You wouldn’t expect there to be any benefit from having been
relentlessly attacked by fraudsters. A month ago, we stood at the gates of our small
financial world, fending off incursions against what seemed like every possible
angle – phone service, bank accounts, broker.
However, we emerged a little jumpy but
still victorious, armed now with a boatload of new passwords, pin numbers, and knowledge.
So today when I was sitting here minding my own business, listening
to Peter Grainger’s On Eden Street (a detective series I highly
recommend), my phone rang.
First anti-fraud habit: I didn’t recognize the number so I
ignored it.
Second: I waited to see if it would go to voice mail. It did –
“MacBook Pro with order ID # blah,
blah, blah from your Amazon account. If you did not place this order and would
like to speak to one of our representatives, please press one or please call
back.”
Yeah, right. Like I’m going to do
that.
Third:
After a flutter of panic that someone had really accessed my Amazon
ordering ID, I went exactly there and my last order was just as I thought, two
weeks ago.
Fourth: I googled the phone number and
sure enough, it was listed as the one attached to a MacBook scam.
Phew.
