Amazon Hack

 

     Monday morning, I had just sat down, guitar in hand to strum a few chords and try to keep my fingertip callouses in shape, when my cell phone buzzed, or dinged, or whatever that sound is.

     It was Amazon calling.  I don’t remember what the guy said but my reaction was, “Why don’t you people (might have been an unprintable adjective or two) get a real job instead of trying to rip people off?”

    The guy was unphased.  He told me, in his foreign accent, probably Indian, I had an order for a thousand dollars (I don’t remember the exact figure, which he gave me) made from my phone number using a name, which he also gave me, which also sounded Indian.

     “Yeah right!”  He kept going.  He knew that the Goodwife and I had separate Amazon accounts.  The clincher was he had the last four numbers on both credit cards I have stored on my Amazon account.

       I took the time to check my credit cards, and sure enough, he had accurate last four numbers.  I hovered between gullibility and suspicion. I forgot that “Amazon will never contact me by phone.”  I decided I had better play along.

     “Why can’t you just cancel the order, since I obviously didn’t place it?”  Oh no, he couldn’t do that.  It was a “pre-approved order” so he didn’t have the authority to cancel it.  Suspicion arose again.

     The call took 11 minutes and 55 seconds according to my cell phone record.  He couldn’t cancel my order, so he was turning over to another department.  The other department?  The FTC!  Wow! Did I feel important!

        There would be no waiting on hold for an FTC rep.  They would call me!  He insisted I take down the phone number the call would be coming from.  I wrote it down.

     Sure enough in about five minutes, I got a call from that number, with the same area code he had called from.  It was from the FTC!  Julia somebody. 

     She had to call three times to get a decent connection.  When we finally got to have a conversation, one of the first things she asked me for was my social security number.  What a surprise!  “Yeah right,” I said.  She either hung up or the feeble connection let loose.  She never called back.

       The fact that the crooks had so much information about my Amazon account was alarming.  I waded through the Amazon system to find a place to report fraud.  I did that.  I decided I had better close my Amazon account. 

     Because I reported the fraud, my account was locked and I had to contact customer service.  Getting through the canned voice to a real human was somewhat of a chore.  Finally I did, and the guy sort of downplayed the whole thing, saying just ignore the call.  Tell them this or tell them that but don’t give them any information.

      He did email me a link to cancel my account.  I got off the phone an onto email.  Closing the account was a bit complicated.  Among other things I had to scroll through all the neat things I would be missing if I didn’t have an account with Amazon, along with assurance I can open a new account without much trouble, probably a lot less trouble than it took to close the existing account.

     The first time I filled out all the required information and finally got to “Submit”, I got a message that there was a problem and I could not close the account now.  Try again later, it said.

      I went back to the email with the link and started all over again.  This time, it worked.  Except it would be four or five days before the account could be closed.  I felt like a fly on a pest strip, trying to get loose from Amazon.

     The experience took over two hours of my precious morning hours, when the Goodwife is asleep and I can get things done.  It kept running through my head all day.

    On Tuesday, I decided I had better close the Goodwife’s Amazon account, too.  I knew better than to try to use the same link I had used for mine.  I would get into the squirrel cage and go ‘round and ‘round with that link.

     The decision expedited a process I started two weeks ago, deleting over 186,000 emails in her Gmail account, some going back to 2012.  I went back to Amazon customer service, went through the paddle line until I reached a live human.

     This time I had some things to say beside requesting help.  The only place the fraudsters got the information they had was from me or from Amazon.  They didn’t get it from me.  It had to come from Amazon.

     The lady didn’t deny that Amazon has had a breach of security.  She gave me the same spiel, ignore, don’t give the fraudsters any information, etc.  I insisted that Amazon needed to do something about their security.  Oh yes, they take fraud seriously, etc. etc.

     Back to the purpose of my call.  Because of the attempt to get into my account, the Goodwife’s account was locked.  I had to get into the account to close the account. 

     The lady was very helpful.  She insisted I get into the account and start the closing process while she was still with me.  It took a lot less time to close the Goodwife’s account than it did mine.

      Except, it still hasn’t been closed.  The process takes four or five days, she explained.   Yes of course.

      I won’t be surprised if I get an email (not a phone call) requiring me to confirm that I really do want to close the account any time now.

      The real price of the convenience of shopping on the internet.  About four hours, I think. 

     I also reported the phone numbers on the “report phishing” website.  Later, I regretted that.  A reverse phone number revealed that the original phone number belong to some female.  It was no doubt spoofed.  Now some innocent person will have their number listed as suspicious.

     Just for kicks, I tried calling the “FTC” number the guy gave me.  The voice answered, “Hello.”

