Recent Scam Takes $100,000 Linden from a User Account

[Puddles Button]

Hi, just recently I had an Avatar Hacked to the tune of $100,000 Lindens (Yep, that's like $402 USD).

How this was accomplished I have no idea but I can tell you this, I'm not new to SL and have been around for years,

Am half owner of Five (5) Sims for a few years now. I am very secretive about my passwords and make them complicated, yet somehow someone who calimed to be associated with a big scripting place  in SL which I will not mention because I'm sure they  were not aware of this character deeds.

Long Story short --- the person somehow gets into your account for just a few seconds,  buys $100,000 Lindens from your Card account and then gifts that money to his avatar. (not sure how this part works because it seems they just have to follow the money to find the person).

Luckily LL froze that account of mine because they noticed it was a huge sum and I had to then get it unlocked. They say they are going to Credit my Credit card (which hasn't taken place yet. Hopefully that will happen soon. I know none of you out there can afford to be out $400 Dollars during these hard time.

(this is not the account that was hacked)

So, Just be careful, change your passwords often and make them hard (don't use a BD or any other easy to figure out code)

THE THIEVES ARE OUT THERE SO BE ON GAURD AND SAFE !!

Thank you Echo Linden for finding that for me.:matte-motes-nerdy:

[Jennifer Boyle]

Some credit card issuers offer virtual account numbers for which you can set credit limits as well as expiration dates.  They just issue you an additinal number.  You can go back and increase the limit or extend the expiration date whenvever you wish.  Using one of these with a limit a little higher than your usual monthly expenditure and changing it every month would make it impossible for someone to take very much.

 

[amarock Amat]

If it was a Cred, you could contest the charge put it as fraud and have your card holder revoke the charge agianst you. If was a account attached to a bank account, it gets a lil tricker good luck.

[Puddles Button]

yeah, the Bank has it now, they will go after the guy. I contacted them right after it happened.

Lindens have been really decent though, don't know if you ever had dealings with the Concierge Support group, but they are great.

Later

[LilTartToo]

The exact same thing happened to me on the 9th. The person sold it to a lindex exchange right from my account though and I managed to get it back from them before the transaction was complete thankfully. Anshex was really great about the whole thing and very prompt about getting the linden back to me. LL was great about taking it back and reversing the charges, BUT... 9 days later they put my account on and admin hold and it's still on the hold. It's been a week and the ticket hasn't even been reviewed. This is pretty freaky to me as I too am very careful with my password. I do know that once this is settled I will never leave billing info on file again.

[York Jessop]

What I do is have a seperate bank account with no funds in it, when i want to purchase something online, for example some lindens, i transfer funds into the seperate bank account and then make my payment, this prevents anyone from using my billing details to make purchases that i have not authorised. These days with online banking it is very easy to move your money around and imo everyone should do this and keep thier main bank accounts locked down. It would save people millions if we were more cautious.