Beware
of this number: +886277064035. This number called me at around 5 in
the morning. I was reluctant to answer it coz who would do that? Then I
thought of Popsy. But he will never call at such ungodly hour! So I woke
Peter up and made him answer the call. He couldn't understand why the
lady at the other end was trying to ask for my bank account # for some
remittance. He gave me back my phone and I asked what this call was
about and who was calling. I can only make out the name Kristin and that
she would like to verify my bank account number. I immediately grew
suspicious so I hung up the phone and went online.
I
checked my bank account, everything looks okay and started paying for
all my bills before my account gets hacked and all my money gone. Then I
checked my email. I saw several from paypal telling me how to change my
password, that my password has been changed, and that I sent money to jovelyn.agib@yahoo.com.
From the image below you can see how the hacker was trying to learn how
to reset my paypal password at 4:27 and he did it by 4:46. And by 4:50
he already got my money!
This
was the screen shot of my inbox. The time stamp is in EDT. It was
between 4:00-5:00 am Manila time, Oct. 14, when this happend.
OMG!
I immediately went on full-blown panic mode! I went to paypal and
couldn't log in! I tried several times to no avail! Then I calmed down
so I can focus. I followed paypal's instructions on how to change my
password. Changing the password would entail me to verify my complete
bank acct # tied up with my paypal. Hence, the phone call at 5am asking
for my bank account #. Finally, I was able to get into my paypal, made
all the security changes and did a dispute. It's under investigation
now.
I
think this is not just one hacker person. I think there is a whole
company devoted to hacking coz the lady I spoke with clearly sounded
like Pinay but really knows how to speak like an American, like those
call center agents. And when I investigated the number +886277064035 used, I found this: http://www.78910.org/886277064035_ID898098.html. Apparently, there's a bunch of other people who got calls from this number pretending to be someone else.
The lesson here for me is to create a whole new other email account solely for my paypal (never use email addresses I use for people to contact me),
connect it with a bank account that is solely for paypal, make
difficult security questions, and don't share this information to the
public. I've always been paranoid about phishing so I seldom open
emails or take phone calls that I don't recognize. It's good that paypal
responds to investigations immediately. And whoever this +886277064035 or jovelyn.agib@yahoo.com / Jovelyn Agib is, she or he will meet her karma soon. I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else so please beware.
P.S. Here are some more useful tips from Fleire Castro, one of my online friends:
Online transactions security tips --
NEVER publish your bank account details.
NEVER connect your publicly known bank account details on your Paypal account.
NEVER use obvious answers for your security questions.
NEVER publish your bank account details.
NEVER connect your publicly known bank account details on your Paypal account.
NEVER use obvious answers for your security questions.
1 comment:
Hi, just got a call from this number. It's a guy and didn't get a name. He's responding to my ad exchanging paypal to gcash. I asked him to leave me a message on my ad with his email address but never got one. I'm kind of suspicious of the number he used, it's some kind of online phone number so I googled it and came across your post. Let's always be wary, scammers and hackers are always lurking around for some easy money.
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