Mobile Payment Industry News: 05/25/09

Monday, May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day from HomeATM

Air Canada Strikes Deal with Credit Card Processors to Lower Unrestricted Cash

Air Canada strikes deal with credit card processors to lower unrestricted cash
By THE CANADIAN PRESS – 50 minutes ago

MONTREAL — Air Canada (TSX:AC.A) has reached an agreement with one of its major credit card processors that will drop the level of unrestricted cash the airline is expected to have on hand to $800 million.

Air Canada says the move will help it maintain financial stability as the cash-strapped airline deals with weak economic conditions. Under the memorandum of understanding, the airline will provide the credit card processor with security to be accumulated over time.

Air Canada has been looking to cut at least $250 million in costs and raise more cash but its CEO has said he doesn't foresee the need for massive layoffs or a bankruptcy protection filing to help it survive.

Fake (Cloned) Facebook (Fakebook) Alert

.be warned...don't .be fooled!

Today’s phishing site that is spreading around Facebook through messages is silvertag.be (werecommend against visiting that site). The URL shows a fake login formthat looks almost exactly like the one on Facebook.com, but when a usersubmits his or her e-mail and password, instead of logging intoFacebook the site will automatically spam all his or her contacts withthe same URL. At the time of writing, the company has not yet blockedthe URL from being distributed through its network.
Facebook recommends taking the following steps:

If spam has been sent from your account:
Reset your Facebook password immediately. You can do this by clicking on the “Forgot Your Password” link on the login page or by going to the Account Setttings page once logged in.
If you can’t reset the password on your account because the emailaddress you use to log in has been changed, or if your account has beendisabled, contact our User Operations team.
Run a virus scan on your computer, as you may have inadvertently downloaded malware. Free virus scanners are posted below.
If you’ve seen spam sent from a friend’s account:
Tell your friend to follow the steps above.
Warn those who received the spam not to click on it, and to delete it from their Walls and Inboxes immediately.

Widespread Credit Card Fraud, Bizarre Coincidence or Concoction?

I came across this post at AskMetaFilter.com and found it interesting enough to share.

Apparently some dude who claims that he does NOT play online poker, had a $700 charge appear on his Citi MasterCard. Subsequently his daughter had two charges appear on her statement from the same site. I did a Full Tilt google search and didn't see any mention of this anywhere else, and he claims that his daughter and he checked their statements and didn't make purchases at the same location, meaning it wasn't the result of a retailer breach, so that leaves just three possibilites.

1. This is just the beginnings of some new type of breach...
2. This guy lost money on his card, then put and lost money on his daughters card and
concocted this whole story to get the money back from Citi
3. Someone with access to the household got the card info and used it online

The jury's still out on this one...

Widespread credit card fraud or bizarre coincidence? | Ask Metafilter

Both my daughter and I have fraudulent charges at the same online poker site on our credit cards. Is this happening to lots of people or is it a weird coincidence?

I checked my online account last week and discovered a $700+ charge to FullTiltPoker.

I've never played online poker or even been to the site. I called Citi Mastercard and they have canceled the card and are sending me documents to sign that the charges aren't mine (there were two other pending charges; total of about $2500).

My daughter was checking her account yesterday and had two charges on her account for the same site. She also has a Citi Mastercard, but it's not shared (or even the same type - mine is a rewards card and hers isn't).

Neither of us had lost our cards. My daughter keeps her statements and I shred mine so the information is not being stolen from the garbage or recycling.

They told me at Citi that someone could have hacked into a merchant's computer system where I had used my card. I doubt my daughter and I have used our cards at the same merchant recently.
The odds of this happening to the two of us at virtually the same time seem pretty huge unless it's happening to tons of people. Is it widespread? Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Editor's Note: The odds (interesting choice of words from someone who doesn't gamble) of that happening "only to them" and nobody else with are nil and none. Either someone in the household used the cards or he's trying to pull a fast one on Citi.

full tilt poker, citi, mastercard,

Spammers Hack Twitter Accounts to Spread Acai Berry Ads

Scam / Fraud / Hoax Alerts
Source: Sophos
Complete item: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/05/24/acai-berry-spammers-hack-twitter-accounts-spread-adverts/

Description:
Hundreds of innocent user's accounts on the Twitter micro-blogging service appear to have been hacked by spammers.

A typical message posted on the compromised accounts will say something similar to the following:
Howdy my friend! I just lost 13 pounds in 12 days. It only costs me $5. Take a look at this: http://[random].cn

If you do click on the link you get taken to a website with a .cn tld (top level domain).

Some victims of this latest Twitter hack attack are noticing that their account is sending Acai Berry spam, however. Take this example, for instance, where the user has apologized for the security breach on his account.

The question is - how have these accounts on Twitter been hacked? At the moment, that's not clear. But what is evident is that users need to take more care with their Twitter passwords.

E-Secure-IT
https://www.e-secure-it.com