I've Been Hacked

The biggest thing in my life lately has been whether it's gonna rain..or not rain and should I water the flowers today or wait for those dark clouds to hopefully drop some moisture.

That was until I got my Discover Card bill. I pay it online and when I received the notification that the bill was due I immediately signed on to the account. Correction: I TRIED to sign on and found I couldn't access that account. This was on Saturday. Thinking their site was down, I didn't contact them by phone but waited until today (Monday) to try signing in again. Again I was denied so my next step was to contact an online rep in a chat. When she directed me to the fraud department's telephone number, smart me deducted right off that there was a problem.

The fraud department had noted suspicious charges and had flagged the account. Yep, they were right. There they were. Microsoft charges and a long list of them for games charged to an  X Box and many of them were in excess of 50.00 and one at 98.00.

The grandson has an X  Box and has my Discover card attached to it so he can buy some game points but only after he clears it with me. He calls occasionally and asks about getting some points, usually about 10.00 worth and after my okaying it, he buys and plays. For a few moments I thought he had jumped the rails and went charge crazy on my card.

After talking to a Discover Card rep, I broke all speed limits driving to his house. I had already called the daughter and she was dragging Ted out of bed to explain.

The short story of all this was he wasn't able to sign on to his X Box since we made that trip to Galveston. April's hotmail account had been hacked too and neither one of them put both things together to realize that someone had hacked her email to find the Microsoft account registered there so they didn't follow up.

I've spent most of this morning watching Ted talk with Microsoft who is starting an investigation and I again talking with Discover Card rep's fraud department who will dispute these charges with Microsoft and I won't have to pay any of them  and will be issued a new card.

Oh and my cell phone saga continues. The husband bought home a bright red Samsung slider so I moved my SIM card over to it. All is well. This one is much more clear sounding according to reports from friends.

While making my visit with Ted and his mother this morning and clearing up the credit card mess, I prepared to leave, noted the red phone sitting on the kitchen table, reached over and dropped it into the side pouch on my purse and headed home where I retrieved the phone to make a call to Discover Card people. The slider would not work. It would not slide no matter how I tried to move it. The screen was also dark so along with not being able to slide it up, the battery must be down? Yeah..that's it.

I hunted around for the charger end that was draped across the sofa cushions from the receptacle on the sofa table. Grabbing it I turned the phone on it's side and could not find the little slide cover that conceals the charging point. I rolled the phone over to the other side and again there was not a hidden receptacle. Occasionally I would attempt to slide it up to expose the dial pad with no success. Finally I looked at the top of the phone and noted there was a charging point there. How could this be? My little red Samsung did NOT have a charging point there. Am I in early stages Alzheimer's? Should I start using yellow sticky notes all over the house for myself? Is it time to keep an online blog of my daily activities? Oh..wait. I already do that!

 A low wattage bulb started burning in my brain and reaching over and grabbing my purse, I dug to the bottom of it. There it was. My little red slider Samsung and that low wattage light bulb brain put two and two together to come up with "you have absconded with some one else's cell phone"!

Yeah, it's April's LG Qwerty keyboard red phone. I called her house phone and asked her if she knew where her cell phone was. The answer was as expected. I'll take it to her later.

Please..I'm ready to go back to being bored the remainder of this week. Though I've paid all the fraudulent charges and will be given a credit, I've learned a couple of lessons today.

(1) Never register a credit card to Microsoft for X Box games. Go to Walmart or CVS and buy a gift card for game points and do not give a credit card.

(2) remember...you have a SAMSUNG phone..NOT an LG and not all red phones are YOURS! 

Carrie and I are going out for breakfast. We will be paying with CASH!