Crimewatch.
There was another article in the Sunday papers yesterday about the latest rise in ‘high-tech’ crime. The main two are the so called ‘phishing’, when you get sent an email from what looks like your bank, telling you there has been a security alert and that you need to click on a link and enter all your security codes; and identity theft where a crim scours through your bins looking for bank statements, credit card bills, payslips etc, and then fraudulently uses your personal information to open up new accounts.
Phishing is pretty easy to stop – just remember that banks will never ask for all your security information in one hit, just random characters. If you are in any doubt just ignore the email or phone your bank. They all have cyber crime units so they may ask you to forward the email on. I got one a couple of weeks ago from the Wells Fargo Bank. Seeing as that is a US bank, and I’m in the UK it was pretty easy to spot as a fake. I’d never even heard of the Wells Fargo bank. Isn’t it something to do with the Wild West?
Identity theft is harder to stop as we all get so much junk mail now, the majority of which just goes straight in the bin, so you don’t even notice if it has your credit card account number or whatever printed on it. The official advice is to shred everything, but you may not have access to a shredder and don’t want to spend £20 at Office World. So can I suggest an alternative? As I’ve said below, Billie doesn’t like the outside too much, so I have to put a litter tray down to prevent any little accidents. Instead of emptying the tray into a bag before dropping it into my wheelie bin outside, I just drop the contents straight in. I’ve been doing that for 2 years – right through that really hot summer last year. You can smell my wheelie bin from ten paces. It’s horrid. Horrid, horrid, horrid. Anyone who is prepared to stick their head into that can have my credit card details. They’ll have earned it. If you don’t have a cat, leave me a comment and I’ll mail you a couple of pound of premium cat cr@p. It’s really the only solution.
This has been a public service announcement.
Phishing is pretty easy to stop – just remember that banks will never ask for all your security information in one hit, just random characters. If you are in any doubt just ignore the email or phone your bank. They all have cyber crime units so they may ask you to forward the email on. I got one a couple of weeks ago from the Wells Fargo Bank. Seeing as that is a US bank, and I’m in the UK it was pretty easy to spot as a fake. I’d never even heard of the Wells Fargo bank. Isn’t it something to do with the Wild West?
Identity theft is harder to stop as we all get so much junk mail now, the majority of which just goes straight in the bin, so you don’t even notice if it has your credit card account number or whatever printed on it. The official advice is to shred everything, but you may not have access to a shredder and don’t want to spend £20 at Office World. So can I suggest an alternative? As I’ve said below, Billie doesn’t like the outside too much, so I have to put a litter tray down to prevent any little accidents. Instead of emptying the tray into a bag before dropping it into my wheelie bin outside, I just drop the contents straight in. I’ve been doing that for 2 years – right through that really hot summer last year. You can smell my wheelie bin from ten paces. It’s horrid. Horrid, horrid, horrid. Anyone who is prepared to stick their head into that can have my credit card details. They’ll have earned it. If you don’t have a cat, leave me a comment and I’ll mail you a couple of pound of premium cat cr@p. It’s really the only solution.
This has been a public service announcement.
posted by phylos @ 20:28
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