Groupon And Fraudulent Use

[ruthandsam]

Just before Christmas someone hacked into my Groupon account and spent £900 with them which became evident when I checked my bank balance on line.

My question is, is there anything I could have done to prevent this from happening? All my Firewall, etc settings are working and up to date so I can't quite work out how it happened.

It's just bugging me thinking that someone had access to my accounts. They spent the money with Groupon then closed my account down so Groupon said they have no record of my account or the bank card being registered to the said account. Still angry about the whole thing!

Many thanks

[VHG]

Many email accounts are hacked because people use the same userid / password combination to log on to web sites as they do to log on to their emails.

Suppose you register with a website as rooney at hotmail.com with a password with football.

But on your email system you also use rooney at hotmail.com with a password of football.

So that means EVERY TIME you logon to that web site you are giving away your email userid and password.

That may not be a problem on "genuine" web sites like Amazon or Tesco or whatever, but it may be a problem on a ringtone web site or a web site where you download "dodgy" games or films.

ALWAYS use a different passowrd on web sites as you do to logon to your email.

Better still set up a "dummy" email address with hotmail or googlemail that you ONLY use for logging on to web sites.

Any email address you use for banking or other financial transactions (like Groupon) then ONLY use it for that and dont use the same email address to register for web sites.

I have about 9 email addresses for different things to isolate different mail and web based activies.

[pdq1]

I find it hard to believe that if you closed the Groupon account they would have no record of past events.

[bednobs]

sounds to me like it was someone you knew in your household

[magsmay]

It is theft -have you reported this to the Police? Once the Police are involved Groupon will miraculously find your account I'm sure. The whole of Groupon is a rip off anyway. I nearly bought an offer for two nights in an nice hotel -then decided to check the hotel website -and found I could get a better deal booking through the Hotel itself.

[ruthandsam]

Thanks for your answers. No, it's definitely not someone in our household Bednobs but I am questioning the security of going on these websites whilst at work (with permission I hasten to add).

I cannot understand Groupon saying that they have no record of my account despite the perpetrator closing it down and no record of the card being registered to that account either.

The Fraud squad and the Police are involved but I'm just checking to see if there is anything I could do to prevent it happening in the future.

Thanks for the info re email accounts and passwords VHG. That has given me food for thought as well.

Thanks again but keep the comments coming please......

[bednobs]

sorry ruth, that was particularly unhelpful of me wasn't it? Sorryagain

[ruthandsam]

Not, not at all Bednobs - it was my first thought actually!! I'm now looking at the security of work computers as IT people have the facility to log onto our computers and solve problems that way or by visiting the office.

I should 'let it go' now really now and get on with the Christmas holidays. Hmm, dare I say that I'm a little bored!

[joko]

could you have not unchecked - or checked - the box that says remember this log in, at work?

i would tell work to see if they can check for keylogger software running

[ruthandsam]

If work did have keylogger software running which is high possibility what next? At work they have the facility to see what private and confidential information we are looking at, ie patient's notes. Is this the same sort of software do you think?

Thanks again!

[joko]

keylogger software basically makes a list of every key that is pressed ... through that they can often see which bits are passwords etc.

but its usually used by people wanting to steal info, not as a matter of course for businesses.

they may be able to simply see what your doing from a central point and have taken the info that way ... sadly the person who knows this and has access is likely the one who has taken the info - so itd be no use asking them to check for you

i would alert the police ... they can investigate the system and see

do not tell anyone at work that you are going to do that though - it may give them chance to cover their tracks.

[Canary42]

Very good advice from VHG. I too use different e-mail addresses and passwords for dodgy sites.