Why we love "Google+" . . . NOT

plus one! i read about how they purchased the home automation company 'nest' just so they could gather more personal info and habits.

 

everybody is doing it..

you think CC card companies have been ignoring you purchasing habits over the years?

EZ-pass/start-trip... same thing... they know your driving habits and speeds...

Lets not even get started on supermarket "bonus cards"

If you have a cell phone, they know where you are...

The worst part is...we have basically volunteered to do this. Its not google's fault, or Visa, or safeway. You want the service...you gotta pay the price...in this case the price is information...

 

That's the weird thing about the whole Snowden / NSA thing. The data that the NSA is collecting is less than what the vast majority of people will cheerfully give to advertisers, corporations and the general public through Twitter, Facebook and other services. Which is why I avoid them. So I've always been mystified by the people who tweet their outrage about the NSA.

 

Snowden basically broke the law though.... he stole the the data and released it in violation of the trust that was put in him by the people who hired him...

if i post my SS#, DL# and Bank account number...and someone uses that data to to do bad things, then Its my fault I should not be upset....

If someone hack a system and steals my info...then I'm pissed. about 7 years ago a guy in MD stole my identity and opened a verizon account, did not pay bills for 6 months, then opened up a second account, for another 6 months until verizon got wise and shut him down, and while doing that got a credit card in my name to the tune of 10K bucks, it wasn't until the CC card company called asking for when I was going to pay my bill did I realize what happened. Still not sure how they got my unlisted VA phone number...in a way glad they did....

Oh and the VA cops said it wasn't their problem since The crime happened in MD, even though I was a VA resident, and the MD cops said sicne I was a VA resident, the crime must have happened in VA and not MD... took about a year to get it all squared away.... what a huge PITA...

 

Yeah, I can see that argument. But it does amaze me that people are so willing to give away so much of their information.

I haven't had my identity stolen. But my dad had his credit card details stolen a few years ago. The master criminal who did it used the card to get a TV delivered to his house. It was nice of him to make things so easy for the police.

 

hk,

once the CC company and verizon both believed me and I was not the other guy and I was not out any money, only time and frustration, I honestly could care less about what the police did, they obviously did not care. they had landline phone number, and an address and a paper trail of credit card purchases. so I guess it should have been pretty easy to track the guy down. I would have liked to see him fry though...but I wasn't holding my breath on the competence /desire of the police to press on....

Karma is a b!tch, and I can only hope that when she catches up with people like that, she kicks their nice person up one side of the street and down the other...

 

In the period between my last post and my reading this post (it's Saturday lunchtime, so I guess it's peak time for such things), three different people claiming to be from "Melbourne, Australia" (never just "Melbourne", like a Melburnian would say) but having mysteriously Indian accents have called me asking for my personal data. One was from an insurance company, asking about "the crash I had in the last 12 months" (I haven't). One was from Australia's dominant telecom operator, saying that I could get a discount because I always pay my bills on time (I am not with this telecom operator). And one was from "Windows support" about "the virus on my computer". I suppose that does demonstrate the value of personal data. I dearly hope that karma takes some time off dealing with your identity thief and does some deeply horrible emotional and physical violation to these people.

 

With all the knowledge out thee about scammers, it still boggles my mind when I hear about people falling for the scams...
especially the "Nigerian" one..
AusCERT 2013: Nigerian scam victim tells her story | ZDNet

If its too good to be true. it usually is...

Don't get me wrong with just a small bit of personal information, a scammer can get more information by acting like he knows you...

 

Yes, and it can get even worse than that: this happened very recently.

Nigerian police arrest online scammer linked to death of Australian woman Jette Jacobs - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I've worked on a few scams myself, and you'd be amazed how easily otherwise-intelligent people and even large corporations can be fooled. We worked on behalf of a German chemicals company that bought $300,000-worth of antimony trioxide from some guy with a website who was pretending to be one of China's biggest State-owned companies; when our client received the chemicals, they turned out to be bags of sand placed in the container so the weight matched the bill of lading. And we worked for an Australian architectural firm that was scammed out of a couple of million dollars because they fell for a ridiculous story about designing a hotel in Hainan, but having to pay bribes and facilitation fees to local officials in order to allow the deal to go through. I even had to call one client from an Australian manufacturing company (whose colleague had called me when he smelled a rat) to tell him to cancel his Amex card, sneak out of the fire exit of his hotel in Southern China, and wait for a limousine that I'd ordered to get him back to Hong Kong. In all of these cases, the deals they were being offered were too good to be true, but they still went for it, and got burned.

