What's happening to my AOL account?

[LR827]

Well, the mystery is solved. I was trashing the new emails that came and JUST HAPPENED to notice an email from Overstock . com saying "Thank you for your order." It was for an $800 camera. The billing address was my old address, and the shipping address was to my name, at a different address in Illinois. I then looked more carefully through the rest of the emails I had already trashed and found another "Thank you" for a $900 camera from Mwave . com. Same shipping address, same charge, both were to my old account at Bill Me Later. I thought that account was closed, but apparently not. Both are sending fraud notices.

So apparently those folks you tracked down in Colorado and Mississippi (if that's where they actually are ... I'll bet on Illinois) were sending thousands of emails in order to get me to trash everything without looking at them, so I would fail to notice the orders. Well, the Bill Me Later account has been closed, so I hope I won't be receiving any more. They confirmed that there were only the 2 orders pending.

I'm relieved but also disturbed.

[Paddy]

Wow...nasty little scam.

I Googled "Bill Me Later" and there are an awful lot of very, very unhappy users out there. Many people had used it and found the bills didn't arrive, getting caught in spam filters and they then faced absurd finance charges. And apparently it's also extremely difficult to cancel a Bill Me Later account - one user reports that he was told it couldn't be done on the phone (as per their FAQ) - he would have to write to them. Stay far, far away...

So...did someone hack into Bill Me Later's system? How else would they have gotten your email, your old address, and access to your Bill Me Later account (which according to BML requires the last 4 digits of you SSN)?? Very disturbing indeed. I'd suggest a good hard look at all your credit cards etc., and perhaps a fraud alert at the 3 credit reporting agencies as well, which will prevent anyone getting one of those "instant" credit cards stores are always trying to foist upon one. (You won't be able to get it either, of course - but somehow I doubt that would be an issue).

You should report this to the police too, Lorraine - probably the police in the location of the shipping address, which is likely where the crooks are (or an address they're using), and I very much doubt you're the only victim. They're clearly not rank amateurs pulling a one-off (or they're completely insane and have gone to an awful lot of effort for a couple of cameras!) I was once the victim of credit card fraud and the shipping address that was being used was a Mailboxes Etc. location that was already under surveillance by the NYC cops for involvement in a credit card fraud ring involving the Russian mob.

[LR827]

Thanks, Paddy.

I didn't report this to anyone but the BML people, who agreed to close the old account, of course. I have a small balance in our active account, but had already sent a check to pay that off. I thought I would check that account every day and close it as soon as the payment showed up. I didn't know about the FAQ. I was shaking-headache-angry last night after discovering this and making the calls to Overstock, mWave and BML -- who were all very helpful and accommodating.  But I didn't do any further reporting because I was thinking the scam must have been felt and reported by others.

This was so sophisticated!! I couldn't get over it!! Such brilliance in the way it was designed and managed! It was only by the grace of God -- or perhaps I did something really great in my last life -- that I noticed the email from Overstock and didn't just continue trashing everything. I don't think I need to dump the email account, either -- I'm sure that was part of the scammers plan -- so all the "Thank you for your order" emails would go in the trash. I think they must have hacked into the BML website and got my email from there, so I don't think they accessed the aol account itself. But I'll keep checking.

Thanks to you and Jim for all your help and advice.

Lorraine

[Xairbusdriver]

I've never used that BML plan, never understood why I would want it. I can certainly see reasons not to use it. What the advantage to it? How much "later" is "later," anyway?

[Paddy]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Apr 19 2012, 08:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...How much "later" is "later," anyway?

According to a lot of the very unhappy users, not much! Some received bills almost immediately and some didn't get those bills because they landed in their spam folders, resulting in exorbitant finance charges. Generally, an all round bad experience.

I think some people signed up for it thinking this was a way to keep their credit card numbers out of the hands of online retailers. Silly, really, since from my experience (and that of many others and confirmed by reports from the FTC) credit card numbers are far more likely to be compromised the old-fashioned way in a brick and mortar setting/stolen in "real life" and then USED on the web than they are to be stolen on the web. There seems to be a lot of confusion around this, leading to some people opting for services such as BML.

So why does BML exist? Gee would that be...to make money (preferably lots of it) for the owners of BML - who happen to be eBay, BTW? And you can be sure that the merchants aren't the ones from whom BML is making all that money.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/tec...kie_reader.html

Note: As you all will have noticed if you've read this far - I finally split this topic off from the former Trojan/Malware thread.

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

Note: ... - I finally split this topic off from the former Trojan/Malware thread.

That's why you get the "BIG bucks!" And You do good work!

[LR827]

I don't want to leave this just yet. I couldn't answer from work today because they have now added TS to the "forbidden-access" list since it is a "community forum" (I actually wondered why they hadn't done that already) (the govt. does not distinguish between white hats and black hats).

