[00:00:05] Speaker A: You're listening to casual talk radio, where common sense is still the norm, whether you're a new or longtime listener, we appreciate you joining us today. Visit
[email protected] and now here's your host, Leister.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Happy Monday. Casualtalkradio. Net. My name is Leister. I am your host. Today will be an informational episode. I'm going to preface a couple things.
It's a very chaotic month. It's overall chaotic for a number of reasons. There's a lot of things that I'm behind on. There's a lot of things I've yet to schedule. There's stuff going on with the endeavor that's very important. We're finally making freaking progress. I finally got them to stop, to get out of their feelings. So to me, that's significant, because I've been fighting this thing for two years. So there's a lot happening there. So I got to focus attention there. But also my chair from the endeavor, not the one I'm in now, but the one for the endeavor, which is this fancy chair I spent one $200 for. You're talking massage. You're talking all this. It's like huge, wood heavy, no single person can lift it kind of chair. It's a monster of a chair. All the mechanical, all the cool stuff that made it worth the money stopped working. So I have to trash that chair. So I'm not happy about that.
But I don't like having to do that because I like the chair otherwise. But when that happened, I realized, okay, so I bought a different chair. It's nowhere near the other chair because I'm in a smaller room, so that freed up a little bit of space. I'm still in a tiny freaking thing.
So there's that. But then also, again, I'm considering purchasing something house place. And I haven't gone through the process since 2014. Now, as I record, this was ten years since the last time I went through this. And the last time I went through this, I got essentially scammed by the state, believe it or not, with their garbage program that I'm not going to do again. Well, here I learned that they've changed. The mortgage process has changed. They're asking for crap that I'm like, why do you need this? This has nothing to do with the ability to pay back a house. So I have to go down on Friday to my local. I have a local bank and see what they can tell me. If they can expedite the whole process of getting the pre qual, because all the money I would put up for this is at that. So that's. I have to talk to them, and hopefully they'll allay my concerns and make it a smooth, easy process, is my hope. But I don't know. But I also need to confirm what the servicer is, because the other program I did, this is in Washington. The other program I did, it was a state program, but then they farmed it off to Alabama's servicer, the state of Alabama. So I'm living in the state of Washington, but the servicer they use is Alabama. And these jokers were the worst servicer of any type of loan I could think of. So I don't want that again. So I need to understand the servicer process. I want to make sure it's a local servicer, somebody regional, somebody who's a little bit flexible, not some garbage. I'll have to do some shopping around. So there's that shopping. Also on Friday, this is why it's kind of hectic. Also on Friday, I have to take the car that I'm keeping down to the shop again, because the last time I took it to the shop, I don't think I told the story. I took it to the shop that's around the way. It's like, down in the bum sticks, nowhere to try to get this thing done. I get there, and the guy's like, well, because it's this kind of car, they don't let us have access to the tool that we would need to properly diagnose it. We can do a high level diagnosis, but in order to fix it, we're going to have to refer you to the local dealer, the actual manufacturer dealer, and they're going to have to do a rediagnosis. So it's like you're getting double charged. So I'm going to recommend you don't come here. Just go straight to them, because they're going to be the only ones that can do the true diagnosis that you need. So I appreciate that they didn't rip me off. He was cool about it and just told me, go here, ask for this person, get it done. So then I had that schedule before, but then garbage with the endeavor showed up. Now that that's calmed down, I'm trying it again, and there are two weeks booked out. So this was two weeks ago. I got this schedule. So on Friday, early morning, crack of dawn, I have to drop the car that I'm keeping off Uber back here so I can deal with a stupid meeting for my endeavor in the crack of morning, then go down to the bank in the afternoon. They're going to have the car that I plan to keep for quite a long time. I imagine they're going to have it for like a week or two. I've got the other car that I don't want to keep, fortunately. So if I have to get around, I've got that. And I'll probably figure out the parking situation because I can park it in the garage because I've got a parking permit. So I've got to figure all that out in the midst of all this. Then there's the business, the brand taxes, business taxes, personal taxes.
