My journey to finding the Warrior Forum, and the current state of affairs.
A Long Night With Adwords and Hacking
Posted 11th August 2008 at 08:29 AM by Jill Carpenter
Yesterday was Sunday.
The convenience of doing every thing online is that you can do it even on a Sunday. The inconvenience occurs when there is something wrong with an account somewhere, and it is a business that is not open on Sunday.
Yesterday, I went to check my bank account so I could transfer in some funds to cover some up coming bills. Upon my arrival I noticed not only was my account overdrawn, but google had tried to withdraw several thousand dollars. Like - several thousand dollars more than I even have access to at the moment.
My bank had rejected "check" but I had still been charged an overdraft fee. This fee was enough to put me in the negative. I don't think 20 bucks will cover 5g.
I went into my google account and low and behold somebody had a party in my adwords.
My last attempted adwords campaign was rejected (so I spent nothing), and I have had no live adwords campaigns this entire year. I had been HACKED!
And now I was crying and really upset as I can't afford this right now. I have enough to deal with, and this was a straw that was going to break this camels back.
If that wasn't enough - I was out of nicotine, and out of any type of booze. No relief in sight.
I wrote 3 emails to Google in a panic telling them to freeze my account. I called my accountant and told him not to deposit any checks I had at my virtual office. I called the bank - but they were not able to help me with the account - only debit/credit card issues.
It was excruciating trying to sleep last night. I grind my teeth and by this morning I could feel it. I was up really early for me, looking for what to do next.
To my surprise, Google had emailed within several hours of my getting up. They were able to confirm the account had been compromised, and they were on the case.
Phew! I jokingly told them not to be afraid of the huge noise they heard this morning - as it was the sound of the ton of bricks that I just dropped.
I have changed my password, and I'm doing some other things today. But will I ever feel safe again? This is actually the second time this year - as my bank reported a bunch of us had our information stolen. They gave us 2 free years of credit monitoring.
Did we get this whole ease with the computer thing wrong?
The convenience of doing every thing online is that you can do it even on a Sunday. The inconvenience occurs when there is something wrong with an account somewhere, and it is a business that is not open on Sunday.
Yesterday, I went to check my bank account so I could transfer in some funds to cover some up coming bills. Upon my arrival I noticed not only was my account overdrawn, but google had tried to withdraw several thousand dollars. Like - several thousand dollars more than I even have access to at the moment.
My bank had rejected "check" but I had still been charged an overdraft fee. This fee was enough to put me in the negative. I don't think 20 bucks will cover 5g.
I went into my google account and low and behold somebody had a party in my adwords.
My last attempted adwords campaign was rejected (so I spent nothing), and I have had no live adwords campaigns this entire year. I had been HACKED!
And now I was crying and really upset as I can't afford this right now. I have enough to deal with, and this was a straw that was going to break this camels back.
If that wasn't enough - I was out of nicotine, and out of any type of booze. No relief in sight.
I wrote 3 emails to Google in a panic telling them to freeze my account. I called my accountant and told him not to deposit any checks I had at my virtual office. I called the bank - but they were not able to help me with the account - only debit/credit card issues.
It was excruciating trying to sleep last night. I grind my teeth and by this morning I could feel it. I was up really early for me, looking for what to do next.
To my surprise, Google had emailed within several hours of my getting up. They were able to confirm the account had been compromised, and they were on the case.
Phew! I jokingly told them not to be afraid of the huge noise they heard this morning - as it was the sound of the ton of bricks that I just dropped.
I have changed my password, and I'm doing some other things today. But will I ever feel safe again? This is actually the second time this year - as my bank reported a bunch of us had our information stolen. They gave us 2 free years of credit monitoring.
Did we get this whole ease with the computer thing wrong?
Total Comments 3
Comments
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Sad really. This is about the third time in a week I've heard of Adwords account's being hacked.
It is a good reminder to change your password and make it impossible to guess. Something like T3D31D0I1 is a lot harder to hack than "cookie" or "password1"Posted 11th August 2008 at 09:51 AM by Scott Ames
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Sorry to hear about your lucky, but it at least appears like google is taking care of it.
For important information that deals with money, never use the same password you do anywhere else. Maybe people use 3rd part applications like RoboForm: Password Manager, Form Filler, Password Management to store their passwords (make sure its a trusted software vendor) so each account you have uses a different password. This way if someone does happen to get into one application, they do not have access to everything you own.
You might also want to check out different spyware applications to make sure you do not have a application running on your system that is watching everything you do.Posted 11th August 2008 at 05:32 PM by redbrad0 -
Hi Jill,
I'm terribly sorry to hear about this act of fraud. Did you know that you can report this to your Credit card company, and they will investigate, and most likely reimburse you?
I would encourage you to contact them. Somehow my credit card number was fraudulently used a
couple times in a row a couple years ago on a Poker site. The CC company had actually flagged it as possible fraud before I was aware of it, stopped other fraud attempts and notified me. They told me that they would investigate and if they determined it was fraud they would reimburse me in 3-5 weeks. I was reimbursed within a week I believe.
I know it is quite disheartening but I believe it will all work out for you. Just make sure you give your CC company/bank a call ASAP.
Let me know how it works out for you, for I'd like to know.
Take care,
BryanPosted 2nd November 2008 at 05:21 PM by Bryan
