My very first cyber attack . . .

Shady Lane

Retailers, Manufacturers, ePay, AudiogoN, Paypal or whatever. Buying and selling advice.

Been on the internet since about 1995 and developed a sense of trust and complacency towards spending money since becoming an eBay/Paypal-er in about 2003. Nothing has ever happened until . . .

By the numbers:

01. Shopped around and found a "replica watch" I liked.

02. Decided to order it and noticed they only accepted Visa and Western Union. Funny, those Chinese.

03. Website required that I register so I put down my real stuff in anticipation of placing my order and using my Visa debit card. I was not required to put down my card info at that time.

04. Returned to the page where the watch was listed and BEFORE MY EYES the price jumped from $158 to $545!

05. I noticed other watches I had looked at jumped up to similar prices!

06. I start an email dialog with customer service who told me earlier that all watches were available.

07. I questioned the price changes and was told they were sorry but none of the that brand of watches were available.

08. I emailed a link of the now $545 watch to make sure this was really not available. The response was "oh yes, this is the only one we have".

09. I told the c/s person my Visa was a debit card and he answered that was okay.

10. Then, I disappeared. (This was Thursday).

11. Rattled by this I Googled some replica watch website reviews and found this one was about as bogus as it get. (Very slick website with IM customer service.)

12. Friday evening I was ready to shut down my computer (Linux) when I got a message: You cannot shutdown while someone else is using the system. You must enter root password. TILT!

13. I had noticed Friday during the day that the old HDD had been spinning away while I was just idling around.

14. This morning I went to breakfast and my Visa was declined. I rushed home and check my balances and Paypal and nothing looked unusual.

15. Apparently Linux isn't as dead secure as I thought. There is almost NO malware or antivirus programs available for it. The folks in China really must devote a lot of time in developing worms and phishes.

16. I think this particular "merchant" has little to no stock at all and relies on you providing them with your billing address and credit card info upon order. Then you are at their mercy.

17. The website is: ok-watchreplicas.com

18. Info I found listed a lot more of the same kind of websites which are probably linked together.

19. No more China shopping for the Gritster.

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Topic - My very first cyber attack . . . - mr grits 16:20:34 11/26/11 (8)

RE: My very first cyber attack . . . - Michi 02:42:59 01/13/12 (0)

Have experienced similar behavior with Tower Records - Jay Buridan 11:27:10 12/31/11 (0)

RE: My very first cyber attack . . . - tmsorosk 08:02:15 12/30/11 (0)

From what I've seen at other websites I frequent... - David S. 16:09:48 11/30/11 (0)

Never, Never, Never, Ever, Ever, Ever, use a debit card online!!!! - vinyl phanatic 18:19:52 11/26/11 (3)

I didn't give them any card info....cyber attack. - mr grits 11:02:51 11/27/11 (2)

Still, his advice on debit card use is good advice - rnhood 14:26:33 12/02/11 (1)

Grocery Store Card Readers - HarlemAirShaft 22:18:27 12/28/11 (0)

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