Monday, April 23, 2007

Not This Crud Again...
Rule #1: Never, ever, ever rip me or anyone close to me off.

Rule #2: If you break rule #1, run and hide as soon as possible.

I checked my email tonight and saw an alert from my bank saying they had locked my account because of suspicious transactions.

I login and see almost $3,000 in charges that I didn't make. Someone had managed to procure my credit card information (but not my credit card).

The culprit made two large purchases: One from Yahoo's advertising network and the second from this "company" called TriangleSoft.

The buy from Yahoo's advertising network means the culprit has ties to the internet marketing realm.

I investigate TriangleSoft's website. Someone managed to place an order there for $800. MAJOR RED FLAG: There's no way to buy anything on their website. All the links and images are broken and nothing there is even close to $800.

Even bigger red flag, TriangleSoft is an exact copy of another website, which does work. Check out PeerGoal.com. Exact same site, just a different logo.

Looking at the registered owner of TriangleSoft shows it belongs to a lawyer based here in New York. Something is really fishy. It seems like the only person who could transfer money to TriangleSoft, which has a broken website, would be the owner. But why would the owner be that dumb?

The plot thickens. Let's hope this culprit is as dumb as two other well-known dirt bags. I'm going to call Yahoo! tomorrow to see what account the person tried to spend my money toward. I might even give a call to the owner of TriangleSoft.

I'm not happy...I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE: This might be an even bigger deal than I thought. My retirement savings, completely separate from my bank account, have been emptied...tomorrow will be fun...

UPDATE 2: Whew, my retirement account is safe. Just business as usual.
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