The other idiot that I was working with before, the current contact, he never sent me paperwork that I needed. So I'm going to have to figure that out and what that looks like. Then I have to decide if I'm going to purchase the home under my business. Because my business could technically buy the home for me right now. It pays all the expenses other than like food, right. But like utilities and everything else, the storage, all that is paid by the business on the owner's behalf, which is clean. It means there's less stress in terms of bills being paid. Things are just covered. And rent is going to come due here in a couple of weeks. And it'll be the first time that I'm paying that through the business as well. So I'm shifting stuff around, I'm getting stuff cleaned up. And then in the middle of this, and you're not going to believe this, and you're going to shake your head, but I still haven't fully finished unpacking. The reason is because I don't have any room to put some of this stuff. The storage, there's two local internal storage places that are closets. Basically they're packed to the gills, so I can't use those. There's another little storage room down the hall.
Problem is, I just put a little mini fridge that was having some issue. Basically the power here, it can't handle the little mini fridge. That's how bad this garbage is. So I took the mini fridge over there because I was trying to figure, okay, I've got it. Let's just toss it in there so it doesn't have to sit out because I don't have a lot of room here. The mini fridge has got to be like 60% terms of the floor area. Like 60% of the floor area. So I can't really fit much else in there. So when I saw that, because I hadn't paid attention to the storage since I moved in. I didn't think I would use it, didn't think I would need it. When I saw just how tiny the storage is. Now I'm really pissed off because it's like, all right, I've got this chair that jacked up. And it's pretty darn large. The chair would fit in there by itself. So I'm going to have to roll the chair over there, put the fridge inside the chair to get it in the storage until I can get. And then I got to hire junk haulers to take those away, as well as some of the extra boxes and stuff. Then at some point, I've got to get into my storage unit and start finishing. Not start, but finish all of the cleansing. I've just got a bunch of stuff. Stuff that I knew I didn't need. It's just things I'm hanging on to for one reason or another. And I got to go through all that stuff and figure out what's what, what's where. And if there's other things that I might consider sending into the storage that I don't immediately need access to. There are a couple of things that it's like, I don't really need that here. I can put it in the storage. So I have a little bit of freed up room, collectible things. So there's a lot. And I don't want to say frazzled. It's more just trying to wrap my head around everything that has to happen. I was committed to making sure I still do the show on schedule. As always, I told a story, and this is where the episode is going to veer off a little bit. And it's going to escalate because I told a story a while ago about a weird interaction I had with one of my banks. I have multiple banks. Just to be clear, I have multiple banks. One of my banks. What happened was I got a call from the bank. It was from the bank's number. And he claimed that there was some fraudulent activity. This is not unusual. I checked the number and he's talking about stuff that didn't make any sense. And he says, I wouldn't see the activity because they blocked it. Their transactions were blocked and I wouldn't see it. Now, the account, the bank in question was just basically my spending. It doesn't keep any money in it. It's just for spending basically. And I had an investment deal, but that's all I really had. It's just investment account. And then the other account was I put money in there when I need to spend it. That's all it's for. So it was kind of weird thinking he was talking about transactions and transfers, and he called out Houston, Texas. He said that he gave a name, and he said, some account out of Houston, Texas. I'm like, no, that's definitely not it. Then he's talking about, okay, we got to have it. Which I knew that was kind of weird, talking about it. That doesn't apply. Sure, whatever, dude. So I went in while and he specifically know log out of the account. So now I'm suspicious because I work tech. So I went in, and I changed my password while I was in. Okay. But I didn't stay logged out. And then he hung up. So now I'm figuring, okay, I'm probably okay having changed the password because he's probably trying to pull a fast one here.
The bank in question doesn't have. So, like, in Microsoft or Google or some of these other services, they'll have a place you can see where you've logged in. So you can see if you have a login that you don't recognize from a different location. That's not a place that you would have been. They give you a screen where you can go and you can kick out the session or you can do all sorts of stuff.