 

Actually this is one of my pet peeves. Every single supermarket, hardware store, pharmacy, etc wants you to join their “exclusive” club. My wallet is not big enough to hold all those cards. Safeway was one of the first and is one of the worst. They boost the prices and then give you a discount if you use the card. But the “discount” price is about the same as the competitors. I’ve been using my mom’s phone number at Safeway since she passed away in 2005. I wonder if they ever have wondered why her shopping habits changed so drastically?

It occurred to me recently that you could probably enter a random phone number and have a very good chance of duplicating one of the other “members” of the club. This would throw a wrench in their customer profiling. I may try this the next time at the self check stand just to see.

 

I never signed up for Facebook or gave them any information whatsoever, but they still knew far more about me than I was comfortable with. When the early invites from people I knew came out, the 'other Facebook users you may also know ...' portions at the bottom were highly revealing, and highly intrusive.

 

Are they not just people who've searched your name?

But saying that, I'm tired of how intrusive these internet companies have become. I've recently deleted my LinkedIn account and Facebook use has been severely restricted too. I bought an Android smartphone back in October and am now fed up that half its functionality is severely restricted if I don't sign up to google and give them loads of info etc. Once that phone breaks or dies I'll be going back to an old fashioned phone that makes calls, fits in my pocket and lasts a week on one charge and not a way for Google to increase their share price.

The old argument of "if you have nothing to hind, you have nothing to worry about" doesn't work, because if I had nothing to worry about, they'd not want the info in the first place.

 

Yeah we get that here. In fact my house phone just rang and I didn't bother to answer it. Nobody I know (or at least want to speak to) rings my house phone. I use it purely for ringing out on.

But my pet hate is when banks and insurance companies, who complain about people falling for scams, ring up and say "Hello Mr Xxxx. I'm ringing from xxxx bank and want to talk to you about your account. To enable me to speak to you, can you confirm some personal details? Please tell me your date of birth and mothers maiden name"

Erm no I can't. You rang me, so YOU prove to me who YOU are. They won't. I ask them to confirm the 5th and 8th letter of my password to prove who they are. They won't. In that case goodbye.

Crazy. They complain about people falling for phishing attacks and then ring their own customers up out of the blue asking for DOB and password info. Fools.

Grrrr lol

 

"Crazy. They complain about people falling for phishing attacks and then ring their own customers up out of the blue asking for DOB and password info. Fools."

That is not your bank calling if they ask for DOB, Password or any personal info.

 

You'd have thought not but unfortunately it was/is! I have rung them back and they have said they'd tried to call etc. Sometimes their number comes up on caller display too, but all too often they withhold it.

 

On this side of the pond, legitimate businesses don't operate that way, so we can be certain that such calls are solely from scammers.

Caller IDs are easily spoofed by the scammers, so are not trustworthy.

But to another of your comments:

Even legitimate call center folks should not be able to do this. Passwords should be stored in an encrypted form that hides the real combination from everyone who has access to the business's computer files. Put another way, if the caller can correctly answer this question, then the business's computer security is horribly inadequate.

 

I keep it simple and scan all calls before deciding to answer. If I do not recognize the number, the Caller ID or is from unknown caller, they have to leave a message before I decide whether to call back or not. If the call is unsolicited and they ask for any personal info I just tell them have a nice day and hang up. Maybe I have been on graveyard shift to long, but this works for me.

 

I find that putting on my sexy voice* and saying "You sound nice. What are you wearing?" gets rid of most of them.

Not all, though. An Indian pretend phone company scammer last week replied, "I'm naked. How about you?" I have to admit I was impressed by how quickly and calmly he did it.






* Not actually sexy.