Jan 8, 2012

Today’s Electronic Gadgets

Be very careful with your electronic gadgets!

GPS

A friend's friends had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked adjacent to the football stadium on an area specially designated for football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money, and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had obviously used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry into the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, so they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish, and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. The thieves had most probably brought a truck to load the looted household goods.

If you have a GPS: Do NOT put your home address in your GPS so that thieves would not know where you live if your GPS gets stolen.

MOBILE PHONES

A certain lady friend has changed how she lists names on her mobile phone after her handbag containing her cell phone, credit cards, wallet, etc. was stolen.

Minutes after her handbag was stolen, she called her husband from a pay phone telling him what had happened. The husband then told her that he received a text message [from her phone] just minutes earlier asking about the PIN number to their credit/debit card account, and the husband just replied via text and gave the PIN number. When they went to the bank, the bank staff told them that all the money in their account had been withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text the 'hubby' in the contact list, to get the pin number, and within a matter of minutes, the thief had completely drained the couple's bank account.

Important lessons:

1) NEVER use "identifying tags", such as, "home", "honey", "hubby", "sweetheart", "dad", "mom", etc. in your cell phone's contact list.

2) NEVER give any important information [PIN #, credit card info, etc.] if/when someone asks via a text message, UNLESS you have first made sure to personally TALK & CONFIRM with the text sender -- [do NOT text back] -- and ask WHY he/she wants the information. And if the voice on the line sounds unfamiliar, the more you should NOT give any confidential information; instead, call your bank and/or credit card company to inform them that something "questionable" is going on, and they should immediately BLOCK any access to your account(s).

3) CALL & CONFIRM and be sure that a text message requesting to "meet some family member or friend somewhere" actually came from some family member or friend . If you are unable to personally TALK & CONFIRM with any of them, do NOT comply with the text's request. -Source/Author Unknown

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