Gary's Third Pottery Blog

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Gary's third pottery blog

WRITE TO ME! garyrith@yahoo.com Come see me! Open studio HERE! November 25-26 (11-4 each day); Aurora Art and Design, daily until 12/24; Cooperstown Art Assoc. daily until 12/24; Ellis Hollow Community Fair, 12/10; December 10, Little Red Wagon at the Space at Greenstar. All material on this blog unless stated otherwise is copyright Gary Edward Rith 2016

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

HACKED!



I had a data breach.  "WTF is that?" you ask, "Somebody stole a recipe???? Used Spike's photo of him licking himself on their own blog without asking first????"

No, this one was money, MY money.  Credit card bill shows up in the mail yesterday, and it is like HUH?  That is high. 5 charges, 4 of them I recognize.  But BURLINGTON COAT FACTORY for 184????????

I have a credit card I only use online (that one) and a bank acct for online use too, with a different card and bank acct for old fashioned uses.  YOU SHOULD TOO.  That way, if you lose your wallet, your online info is safe, and vice versa, like when some Russian azzhole in Moscow somehow hacks your Amex number and somehow uses it at Burlington Coat Factory, you know your wallet card is fine. Etc.
Here is a timely article from Huffpost yesterday about this very subject.  Amex has not told me yet what happened, and I hope they figure it out, but the reason people LOVE Amex is they quickly reassure you it is NOT your responsibilty to pay the fraudulent charge, and a new card and number is on its way...a quick and easy call.

EXCEPT for one thing.  They kept calling me "Missus Rith" and "Ma'am" and I had to insist 4 times IT IS ME.  I remember David Sederis claiming on the radio that he "has the speaking voice of a little girl" and he sings Billy Holiday covers brilliantly.... I do too, actually.....

 

11 comments:

Mrs. Potsblog said...

A great way to spend fifty-one seconds. Thanks for posting. Glad Amex handled the hack so fast.

Barbara Rogers said...

What a bother to go through. At least no money lost. My son also was hacked early Thanksgiving morning, which put him in a blue funk much of the day. Different scenario but same feelings of invasion. So sorry that happened to you.

Michèle Hastings said...

What a pain in the a$$. My debit card was on a breach list "possibility" last spring so my bank shut down my card and issued a new one. It inconveniently happened the day before I was traveling to NH for my mother's funeral. Luckily I had another card I could use.
Glad you caught yours before the thief got away with more goods.

Cheri @ Blog This Mom!® said...

OH GARY! I'm so sorry. What a hassle and you must feel so violated!
I hope it all sorts out soon.

I've heard your voice in pottery videos you've posted. I don't think you sound like a missus. You sound articulate and charming. :-)

Hello to Maude, Penny, and Spike!

k.a. barnes said...

Oh, I'm so sorry, Gary! This has happened more times than I'd like to Brett and me. But you reminded me of David Sedaris singing "Away in a Manger" like Billie Holiday and that always makes me smile.

Claudia from Idiot's Kitchen said...

I'm with Cheri. I've heard you speak on videos and you sound like a very articulate male. Maybe the articulate part is what throws them off. Ha! Try grumbling and grunting more. :)

Sorry about the hack. I'm on AMEX #2 this year and also had to get new cards because of the Target hack. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the new normal. Sad as that sounds.

Lori Buff said...

Oh no, I’m so sorry but I’m glad you shared those brilliant tips for banking security. I hope that helps someone else.

We’ve talked on the phone, I don’t think you sound like a missus either, but David is harder to distinguish.

smalltownme said...

Some phone solicitor insisted I was a little girl. I hung up! I've had a few fraudulent things come through the credit cards and all the credit card companies have been just awesome and quick and helpful in dealing with them.

Russ Erickson said...

The sad part is that the technologists have the know-how on how to make it much more secure. For some things I do on the Internet, I'm given two-stage authentication. That is, I submit an order, then I get an e-mail or text asking me to confirm it is me making the purchase. That is harder to hack, since you need to not only have the account info, but also the authentication. The other thing is in the actual credit card infrastructure -- we need to get to a system where we register all our information to a trusted secure place, like our bank. Then when we make a purchase, the vendor just sends the bank an encrypted token (data packet) which expires within a few minutes of the transaction. If the vendor gets hacked, all the hacker has would be worthless token history. It is just expensive for them to trash the whole credit card system we have, which is entirely antiquated for modern commerce.

Summer said...

Oh what a pain, sorry to hear. Hope it gets cleared up, soon!

Anonymous said...

Oh how awful for you!
But your image CRACKED ME UP--the modern Richard Scarry.
Glad it's getting addressed, good customer service can really make your day, can't it?

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I am a full-time studio potter, sculptor, and dog walker, married to superhawt Missus Tastycake.