- November 8, 2023
- Posted by: legaleseblogger
- Category: Related News
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Financial Nightmare: Dealing with Bank Account Drain and Fraudulent Charges
The morning started off like any other, I woke up and got ready for work as usual. However, my day quickly took a turn for the worse when I stopped at a gas station to fill up my tank, only to find that my debit card was declined at the register inside. Panicked, I checked my bank app and was shocked to find that my bank account had been completely drained, with 10-20 random “UberEats” charges draining my funds. Feeling utterly helpless, I immediately contacted my bank to dispute the charges, only to be told that the money had been taken directly from my account, not from my debit card.
In a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, the bank suggested using an older account that I hadn’t touched since I was 18. Reluctantly, I decided to take their advice and began using that account. However, my problems only seemed to multiply when even that account was hit with an overdraft of over $100 the next morning.
The fear and uncertainty I am experiencing right now are indescribable. I haven’t made any unusual online purchases, nor have I clicked on any suspicious links. Now, I am left with no money to feed myself, pay my bills, or even get gas to commute to work. My only option seems to be relying on the goodwill of my parents, which is not only embarrassing but also unsustainable in the long run. With the holiday season approaching, I am overwhelmed with anxiety about how I will be able to afford gifts for Christmas and upcoming birthdays. I feel like a failure for not being able to provide for my loved ones.
Given the gravity of the situation, the thought of opening another account at a different bank fills me with fear and apprehension. The possibility of experiencing a similar nightmare all over again is simply too much to bear. The one tiny silver lining in all of this is that my credit card has not been compromised, at least so far.
In this time of distress, I am genuinely lost and exhausted. All I want to do is curl up and cry. I am reaching out to anyone who might have advice or guidance on what steps I can take to navigate this terrifying ordeal and regain control of my financial well-being.
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Original Content:
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Rewritten Content:
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****** just grabbed a
The device you use to access your bank account is compromised. You need to not use that device to access banking information while you sort this out.
Change all your passwords and turn on two-factor security.
Hopefully the bank will refund the fraud.
Never use your debit card except at the bank ATM. Credit cards for everything else.
You literally posted two months ago showing your android is compromised. TheyÔÇÖve been on ur phone for weeks, IÔÇÖd recommend getting rid of that android if you donÔÇÖt know too much about cellular and web security.
Given what’s happened to you, it’s extremely likely that your parents will be happy to help you get through this. Whoever you’re supposed to buy birthday gifts for will also understand. Anyone who doesn’t understand that you’ve been robbed of all your money doesn’t deserve any gifts from you. So on that front, please try not to panic, and don’t be reluctant to ask for temporary financial help from your parents.
I second the earlier suggestion to use Bitwarden (or some other password vault) to protect your password and passcodes.
I also can’t agree strongly enough with the suggestion to only use credit cards going forward. See if you can get your bank accounts set up so that there’s no debit card even attached to the account. These days debit cards have almost as much protection against fraud as credit cards, but with one HUUUUGE difference: When your debit card is hacked, the money is gone from your account until the bank does its investigation and (hopefully) returns it to you. Whereas when your credit card is hacked, no money has left your account, it’s nothing but a line item on your credit card statement that you dispute.
Hopefully the bank will refund you, but after this, I would suggest that you:
* Get a new email address that no one knows about. Get a new bank account at a different bank brand to what you’re currently using.
* Don’t use family details or easy to guess info for any security questions
* Arrange for all the statements to go to the new email address, no paper copies. See if you can collect the bank card from the branch rather than have it posted.
Breathe. File a police report and the bank will give you the money back.
>They say it’s not from my debit, but taken directly from my account.
This seems weird. I don’t think you can pay Uber Eats via ACH so I would think these would have to be charges from your debit card? Especially if you are using your debit card for everyday purchases.
Some general digital safety tips:
* Stop using debit anywhere and get a credit card. When you swipe a debit card your account is directly debited. When you swipe a credit card, the banks money is used. You don’t pay your money until your statement balance is due. If someone charges $1000 to your card, the bank is out $1,000, not you.
* If you insist on using a debit card, lock the card until you need to use it or set low transaction limits. I have a debit card incase I ever need cash from an ATM. My bank has an app where I can set the max transaction to $20 a day and limited to the state I live in. If I need to take out a higher amount than that or am in a different state it takes two seconds to open the app and change that.
* If you aren’t already use a password manager. This is probably the most important. If this truly was ACH, what most likely happened was that you used the same passwords on multiple sites. If you use even a mildly secure password on some crappy site that stores passwords in plain text and they have a data breach, then whoever stole passwords from crappy site A can get into your bank account if you use the same password there. Bitwarden is what I use, but theres plenty of other password managers out there too.
I wouldn’t worry about your phone being compromised or something like that. It probably isn’t. Android and iOS are both pretty secure. Most likely someone skimmed your debit card.
I see you have gotten some good tips already on what to do. But if I can just add one additional advice:
Going through your Reddit profile, I can see you are quite active on piracy and rom-hacks. I’m not judging, but when you say in your post that you “haven’t clicked on any suspicious links or downloaded anything”, I find that hard to believe. My guess is that somewhere on one of those sites you use, you installed something along with the rest that you weren’t aware of.
