Frau G just discovered a scam on her debit card. Somebody in England was using it in small amounts over the past month. There were several payments to a phony company called Eat Fresh. The total was only about $80. Our bank refunded it. The point is always check your bank statements.
Also a friend of mine who was a grad student when I was doing research received an email from our old major professor asking for money to help him buy a new IPhone for his wife. They wanted him to photograph the front and back of his credit card. Over the next couple days he received a bunch of other scams via email claiming to be our old major professor who is 90 years old.
Which reminds me of a certain Zerblat story. It’s a pretty good one. I’ll make a note and post it next month.
Last year I received an email, ostensibly from a co-worker who had retired about three years before that. The name was correct, but the email address was not what I remembered. After some pleasant chit-chat, my supposed former co-worker came out with a tale of woe: a friend of hers had liver cancer and she wanted to get her a gift card. Could I buy one for her and she would pay me back? All that I had to do was send her some information. By this time I was suspicious, and I ended the conversation.
Good for you. I don’t trust anybody on the internet.
Been there. Found bogus charges on my credit card, the bank people took care of the charges. I have no idea how my credit card number got out there.
My view is that people who do scams like this should be removed from the gene pool. Twice I had to get a new checking account number. Once the person stole mail out of the post box in front of the post office. Second time someone got the new check number and was automatically paying a Sprint phone account. Both times the bank cleared up the issue and refunded the lost funds.
Several years ago a Romanian was stopped by a Houston Police Officer with a carload of stolen mail. She arrested the person and handcuffed him. He was a professional and got out of the handcuffs. He then tried to get her gun. She responded by killing the POS. This solves the problem. I recommend this solution for all the scammers and spammers.