Okey-dokey Facebook peeps. Ive had quite an interesting day. So this afternoon I get an email confirmation from Verizon Wireless for the iPhone 6, 128 Gigabytes, that I ordered. Except that I didnt order it. Couldnt unless I wanted to pay full price (which I dont), since I have no upgrade coming until February. The fact I have been credited with an order I never made naturally gets my attention. Seems its been billed to someone with my full legal name when it was just Ray on the account. Very strange. And the recipient is a fellow named Rick Powers of Miami, Oklahoma. I have never met anyone named Rick Powers and certainly havent been to Miami (either Florida or Oklahoma). So I float a call to Verizon to ask them what might be the hell going on here. After a few transfers, Im taken to the fraud department. They do a quick bit of investigating and find that the perpetrator of this scam somehow managed to hack into my account and was able to order a new iPhone along with extras for $471.01. But he didnt use my credit card (a Discover Card no doubt stolen from someone else), nor did he utilize an upgrade to get a deep discount (since I didnt have one coming), nor did he create a new phone number on the account to glean the discount. In fact, its utterly baffling how he got this phone for half price, why he needed to use my account as the vehicle, and how he was able to complete the order since the billing name (mine) and address dont match in the slightest. So the fraud department guy said he suspected this was a new kind of scam whose MO was as yet unknown. He said the motive is to get the phone for half-price and command full price on the black market. Simple enough math. But anyway, I was assured my account was now marked for fraud, that I should change my password immediately (which I did), and that no more orders would go through my account without my being alerted. Whew. I mean, yeah, wow, thanks for that anyway. Cut forward five hours. At precisely 9:20 p.m. PT, I receive an email alert cheerfully assuring me that My Order Has Shipped! That would be the fraudulent order using the bogus billing address and the shipping address that was, you know, not mine. How could they have allowed this to get shipped anyway when Id flagged it for them less than 30 minutes after getting the original order email? Another call to the fraudmeisters at Verizon elicited embarrassed apologies but also the explanation that by the time Id gotten that order email, even though it got flagged immediately for fraud, it was too late. Reassuring, huh? Once the scam is in motion, it takes on a life of its own. And now the phone is scheduled to be delivered to one Rick Powers in Miami, Oklahoma tomorrow by Noon Central Time. I was assured calls to Fed-Ex to flag it would be futile, that it was impossible to halt this runaway train. So given this inevitability, Ive decided to take matters into my own hands, seeing this as a rare and golden opportunity to put a name and an identity to the all-too-faceless rash of Internet crime. I was assured that the one huge thing this criminal didnt count on was a confirmation email getting sent to me. Not terribly swift, but then, if youre risking prison to get a deal on one lousy iPhone, youre probably no Rhodes Scholar, Im guessing. I emailed Fed-Ex just to get it on the record that the delivery on this order tomorrow involves a crime and they should understand that and take along a cop when delivering the package (which requires a signature). I am also taking the opportunity to call out this crook in every way possible. I want him to ultimately know he screwed with the wrong anonymous shmoe. Therefore, I would like everyone in my social media orbit to know of this guy and his address: Rick Powers, 60181 E 120 Rd, Miami, Oklahoma 74355. Please share this with as many people as possible. It wont cure Ebola, but its one tiny thing we can do to fight cyber crime. Ive also filed an FBI report and will be calling the Miami, OK police department in the morning to alert them.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 06:52:00 +0000
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