Over the weekend I discovered I had become an unfortunate victim of ID Theft. Friday evening after leaving work I stopped to get gas. The AAFES pump declined my card which I quickly dismissed as an error on their part. After using my other card and pumping gas, I drove home and immediately checked my online banking statement. Much to my surprise I discovered page after page of fraudulent transactions totaling nearly $5,000.00. Noticing that these charges originated from PayPal, I quickly went in and check my PayPal account. Sure enough, someone had hacked my paypal account and was buying anything and everything under the sun. I quickly got on the phone with customer service and notified them of the charges. The customer service agent was concerned because I did not receive any email from them about the transactions. I quickly remembered to check my Comcast email account and sure enough, all my emails were forwarded to usaf**ker@hotmail.com. (fill in the * and you will notice his hate for Americans). A case is open with PayPal and they are currently investigating.
I took it upon myself to send this individual an email in hopes he would respond so I could trace his email using the headers of the email. Sure enough he responded with some hateful American slogans and I traced his email to a small town west of London England. I later sent him an email asking how he hacked my paypal and he once again responded stating it was PayPals zero-day security flaw. All this information I have reported to IC3 (world internet crime center), London PD, and the Wheatland PD.
I never thought it would happen to me, but it did, and now Im sharing this experience with you in hopes you get on paypal (if you use it) and ensure your passwords are mixed numbers and letters with several special characters. I can assure you my paypal and email passwords were different and contained at least 10 mixed caps, letters, numbers and special characters. This individual now has every critical piece of information pertaining to my financial life. This was a very sophisticated attack and by the sound of his emails, Im just one of his many victims.