Anyway, "Bill Me Later" .com (BML) is a website I signed up for at least 4 years ago. It seemed like a good thing at the time, and eBay and PayPal use it as alternative payment option. Now I realize why it was a bad idea. Basically you use it like a credit account and they send you a bill at the end of the month. You do not have to upload credit card info. However, my credit card and bank accounts offer to send an alert when any kind of transaction takes place -- charge, payment, transfer, etc. BML does not. Also, the banks and credit card companies have (I think, I hope) better security in place than BML. Anyway, BML agreed to close the acct. when I spoke with them and pointed out the fraudulent purchases.

Okay, now I mentioned before that I have been reading "Worm" and I feel sure that is how the perpetrators managed to send me 22,000+ emails, from every country domain you an think of. Could this have been a botnet working through peer-to-peer instructions? That way I would see a hundred or more (I can't count them) almost entirely from one country domain, then changing to another batch of a hundred from another country domain, with a few different ones here and there. BTW they are still coming, but not at the same rate. I "only" had 90+ in my aol Inbox, and another dozen or so in my Spam folder today. But now I am scanning them before trashing them to make sure there are no further "Thank you for your Order" ones. Hopefully they will peter out at some point.

This is really scary. I thought I had taken some good steps to be somewhat safe, like keeping one credit card with a low-limit to use online, to avoid a huge loss if it is hacked.

Is anyone else familiar with "Worm" and can address this more?

Thanks again, everyone, for your help.

Lorraine

[dboh]

On a slightly related issue, my AOL account was hacked last year at some AOL server and they got my address book. They tormented my addressees for a while, but I'm still getting maybe 20-30 spam emails every day. I check their origination through IP Tracer, and just about every country has popped up at one time or another.

[Xairbusdriver]

I have not visited the BML site, but if it is a service of PayPal, they already have your CC and/or you bank info. I'm not aware that PP can be used without providing them either your CC or bank account info. They have my CC info but I would never give them access to my bank account!

Your credit card "limit" has no bearing on your liability. The liability limit is determined by law at $50, regardless of what your charge limit may be. And that is only for a physically stolen card. Many card companies even waive that amount if notified promptly. The catch, of course, is that you must notify the card company of your suspected fraudulent charges. Having a low limit may simply cause legal "over-draft" charges on a valid charge!

If just the number is 'stolen' you have zero liability! This is logical since you should be more aware if the card is physically stolen than if it is just the number being used while you still have the card.

This is the main reason you should not buy credit card "fraud protection" insurance. That "insurance" would not be coming from the card company but from SCAMmers.

[Paddy]

QUOTE(LR827 @ Apr 20 2012, 07:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't want to leave this just yet. I couldn't answer from work today because they have now added TS to the "forbidden-access" list since it is a "community forum" (I actually wondered why they hadn't done that already) (the govt. does not distinguish between white hats and black hats).

Anyway, "Bill Me Later" .com (BML) is a website I signed up for at least 4 years ago. It seemed like a good thing at the time, and eBay and PayPal use it as alternative payment option. Now I realize why it was a bad idea. Basically you use it like a credit account and they send you a bill at the end of the month. You do not have to upload credit card info. However, my credit card and bank accounts offer to send an alert when any kind of transaction takes place -- charge, payment, transfer, etc. BML does not. Also, the banks and credit card companies have (I think, I hope) better security in place than BML. Anyway, BML agreed to close the acct. when I spoke with them and pointed out the fraudulent purchases.

Okay, now I mentioned before that I have been reading "Worm" and I feel sure that is how the perpetrators managed to send me 22,000+ emails, from every country domain you an think of. Could this have been a botnet working through peer-to-peer instructions? That way I would see a hundred or more (I can't count them) almost entirely from one country domain, then changing to another batch of a hundred from another country domain, with a few different ones here and there. BTW they are still coming, but not at the same rate. I "only" had 90+ in my aol Inbox, and another dozen or so in my Spam folder today. But now I am scanning them before trashing them to make sure there are no further "Thank you for your Order" ones. Hopefully they will peter out at some point.

This is really scary. I thought I had taken some good steps to be somewhat safe, like keeping one credit card with a low-limit to use online, to avoid a huge loss if it is hacked.

Is anyone else familiar with "Worm" and can address this more?

Thanks again, everyone, for your help.

Lorraine

Lorraine, no doubt your email is being assaulted by infected computers - no human being could send out that much spam without a whole lot of help! Why you've gotten so much of it, and why it seems to make no sense (no links, no malware attachments...not advertising anything or trying to get you to help some poor soul in Nigeria who has been left $60M and needs your bank info to er, liberate it) is the big mystery. Maybe it's a test project.

I have looked every which way I could think of to find anyone experiencing anything similar, but either my Google skills have failed me, or you're in a very select group. When people complain about large amounts of spam, generally it's a few hundred a day - not 22,000!!