Scammed or stupid?

[Workingman]

It is reported that people lose £190,000 per day to cyber crime, but how?

They have weak passwords. They use the same password on multiple accounts. They never change their password(s) and they do not follow the simplest of rules.

Action Fraud says:

"Always be suspicious of unsolicited requests for your personal or financial information and never call numbers or follow links provided in unsolicited texts or emails."

All of this advice has been available since the dawn of the w.w.w. yet still people do the daftest things or succumb to their own greed.

Cyber crime is rife but as time passes it becomes increasingly difficult to have any sympathy for many of the 'victims'.

[Suff]

All true, however I use the same password on multiple accounts too. The big difference is that I use totally different genre's of password for different types of accounts. With the penetration of mobiles into the market, One Time Passwords are simple to use and remove any doubt. I notice credit card security is just beginning to use OTP.

However you are right about simple caution. I remember a heated argument with #2 daughter when I told her that she had just given her bank details to scammers on eBay just because they said they were eBay. Even though she knew who I am and what I do she continued to shout down the phone at me that I was wrong. In the end I tokd her to check her bank account and put the phone down.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Workingman]

Suff, I have four email accounts.

Two are throwaway addresses for inconsequentials. One is family and friends only, and one is personal - doctor, dentist, MP etc.

The throwaways share the same password and have done for years. The other two have them changed every three months or so. They all have separate contacts / address books and those only contain details of people / organisations I instigated a conversation with - even the throwaway addresses. Any emails received from strangers go straight in the bin unopened.

I do not have a regular credit card so any online shopping is done from a top-up credit card. I change my PIN numbers fairly frequently, but never, ever via a link even if an email purports to be from my bank etc. I always go direct to the site concerned.

To everyone, status bars in browsers and email clients are you friends - use then.

[Suff]

I have a virtual debit card. However I learned a salient message in managing it. My service allows me to create and delete new cards at will, with new numbers. However, being lazy, I just topped up my one card. Which promptly debited £30 of an old standing payment to someone I had no intention of paying.

My new modus operandi will be to create a new card for each transaction. Much safer.. We are all learning, we just need to keep up.

I submit a quote from Christopher McDougal.

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”

Change the references from Africa to the Internet and learning and you have it in a nutshell. In the world of the Internet you need to be learning, every day, or you will fall foul of something or other. It doesn't matter how good you are or what your history is, standing still, in the world of the Internet, doesn't work.

[Workingman]

It doesn't matter how good you are or what your history is, standing still, in the world of the Internet, doesn't work.

Very true, but following the basics puts you in the pack with the faster gazelles. Doing nothing or ignoring the basics is more likely to make you lion food.

The top-up card I use is not connected to any bank account, it is not even from my bank. I have to withdraw cash and then load it up manually. It usually has £50 or so for restaurants or spontaneous purchase etc, so if it gets lost or stolen that is the most I can lose.

I also will not use a contactless card, despite all the pressure from my bank. If it falls into the hands of someone else they can make quite a few £30ish purchases before I cotton on, such is the way I shop.

[Suff]

I don't have a physical top up card yet. I had one but let it expire as all of them, at the time, were credit cards and carried credit card fees without any of the true credit card benefits such as insurance etc.

I may revisit that again now. I have no issue with contactless, it solves a lot of problems for me when travelling. Although it creates mayhem when I have an oyster card and 3 contactless cards in my wallet. I can't use my wallet to touch in and out on the tube, it goes mental. I have to take the card out.

However a contactless top up card would seem like the best compromise for you.

I like the virtual cards because they become "one time" cards like the mastercards KLM used to give out when they were refunding you for voluntarily missing your flight to let someone else on.

Time to burn a little web time looking for a top up debit card.