I said I was trying to reach the FTC.  “This is the FTC,” he said.  Who do you wish to talk to?”

     I responded that I was checking the validity of the phone number.  He hung up.  I went to the FTC site and filled out all the stuff it required.

     It’s been nearly a week.  I just checked into my Amazon account.  It’s still open.  I got the same error message I got on my first attempt.  The account cannot be closed at this time.  Please try again later. 

     I tried again.  Same message.

     I am still stuck to the fly paper.

     Moral(s):  Think twice before opening an account with any of the big tech firms, Amazon, Google, etc.

     Moral 2:  Keep an eye on your Amazon account and your credit card accounts. 

     Moral 3:  There are two types of internet accounts, those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked.  Caveat Emptor!

 

 

’57 Ford

      I don’t know all the details of the trip, just that mother, brother, and sister took a rather hurried trip to Arizona, first riding the train from La Junta to Arizona (Kingman? Not even sure of that) then driving straight through back to Colorado, with one person driving and the other two trying to make sure the driver stayed awake.

     The Ford was Aunt Margaret’s car, a '57 Ford they bought brand new.  It was probably the cheapest version available.  There must have been some Scott’s blood in the Thistlewood family.

      It was the same year as Pete and Liz’s, but had none of the bells and whistles.  It had a three-speed standard transmission.  It arrived in Arizona from Detroit without an air conditioner.  By design?  Uncle Orrie soon installed an air conditioner.

     Like Uncle Pete, Uncle Orrie was very good with electronics and anything mechanical.   He built the first pickup-mounted camper I ever saw.  According to Aunt Margaret,  she was always bugging him to “build a little cabin on the back of the pickup.”  He did it.

     The pickup was a ’52 Ford, white as I recall it.  The camper didn’t extend much above the cab, but it had everything in it, bunks, a small “kitchen”, everything but a bathroom.  They travelled a lot in it.

     Installing an air conditioner in the '57 was no problem at all for Uncle Orrie.  In Colorado, the Ford became a college car.  It suffered a dent or two in a college trip.  I wasn’t involved and don’t know the details of that.

    It eventually went to Wyoming where it served as transportation for Uncle Ricky to commute to his job on the Wind River Reservation.  Two anecdotes I recall:  Uncle Ricky pulled into a parking lot and drew pointed attention from a mother and daughter.  He struck up a conversation with them.  It turns out that their husband / father had a nearly identical car and it really embarrassed them when he drove it publicly.  When they saw him, they thought their man had escaped in the car while they weren’t watching.

    The second story involved a -50-degree morning when the Ford refused to even turn over.  Uncle Ricky got under the car with a coffee can, in fifty-below weather, and pulled the oil drain plug.  The oil oozed out like really cold chocolate syrup into the coffee can.  He replaced the plug and took the coffee can inside and sat it by the wood-burning stove.  

     When the oil warmed sufficiently, he poured it into the engine and tried the starter again.  This time it started.  The old Ford probably wondered what an Arizona car was doing in a Wyoming winter.

     I think the Ford returned to the farm after Uncle Ricky left Wyoming.  It became a piece of real estate that went through two or three different owners without ever moving.

      Life sitting outdoors on the farm isn’t easy.  The cottontails chewed the spark plug wires down to nubs on both the plugs and the distributor cap.  Needless to say, it never ran after that.

      Though I encouraged subsequent owners to do something with it, it never moved and it became a “somebody-should.”  People who drove into the yard looked at the old Ford, saw that it was still intact, still had all its glass and, remarkably, no mouse damage to the interior.  They would say “Somebody should restore that.”

      The farm is rife with “somebody-shoulds.”  In her day, the Goodwife could spot two or three years of “somebody-shoulds” in a ten-minute visit to the farm.

     Unfortunately, “somebody” never showed up.

      Several visitors expressed interest in buying it, including a guy delivering a farm implement to me.  He was sure he could find a buyer, if not buy it himself.  After a few contacts, he never returned my calls.
      The REA guys replacing power poles expressed an interest, as did the siding crew who replace the siding on the house.  “If you ever want to sell that. . . . .”  Push never came to shove.

     Until this December.  As I sat in the local barbershop waiting my turn in the chair, I picked up a copy of Mile Saver Shopper and leafed idly leafed through it.  There was an ad for a guy looking to buy old cars from farms.  I called.  He called back. 

      With the warm weather the last week of January, we were both able to meet at the farm.  He pulled a trailer that would hold two cars.  He was serious.  He took the old Pontiac in the bargain.

 

     The old gals have moved to a “yard” (salvage or otherwise?) near Pueblo.  Maybe “Somebody” will finally get their chance to restore at least the ’57 Ford.