Had my identity stolen online
By jjwilly16
@jjwilly16 (28)
United States
February 24, 2013 1:38am CST
So recently I received an email notification on my phone saying that I'd just sent $80.00 to some guy through my Paypal account. I logged into my account to find that another $5.00 had just been taken out (I only had $85.50 in the account), leaving my account virtually empty. Someone had gotten access to my gmail account and started raiding any online account I had attached to it. I started seeing emails showing up with my password requests that I didn't ask for from all of my gpt sites, banking accounts, amazon, and ebay. I was freaking out. It turns out it's pretty easy for hackers to get access to any email account that's only password protected. So I just wanted to give advice to anyone with sensitive information linked to their email account. If you have anything financial attached to your account, link your phone number to your email account and add a text code verification to gain access to your account. That's what I did and I haven't had any trouble since. Although it is a major pain to have to wait for a code to be text to my phone every time I log in to my email or paypal account, it's definitely worth knowing that my financial information is more secure. Any other similar stories or ideas on keeping your online info secure?
1 person likes this
6 responses
. I hope you started disputes with PayPal to get your money back.@jjwilly16 (28)
• United States
24 Feb 13
I did recover my Paypal money after a few weeks but there is no worry of a trojan. I have some good programs running to prevent that. The first thing that I did after reporting the problem was do a full scan on my computer and it was clean. Thanks for the input, though!
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
24 Feb 13
I would also have first scanned my computer for viruses, but I don't understand how they managed to get your PayPal password ? Except if you were using the same in another account -- or a computer/phone stolen with your PayPal password in a file ? --, there was no way to find it. Have you thought about it and found what could have happened ? Your text solution is a good one, but not for PayPal.
@jenny1015 (13366)
• Philippines
24 Feb 13
I am so sorry about that. So it is really wise not to make use of only one email address for all your online accounts. My yahoo mail has been hacked, too. The same person hacked my Skype, Facebook and online banking. Although I know that the person wouldn't really get any amount from my bank, he just wanted to know if I was receiving payments from the US or other countries. He was actually ny ex boss who thought that I was working for other companies and taking his clients behind his back which really was not.
Anyway, when i was able to get back all my accounts, I made different email addresses link to each of those sites. That way I felt safer.
@savire (204)
• Indonesia
25 Feb 13
Well unfortunately features always comes with a price. Anything that goes online might eventually be hacked theoretically since the data it self passed along through the network even if they encrypted. Even if they say it's encrypted nothing can stop the unauthorized from stealing them. As the technology evolved the more power they can get means the more risky our information is.
For safer purpose I never use the online-banking for doing transaction even if they are protected by token. My online banking account used for informative only. I always use the ATM to transfer and payments.
As for the online account try using longer password and try using different password for each of your online account. In my experience Paypal had better security to protect their users since they monitor IP changes, access and amount of money circulated in your account, so if their monitoring filter triggered by weird activity they should have locked the account and inform you about it.
@tipay26 (867)
• Philippines
25 Feb 13
I am sorry to hear that jjwilly16.Yes hackers can get all your informations because they are using programs that can scan any log in information.All you have to do is update your password for your online accounts.If you are having transactions online be sure to notify someone from the bank or any office that they have to inform you first before they do something.My advice is that if you happen to link any bank accounts on your online account better update it and remove all your bank accounts from your online accounts separate them from your important account.
@starsfield (131)
• Indonesia
2 Mar 13
Yeah, these days where everything is going online you must be very careful for giving out any details. Just use multiple authentication method whenever available.
@danix1982 (593)
• Philippines
25 Feb 13
im sorry to hear this, thank you for sharing your experience so that we are aware of what is happening online just like yours identity stolen. be careful using passwords, it should be strong passwords for all emails and online account.
@Anthromax (8)
• South Africa
24 Jul 13
This generally is the case, well... hope you get your money back.
