A hacking fraud, and all that came next, had little human involvement

On a recent Monday morning I had 800 new emails on my personal laptop, and promises of an opulent cat dung flinger on its way from Michigan.

Somewhere out there in the cyber world, my data was leaked. My email address and my credit card number were sold to the highest bidder. I usually get maybe one email a day at most, so 800 was a clear indicator of something being not right. There was no access to the computer itself, just a leak of stuff.

I checked my credit card and there was an entry for a robot litter whisker, at about a thousand dollars American. Spending that kind of money on an automated cat scat whisker is criminal on its own, let alone putting it on a stolen credit card.

I thought to phone the credit card company, as fraud has happened before. But they don’t want to hear about it anymore. I just went online, reported what I knew to be a fraudulent purchase, and within an hour they sent back an email in which they agreed it was a fraud. They reversed the charges, took the loss, and mailed me a new card.........

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