It was from ebay and it asked the same things, like having me update my accout and all that. I went in and they are asking me about my credit card and stuff. They asked for the CC's pin number, which I didn't have the faintest clue about, so I just made something up. That saved me. I totally dodged a bullet there. Fortunately nothing happened except that I got mad at humanity...and myself.

Sounds like you were lucky enough to have a good bank behind you, but I totally understand about you feeling violated. Not to sound rude, but things like this make you feel like you were raped.

Janice, I am so sorry that you had to go through this..:(

sorry to hear this Janice. how terrible! i've had a lot of close calls with "paypal", i've had 2 or 3 emails in the past asking for me to verify my account info but luckily i disregarded them. you're fortunate that you're able to recoup your money and i'm glad everything was able to be handled by the bank.


yeah I see those paypal emails all the time and ignore them

Glad you were able to catch it Janice and don't give up on Online banking because it's very convient and fast. Just one of those experiences you didn't see coming but I'm sure from this point on you will be fine when it comes to online banking

I'm sorry, Janice.

I am so sorry Janice. That is just awful. There are a lot of EVIL people out there in the world. :ohno: