WARNING: Watch your Facebook Accounts!I want to warn everyone who uses Facebook that my husband's account has been used to access our check card, which takes the money directly from our checking account. The card is used like a credit card, but the money immediately comes out, no pin number needed. Actually, the balance of our account shows the deduction immediately, but teh actual posting to the account might take place a few days later. I'm the primary handler of our accounts, and I don't check how things are going until I log in to our back accounts to pay bills, about once, twice a month. Yesterday, I logged in and took a look and found 4 $15 charges, one right after another, to Gift Card Mall.com. I thought that was odd. Called DH who had no clue what it was about. We figured someone got a hold of our check card number, so I called our credit union. The specialist looked up the company on-line and said it appeared to be legit. He was going to cancel the card and issue new ones, but I asked him to hold off until I could contact this company. So, I called the Gift card mall people and got a very nice specialist there. She was able to tell me the transaction came from my husband's Facebook account and was for 4 Itunes gift cards. She had my DH's address, name and email (not sure if she had phone number). BUT, she could not reveal the name of the person who the cards went to, unless I spoke a name and then she could confirm it. I gave her three names of people I know my DH visited their Facebook sites. It wasn't them. SO, the woman issued me a service ticket number if I had further questions or concerns. Called the credit union back, canceled the cards, and a fraud investigation is being conducted by the CU. So, I decide to scroll though the rest of our account to see if any other charges were made. What I found made me sick to my stomach and very shaky. There were more charges, basically every day going back to January 8th. All for the same Gift card Mall.com. The increments were anywhere from $10-$25. All told, if I added correctly and didn't miss a charge, we are currently out $490. I calle the CU back and the notation was made that there were more charges. By the time I did all this, I had to pick my son up from school and was not able to call Gift Card Mall back. Will be doing that today. I have checked all our credit cards and so far, those are OK. I went on-line and posted 90-day fraud alerts on both our credit reports to the credit big 3 (Experian Trans Union and Equifax). I won't pull our credit reports yet because this hijacking is new and I doubt anything is going to have shown up yet if there is something that shouldn't be there. I know those who are desperate have their way of getting credit numbers and ID info and such, but how in the world they connected my DH's Facebook account with the check card number is beyond me. Here's what else is very interesting. DH has had the Facebook account for probably almost two years, but never did anything with it. On Jan. 6th, he started adding some photos and videos of the kids in order to show family members he was going to be visiting that weekend. The first of these bad charges was made on Jan. 8th, two days after he began "designing" his Facebook page. In doing some on-line research last night, this whole Gift Card Mall.com partnership began in December. Something new to allow Facebook users to send gifts to other friends. I hope I have limited the damage and potential damage to our credit. But it sickens me, I feel violated, and scared that whoever did this has enough info to walk into a business that only cares about the all mighty dollar and will issue credit or an item to a person who only has my DH's name and address (maybe phone number) and not check the credit report. So, be warned if you are on Facebook. Something is not right. How weird and SCARY! Have you contacted FB themselves at all? Might be worth it? It was a FB "chat" msg not an email. I emailed her but no reply ... OF COURSE. Hi Linda, They're next on my list. They should at the very least be alerted to what is going on. Thanks for the tip! And all this took place on my birthday!  Awwwwwww .... ! That stinks!!! 
Just to let you know, I JUST had a message on FB from a friend's account telling me to go to a website selling discounted gift cards ...
Did you contact your friend to see if he/she sent the e-mail? Please let me know. I haven't contacted Facebook yet, but if this going on, they need to know. Thanks for keeping me posted!  How do you QUIT Farm Town???  You'll have to educate me on "chat" messages. I don't have a FB account myself. No surprise you didn't hear back.
When you are on FB, if your friends are also signed on, they can instant message you. That's the chat! I cut so much out of my FB because of crap like this. I got viruses, spyware, etc. I block almost all applications, and quit the "Farmville" and "Farmtown" and all that crap. Happy Birthday! I would cancel ALL your credit cards and get new numbers issued. That's really scary. You just walk away... walk away from the farm Linda ... you can do it!! LOL!! I just stopped going and blocked any applications sent from other people - so no more requests and no more gifts come through. Hi NYMommy,So its just like using the Blackberry Messenger system. I get it now! I'd heard about Farmtown. Never quite understood it. I'll have to see if DH has blocks on his account. More interesting tidbits since I posted. We're out $600 now, as more charges that were in the pipeline have shown up. Another charge for $1.63 is pending from a construction place on the West Coast. DH is attempting to call the business and see what this might be about. This just keeps getting more and more messy, but more and more intriguing. On another note, while it was my b-day yesterday, it was a series of ups and downs, with the other down being that my dog needed an ultrasound over concerns about her abdomen being so large. Just got the call, no tumor, no fluid, most likely related to the prednisone she's been on to keep her comfortable from her lamenss. She's going to be weaned from it and once off it entirely, we'll try a new drug for her. Thank God she'll be OK. Everything else going on with her right now (kidney enzyme elevated, adrenal gland issue ) seems to point to the prednisone. So, yay, Cheyenne will be OK! Poor pup is 11 now, but ever the happy gal. Now if we can figure out our account issue, we'll be set! I'm just wondering why are you out so much money? I thought fraud was covered on such things. I've had a few instances of fraud and just had all of the charges removed from my account but that was for a credit card, maybe CU's are different. But I would ask anyway, or see if there is at least a limit (first $50?) or something. Good luck. Do either of you use a cell to access your accounts? There was just a news story about people getting signed into random people's FB accounts when they went to access their own through their phone. |
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