Could also be a phishing mail (saw you posted something about that too). No matter how professional and legit the mail looks, NEVER click on any links. Just go to the site you usually visits for that company manually in the browser, and navigate to it yourself.
What I would add to the other comments is to file a police report!
Whatever devices you use to access your internet banking including wireless routers, – assume they are compromised. Assume your email is compromised. Use a secure computer or device to reset your banking and enail passwords, go to bank branches and sort it out in person . Then reinstall firmware in router / password, and install virus scanners and firewall on pc’s, reinstall os on mobile devices.
Scary ƒÿ▒
You’ve been posting for months about your Android behaving strangely or money being stolen from debit
Very sorry to find out you did not take preventive actions in the months leading up to now
Never use your debit card for anything except cash withdrawals.
I would call your mobile provider and figure out if you’ve been sim-jacked. If they are getting new accounts I would start there.
Throwing this out as cautionary info. My (adult) niece had a fraudulent $1 purchase on her debit card. Discovery canceled the card and my niece was waiting on the new one. She got a text letting her know there were additional purchases, big ones like $250, so she freaked out and called the number in the text. She sat next to me, gave the person on the phone log ins for her PayPal, Venmo, past and current addresses, full social, literally everything. I even asked if she was sure it was the bank, because my bank would NEVER ask me for those credentials, plus also why would Discover have anything to do with Venmo?
She was on the phone with the scammer the whole time. She didn’t realize it until days later when money from those other accounts was gone too.
If you need to contact your bank, go into your bank account and get their contact info directly from within your account.
Get a password vault (I use bitwarden) and use a master password there that’s strong, long, and unique. Never use it anywhere else! Then randomize all your passwords and stop saving them in your browser. Use the browser extension and app for whatever vault you use. I have a hundred unique passwords and I only have to remember 1.
People really should stop using debit cards to pay for things in the real world and online.
Use a credit card like AMEX for instance and pay it off in full at the end of the month.
With a credit card you enjoy far more security and protections.
Debit cards are far too easy to skim and the banks are notorious for their feet dragging Laissez-faire approach in the matter, offering an array of excuses as to why you losing yer money to a scam isnt their problem.
One of the best things I ever did was make it so every transaction shows up in my phone notifications, even if it’s as little as $0.01. It helps you be aware of your spending, but also if fraud every happens it will never go under your radar. Also credit cards are much safer than debit like others have said because there is typically no liability on your part for any fraudulent charges.
why don’t you have 2fa turned on for your bank?!
what sort of bank doesn’t use multi-factor to begin with?
15+ character passwords (or whatever the server allows), 2FA, freeze credit w/all three bureaus asap
It seems someone has access to your passwords and your mobile phone. Check inside your house.
This may not be very helpful right now, but in the future, put some cash aside as a fallback solution for situations like this. Then you can be much more relaxed while you sort things out.
First, reformat all your devices and clear everything. Change your passwords to everything and make sure to enable two factor.
With that said, I highly doubt it’s from hacking but rather your bank account information has been exposed whether through your debit card or by a check.
Open a new bank account at another bank. Dealt with this same kind of fraud at a company, and nothing short of a new bank will stop the charges even if you get a new account at the same bank. It has something to do with abusing some ACH feature that let’s them pull money even if you change account.
Stop using debit card. You’re much better off using those cards where you load money than a debit card if you insist on not getting a credit card.
Debit card are super unsafe. Sure, some banks might be more helpful but most cases, it’s going to be long enough that you’ll be late on rents/bills.
Also look at your subscriptions, some of them use a 3rd party service that will update your expiration date so it does not get cancelled, some of those 3rd party services will hack your account
Recently my accounts were hacked. Not just one card, multiple cards in my household, again and again, and they were used even without activation of new card after hack. I now have alerts setup up for every transaction on all of my accounts. The attacks have stopped now as after each new attempt I was able to call credit card company to report fraud. The initial attacks added upto a thousand on each card in multiple charges on shein, uber eats, and Amazon marketplace. I believe the charges were made by having the card being linked for online payment, which don’t get disabled even after card replacement. All of the losses were reimbursed by the card company, except for one debit card account which was declined and I had to reopen the case again and again until bank of America reimbursed.
I actually work in IT.
You probably have a compromised device somewhere. That could be anything you use. Scanning with AV software will never give you 100% result.
What I would do:
A) wipe (facory reset) one device, update it. Then log into banking app/website and change password, same with email/whatever 2 factor you are using. Use a brand new never before used password.
Do not connect/change password from ta compromised/non resetted device.
B) repeat with each device you own. you can obviously do backups before hand. Cloud is better(to prevent contamination), temporarily pay for storage if need be.
Once all devices are clean/backed up, reset cloud storage password from clean device.
Never reuse any of your previous password (the could be compromised)
You probably have a key logger on whatever device you logged in from
Are you sure you called your actual bank (like call the # on the back of the card) or did they call you? Who set you up with that early payday thing?
