The random Home Shopping Network email showed up on Saturday…
“Thanks so much. We’ve received your order. We’ll let you know as soon as it ships…”
It seems the order was for over $500… and it was an XBOX…
The problem? I didn’t place an order. I’ve not used my HSN account in a bit… in fact, I’d say last time I ordered anything from HSN was before the pandemic hit.
I grabbed my phone and called HSN right away… and the bubbly voice on the other end of the phone got really serious when I said, “hi, I’m calling to report some fraud…”
After an hour or so dealing with this one thing, another email showed up in my inbox. This one… from Target.
It seems someone had attempted to change my Target account login, and then, someone had attempted to have a new Target card sent to an address at some random place in California…
… the same random place in California where the HSN XBOX was going to be shipped.
So, I spent another hour on the phone Saturday night… this time, with Target Bankcard Security, having my Target Credit Card paused, credit card numbers changed… and more.
What a weekend.
Now, I should have seen this coming. I got a credit monitoring report saying that my email and passwords had been compromised…. and had turned up on the dark web as a result of a data breach. I changed some of those passwords, but clearly, I didn’t change enough of them… or all of them.
They’re all changed now, I can assure you.
The moral to the story from the weekend: Take your credit and your online life seriously. Pay attention to warnings about passwords — and I guess — change the passwords often. Check on your accounts – even the ones you don’t use all the time – because you just never know. And these days… that “not knowing” can be dangerous… especially when it comes to your data.
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