Some investigating…
June 20th, 2006 by KenricToday I made some calls just to see what information I can find out about this $2,000 transfer. I first called Bank of America and gave them the account number my money was supposedly moved to. They could not find that account number on record. That’s weird. Then I had them search by my SS# and name and see if any accounts came up. There were none, so that’s good.
One thing I forgot to mention is that last week I also got one of them fraud calls for a debit Visa check card from a credit union. The funny thing about the call was that the guy asked for my first name but the last name was wrong. The call also went to my fax number, not my main number. With this call and the fraud happening on the same week I definitely got worried. When I called the Visa fraud company back they could not find my name, the name from the phone call or any account with my SS#. They don’t even have my phone number attached to any account so I don’t know how they called it in the first place.
I also called Equifax and put a fraud alert on my credit report. They automatically contact the other two credit companies (Transunion & Experian) so you don’t have to make three fraud alert calls. This alert is good for 90 days and it’s free. It’s nice to know this because I was about to pay $10/mo for this service on the web. BTW, when I was on the phone there was another option to put a credit alert for 7 years. I’m not sure if this was free or not.
Posted in Finances | 10 Comments »
Stumble it!
Have you run all the virus and spyware software yet? It sounds like you may have a keystroke logger in there somewhere.
By Anonymous on Jun 20, 2006
Yes I did and it did find a keylogger spyware program.
By monarchcrest on Jun 20, 2006
How often do you run your spyware software? With a keystroke logger, they know everything you’ve been typing since the logger was downloaded on your computer. This could give them access to anything where you’ve typed in passwords, IDs — anything. Have you changed all your IDs and passwords? That would be the first thing to do.
By Anonymous on Jun 21, 2006
Ouch. Maybe it’s time to call the police. Actually, this might be under the juristiction of the FBI if it involves banks..
By Shaun on Jun 21, 2006
PHM IS HERE!
By moonpunter on Jun 21, 2006
I run Ad-aware fairly option but that did not find this virus. I downloaded AVG anti-virus software (30-day trial) which is the program that found the virus (PSW.Generic). I was running McAfee software before but my subscription expired so I went maybe 2 months without updated virus protection. Btw, I have changed all my passwords.
By monarchcrest on Jun 21, 2006
Well, I can speak from experience and tell you that McAfee isn’t the greatest for catching spyware (or viruses, for that matter). Virus and spyware clean-up was a big part of my job when I was working for a living. I suggest Ad-aware, SpySweeper, and Microsoft’s spyware remover. Ad-aware really won’t catch everything alone. I always had to use all three programs (also used to use Spybot, but I don’t think it does anything the others don’t do). If you have anything that keeps coming back, well, it only gets more complicated. :-/
By Trisha#1 on Jun 21, 2006
If you are a Costco member, they have a deal on Norton Anti-virus. There is a coupon in their Summer Member Passport that will allow you to buy Norton for $9.99 from 6/26 to 7/2/06. Part of it is a mail-in rebate but you actually get those when you buy at Costco because you can apply for the rebate online at Costco’s website.
I had McAfee on my old computer and I didn’t find it nearly as good as the Norton’s product.
By Anonymous on Jun 22, 2006
Also, did you cancel any credit cards you may have used while this keystroke logger was on your computer?
By Anonymous on Jun 22, 2006
Thanks for all the commments. I am running AVG, Adaware and Microsoft’s spyware on my computer now. So far it looks like the only account affected was the brokerage one. The rest look ok and I’ve changed passwords and implemented daily notification alerts on them.
By monarchcrest on Jun 23, 2006