I do not ever use debit cards anywhere except ATM. The money is drained out of your account thus much harder to get returned and you have no money you need for life/bills. Credit cards only. My credit card has to be replaced every 6 months it seems like with fraudulent charges like this but itÔÇÖs zero problem when I call (assuming the company didnÔÇÖt already pick up on it).
First insist on new bank account number, use different email, use different logon details. Go through the bankÔÇÖs fraud department. This is fraud not just identity theft. Insist on restoration of your funds -provisional credit etc. and reversal of all fees and bad credit reports to Cheksys etc. Change all of your passwords including Netflix, McDonalds, and anything you reused or is older than six months. This includes IRS and SSA – in fact ask IRS for their verification code process so the ahole thieves donÔÇÖt steal your tax refund or generate excess employment taxes by wholesale selling your SSN.
Second, file a local police report.
Third, file an FTC report.
Fourth use malware detection sites or just reset your phone using whatever service to save contact info. Do NOT restore from backup unless you have a known good one. Do same with any other electronic devices.
Fifth, insist on bank compensating you for the credit card cash advance fees. They should be aware of this Uber bs scam, itÔÇÖs been going on for years. YMMV. Stop blowing money on cash advances as it is very unlikely to be reimbursed, use the credit card instead.
Six, freeze ALL of your credit reports including Nexis/Lexus and Cheksys.
Seventh, change your direct deposit to your new bank account number. Same with any autopay. Let your payroll department know this is really you and to ignore any and all other direct deposit change requests.
Eighth, check past bank statements for trial small Uber and other unknown charges, dispute those.
Ninth, obtain and review all five of your credit reports. Dispute any wrong data. Provide evidence.
Tenth, file for the various data breaches extended settlements like Equifax.
11-20 Repeat as needed. It took six months for the repeated new accounts and direct deposit theft attempts to stop when my info got stolen from a job application.
Close you checking accounts and open new ones, the scammer has your bank account number.
Reset your phone, you have been on a dodgy site or downloaded a dodgy app
For me it was my chrome Google account that was compromised. Removed all my cards from it and it stopped
Change passwords to every account you have with financial information starting with bank and email then amazon etc.
Dont know what bank you are with but the same thing happened to me via door dash with TD..Td loss prevention had the bank disable the ability of my visa debit to be used as a credit card. They said the reason the “hack” kept happening after using new cards and accounts is visa auto updates vendors etc when u switch cards or something to streamline authentication or something i didn’t really understand but it stopped after that. Never use ur debit to make online purchases ..credit only
Good advice above. Except UNLINK all your accounts. Open a new account totally and DON’T link it to anything. Withdraw any funds you have in CASH and deposit in cash.
Personally I would open a new account at a different bank. But that may not be possible until you get this mess sorted.
Quit using the debit card and make sure you get one with a totally new number. Use a credit card if possible. Pay the credit card with an old fashioned check. Use cash as much as possible for a while.
OP.
Format your PC
( Optional ), Flash your bios (extra extra precautions) ( I do this each time )
Change all passwords via another device not on your network ( no wifi ) ( use your mobile hotspot or phone)
Contact bank dispute fraud
Get 2FA on every account. Use an authenticator for each account period .
Ditch the save your passwords and auto fills , turn that crap off via settings. Gl OP
Hope it all gets fixed OPƒÿ½
Get an iPhone and learn about basic personal cybersecurity (aka cyberhygiene): 2FA all around, a safe password container for allowing different and secure passwords for all your accounts, staying away from (digital) stuff you donÔÇÖt understand.
You may find these links helpful:
– [Identity Theft Guide](/r/personalfinance/wiki/identity_theft)
– [Credit-related wiki pages](/r/personalfinance/wiki/index#wiki_credit)
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I don’t keep financial apps on my mobile phone, if I have to use them, I use then on a dedicated device that does not leave the house. It’s more difficult to see what’s going on behind the scenes with a mobile device vs a computer.
Use virtual cards for online shopping! I never use my real debit or credit cards online. Most easiest way to steal information. I say if anything use Apple pay / google pay to pay itÔÇÖs more secure. It changes your actual card number to a different one. Always have Rfid & nfc card blocking or a wallet that has it.
At this point just change the bank.
2nd, if possible reset your phone after backing up only essentials like phone numbers, messages keep the photos in the Google Photos or iCloud for now.
Reinstall only the apps you use.
Must have a Password Manager like Bitwarden, reset all passwords to something really strong with Password Manager(random 49 digit long).
Make sure to change email passwords as well especially the one linked with your Bank, gmail has an option to check devices you used to login, remove all old devices.
Change security questions for gmail and bank accounts(replace them with 2FA).
Use 2FA for email address and bank logins.
Avoid using computer until you make sure itÔÇÖs clean, modern malware and key loggers can be hard to scan.
Also, use strong passcode on your phone and make sure no one has a access to it at work or home.
Keep calling bank for chargebacks.
Your phone may of been hacked if you used public wiifi and have stored bank passwords on your phone someone may of hacked it.
First save all your phone numbers then you need to reset phone to factory settings . You need to change passwords on your bank accounts from a computer.