This bank doesn't have that feature. It's advanced, but not to that degree. So I'm not thinking anything of it. A couple of days go by, and then I can't log in. It says, accounts locked. Okay, so this is now the weekend. So I'm pissed because you got to call the fraud department for the bank to get it unlocked. So I'm not happy. So I escalate it through BBV because I need to get back in there because I'm using it to. Everything that I spend goes to that account. It has the account number, the whole nine. So eventually, on Monday, basically, I get a call back. So they're talking it out. And they basically said that from their lens, what they saw was that the account had been compromised, which I saw. No activity, nothing was weird. Because the thing is, if they had gotten access to the account, they could have drained the investment account. The investment account wasn't touched, so I didn't believe what he was saying. But he was also making it seem like it may have just been the checking number and routing. That makes better sense because I've written checks against that account on a couple of occasions. So. Okay, go ahead and just reset everything. You reset everything. And so now it's all brand new. And then he changed the login, just to be sure. And then, of course, the password was reset it one more time. And it is. Well, as I was thinking that through, like I said, nothing was abnormal in terms of, like, no money was drained because there was nothing there, but the investment wasn't touched. It was the weirdest freaking thing that I ever had seen. None of it made any freaking sense in what it was.
This. Then I was reading up today about some. There were some updates to past information, and this caused me to revisit the situation and share it to try to help some people out, because it seems like it's becoming more of a thing and has not yet been determined what the root of this is. What happened was, there's a young lady out of Tennessee.
What happened is she had the same thing happen with mine, but through text. Okay. I did have a text message preceding this, but I didn't respond to it. It just basically said, hey, we got this thing and we're going to call you. So I get the call, and that's what it was. So in her case, she gets a text message. It looks like it's coming from the bank. And she had responded. It's the automated says, hey, we see some suspicious activity, confirm that was you or no. Or whatnot. Yes. No. Right. And you respond. And then in her case, it said, okay, well, the transaction was blocked, which normally, it doesn't say that. Normally it'll just say, thank you for confirming. Your card is now ready for use again, it doesn't give any specifics about transactions. So she thought it was kind of.
Then all this information that nobody else should have is divulged in the text message she thought was kind of strange, she gets a call from the bank, and this is bank of America. And the reason I'm telling the story is I know some people like that garbage. So she gets a call, bank of America. Same phone as the text message, same number as what's on her card, same situation as mine, as in the phone match. Now, there's obviously the spoofing risk, but the specificity of the interaction was a little bit strange in mine as well as with hers. Now, in her case, it was kind of strange. And I don't know that I believe all of this story, but what she said was she picks up the phone and then, boom, the accounts get drained. That's kind of weird, because in order for the accounts to be drained, like, if somebody had access to your account. So let's think this through. If somebody had access to your account, they could just drain the account. They don't need to talk to you. They just drain the account. Right.
The theory, and it's only a theory, is by sending the text message that there's some sort of an authorization, because basically you're verifying that you have the right cell phone number through text message, and then you're verifying that you have the right phone in case there's a phone verification something, and that you're on the right account and you can do some identifying stuff. But she said she had never shared anything, and neither did I.
In my case, the text went to a computer. It goes to a computer screen that has the ability to receive a text message on it, and then I can see it. That's why there's no response, because it just shows it to me in case I have to get a code or some garbage. And mine, there was no money drained, even though there could have been. So this seems to indicate that they're getting a little bit more elaborate. Either that or certain banks are just more susceptible to these kinds of scams than others. Mine, and perhaps it's something with physical banks, because the bank in my case, is not a physical bank. So maybe there's something to that versus physical banks that don't seem to care. They don't really care about you that much. So I don't know that question. There was a couple of other similarities in this case. She talked about how the other person was setting up Zelle. Zelle is a payment service that I think is terrible that all these banks jumped on board. And if you don't know, there's a company called early warning Systems. Early warning systems is. They're essentially the oversight, quote, unquote, for all the different banks. So when you were presenting a check, this is after the world of what we are now. But when you were presenting a check, it would go ping against early warning systems to detect whether or not to clear the check. And sometimes the check would be bounced for no clear reason. It's because there's something in early warning systems, like, say it's a location you've never been or there's something wrong with the amount or something else that causes it to reject initially without verifying who you are.
