The Great Tree

Moiety Jean · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:05 pm Post subject: Eleri Assistance!

Hi everybody!

I'm posting this for Eleri. (I'm not organizing it, just posting the link.)

http://www.fundable.org/groupactions/miriprisms

I know getting to go to this conference would be a huge help to her and Blade, so they can take the best possible care of their daughter. I've met her. She's a sweetie.

There's no pressure. We just want to put this out there in case any of you would like to help.

Thanks much, Great Tree!
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~Moiety Jean

KI#44727
"There is a certain beautiful danger when a group of geeks get together to entertain themselves." ~Orin Drake

Durin Mephit · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:34 am Post subject:

It's more important than new shoes. Smile

My best wishes for Miri.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

Durin Mephit · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:54 am Post subject:

Copied from "Right Now":

Right now, credit card fraud! (Whee!)

Someone tried to use my credit card to purchase lots-o-stuff in Second Life. No clue who or how, as I don't even play Second Life. (I did download and install the client once, but never actually fired it up to play. Meh. And I certainly did NOT give Linden Labs my card number.)

This comes on the heels of having just yesterday pledged a bit of money to Eleri through fundable.org. I am hoping that the two events are not related, but given my recent card usage, I am concerned that fundable may have been hacked. If anyone else from this site has pledged money through fundable, as a precaution I suggest that you check your account(s) to verify no unusual activity has occurred. Just to be safe.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

Rils · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:41 pm Post subject:

That's just sad... I'm sorry to hear that! Hackers are bad enough, but stealing money from such an awesome cause as this one is pathetic. Evil or Very Mad

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BladeLakem · Great Tree Member Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 514

Do we have any other reports of this? If there's a trend, I'd like to let people know.
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MOULagain KI#27460

Eleri · Great Tree Member Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 819

I've left a message for the company, and canceled peoples contributions.

If peeps are still moved to do something, contact me privately.
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Durin Mephit · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:43 pm Post subject:

I wanted to mention that I was very sorry to inform Eleri this morning of my suspicions involving fundable.org. However, at the moment, it remains the most likely suspect. I wanted to clear up why I suspect fundable's servers are involved in this attempted fraud.

According to my credit card company, Citibank, this morning someone attempted to bill my card _45 different times_ for purchases within Linden Labs' online game, Second Life.

Prior to making a pledge through fundable.org Thursday afternoon, the last time I gave my credit card information over the internet was in February, for prescription medication through my insurance company's recommended provider. Prior to that, December, for certain Christmas gifts. It is possible that one of the merchants I've done business with in the past has had their records hacked. It is also possible that my credit card number was lifted from a paper transaction, but due to the nature of the attempted fraud, I think that isn't as likely.

I have never created an account in Second Life and I have never given my credit card number to Linden Labs.

It was highly suspect that the fraud attempt occurred less than 24 hours after I made a pledge. Prior bills were an automatic billing from my long distance phone company 2 days ago, and Hertz Rent-A-Car over a week ago (as someone rear-ended my brand new Sentra less than 3 months after I bought it, and I had to get it repaired). The computer I used to make the pledge is a work laptop which has Symantec Antivirus (with up to date definitions), Microsoft Defender, and SpywareGuard all configured as background tasks. Today, I updated and ran Spybot Search & Destroy, then Lavasoft Ad-Aware, and these tools only found a few tracking cookies in my browser history; no sign of spyware.

Another curious thing is that my first attempt to pledge returned an error message indicating that my pledge did not go through. At the time, I thought that perhaps I had mistyped some of my information. So I filled out the form again, and on my second attempt the pledge was successful. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I'm curious if anyone else who made a pledge observed the same behavior. (It is also possible that I did mistype and that this detail of my experience is a red herring.)

My best guess is that fundable.org's servers have been compromised. This is not an accusation; this is just my suspicion based on the evidence I have available. I know that these are very serious words and I would not state them if I did not have a certain level of confidence.
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

Moiety Jean · Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:09 pm Post subject:

Eleri, I hope you're not being discouraged by this...
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~Moiety Jean

KI#44727
"There is a certain beautiful danger when a group of geeks get together to entertain themselves." ~Orin Drake

Eleri · Great Tree Member Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 819

frustrated a bit, but not discouraged. Since the plane ticket and conference are all paid for, I'll be heading over there reguardless!

Everything else will work itself out.
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K'Dahta · Veteran Explorer Joined: 16 Jan 2007 Posts: 59

Durin Mephit · Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:54 pm Post subject:

K'Dahta,

Citibank is the big 800 pound gorilla of credit cards... but they're a good gorilla if you have them on your side.

They called me to let me know about this problem... and the charges never went onto my card according to the account. They realized something was fishy and checked with me before authorizing.

They also called me when I moved up to Washington from California too; in that case, it was legit use, but it was comforting that they investigated why several thousand dollars from a moving company were suddenly on my card. When they see "suspicious" billings, their automated system makes a phone call to your registered information to ask you to verify you made the purchase.

Unlike Capital One, which should be avoided like the black plague, by my experience Citibank is a good company with which to have a card.

I hope that you are able to get your record cleared up, and don't let this discourage you!
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Durin Mephit * Member of Guild of Messengers - Unless otherwise stated, opinions are mine only and not Guild endorsed.
rel.to | Marten KI: 59474 | Durin M KI: 11883768

K'Dahta · Veteran Explorer Joined: 16 Jan 2007 Posts: 59

I have Chase, and they did a good job. They called me almost immediately after all the money was spent (the purchases were made almost all at once). But unfortunately, this was a debit card, so I couldn't just call up the credit card company and tell them to cancel the purchases. The bank was able to get most of the money back within a week though.