Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

I just had my first run-in with an online hacker or something. Sunday night I received an email from paypal thanking me for my payment of $1004.95 to DigitalRiver. Then I received another one saying my account had been flagged because paypal thought someone hacked into my account. I'd say so!

Here's what I think happened, slickdeal users beware: 2 days prior, I had been looking at an ad on slickdeals for a universal car charger for like $2. I checked it out, went to the website, put it in my "shopping cart" and created an account. But I changed my mind and decided not to buy it. I think that the password that I used may have been the same one for my paypal account. Incredibly stupid? Yes. Probably done by tons of people? I bet.

I launched a dispute with paypal and contacted the company that I supposedly purchased a Kaspersky Lab (ironically that is security software, and it is also now listed on slickdeals...hummm...that's phishy). They refunded the money to me. Paypal recommended that I contact the police, since the original email I received listed a name and address in richmond, virginia where the thing was going to be delivered. I figured that would go no where, and I'm busy moving, but thought I'd see if you guys think I should bother.

The scary thing is that paypal had already taken the money from my account and given it to the other company! So I was really worried that I would be out tons of cash. Luckily it was only held up for a few days in limbo. And now I'm glad that I do have credit monitoring, so if there are any other big changes to a balance on my accounts I'll find out about it pretty quickly....I'm glad I'll be changing up all my accounts and last name soon. Sheesh!

Marc said 11 minutes later

I would contact the police. Most likely they will tell you they'll look into it and completely disregard it, but they should take it very seriously. You can explain to the police what happened and give them the information as well as PayPal's recommendation and they may investigate it. To be honest, when it comes to the internet, the police typically stay clear of it, but they may pass it up to the FBI if they feel there is good reason.

Be very wary of deals from Slickdeals.net. If the deal is coming from a very crappy looking website, it's not worth the possible scam to save yourself some dough. I usually stick to bigger name companies when getting things from slickdeals (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.). More the most part, you probably are safe, but I've come across some sites on there that scream setup.
GJ said about 1 hour later

As Mark said, call the police. You will have no right to sue if you don't take all appropriate actions. Document all conversations you've had with Paypal, the police, and any other involved party.

I don't follow how Kaspersky Labs figures into this. Kaspersky is a legit software provider--and I think they use Digital River for their online payment work. Was that what was bought with your account?

NEVER ever use financial passwords as passwords to any other site. In fact, try not to even replicate user IDs across those kind of systems. This is a very common ploy.

If you haven't done this already, change all of your secure passwords NOW. Change any other web password that used this compromised one (or even a variant of it) to something different than your secure passwords, and do that now too.

Might be time for me to host a family security seminar. :)