So Zelle is by early warning systems. It's all based on the same company. It's all the same scam. All of the banks are jumping on the Zelle business. I purposely do not set up Zelle. I don't set up any of those digital payments. And if you've listened to a while
[email protected]. You heard me say I don't do all that because they're all a scam. So allegedly in her case, they were trying to set up Zelle, and they were successful in setting up Zelle with their own bank, but they were using it to basically do a draw. So a debit from her account, which that's kind of interesting, right? And I think, I don't know this because I don't use Zelle, but I think there may be some sort of a verification process that just wants to make sure that you got a response from a text message or from a phone call when connecting the accounts.
In my case, then when this happened to me, they mentioned that there was a person out in Texas. In her case, it was also a person out in Texas. And they said that the person there was trying to do a debit. Just like in her case, they didn't call out Zelle. They called out something else. Might have been Venmo or something, but they called out some other payment service where they were doing. In summary, what I'm saying as a public service announcement, I figured I'd use the episode to tell the story because it may be somebody that's affected potentially.
I think that it's coming from these garbage payment services, Venmo, Zelle. I think PayPal is a little bit tighter, but these other little garbage ones, I think what's happening is the scammers are using those services to essentially connect to your bank. So they're using it like plaid or whatever it is that Zelle or Venmo uses to verify connection to the bank.
They're getting access to your bank information. So your debit, account number, routing transit number, and they're adding it to their account for the purposes of doing a debit so that they can take money out of your account. There's nothing you can really do if they're doing it from that end. If that's really what's happening, there's nothing you can really do about this one. People online and different services keep talking about multifactor authentication. Multifactor authentication is not going to help you unless it requires a code for doing any transfers, which is usually a setting. So, like, for example, if I were to go to one of my other payment services that I have, it requires that anytime I'm doing a withdrawal, it requires a code. So that's layer number one. So you have to require a code for any transfers that are done. You can't just have straight access, you have to do a code that's number one. Number two, the code generation should not come from text messages and a lot of them are misinforming people, telling them to set up text message two factor. Text message two factor is less secure. The reason is because your cell phone can be spoofed and they can get access to the cell phone through their phone and intercept that text message, which is actually, that's what I'm saying, it's less secure. The only right answer is what's referred to as TOTP. It's basically a time based code. So what happens is there's an app that you would download with this app. It's set up with a barcode that your bank would provide. When you scan it, it creates a code. It doesn't require Internet access, it doesn't require wireless signal, it doesn't require any connection whatsoever. It's more secure because the only way you can generate that code is your device has to have a sync. It's basically a sync between certain factors of what your device provides and what the upstream bank service is providing that generates a unique code and then the code changes every 60 seconds or so. That code is the most secure possible. But many of the services don't do that. They do text messages because they figure, well, everybody's got a cell phone and it's less secure because your phone could be spoofed. That's called a SIM swap attack. You may or may not have read up about sim swap attacks. They are very prevalent and were very prevalent and are increasingly so because text message codes are not secure. It was never built for that service. They only jumped on it for convenience. They didn't jump on it for security. Now that they're seeing all these breaches, they're trying to take a step back and saying, okay, maybe it's a bad idea and we were kind of stupid jumping on the bandwagon. Yes, you were. In summary, do I recommend multifactor? Absolutely. I would recommend it not be text message based authentication. If you want to do that, just understand there's a risk that you could be Sim swap attacked. That could reality happen in my case. Then, since, again, the bank in question that was allegedly breached has multiple accounts, including investments, and they were not touched, but they saw allegedly a transfer attempt made from this type of a payment service coming out of Houston, Texas. I'm guessing that the vector for this is they're getting access to your checking account number and your routing account, your routing number. Basically the bank's ID number, which is enough to do a draft, basically write up a check, digital check. They connect it to their. Whatever, Venmo, Zelle, whatever, connect it there, do this type of a scam. So they get access to basic information. They just need your cell phone number or phone number, but your phone number to be able to do some verification that they got the right account.
I don't think in any way that they're doing any sort of login breach. I think what's happening is they're just using and creating a draft payment through their payment service of choice and then trying to take money out of it. So you can't stop them from doing that side. That's the unfortunate truth of it, you might say. Well, then what are we supposed to do? I would recommend you minimize how many times you write a check. Certainly if you have to write some sort of a check to some service or something. See if your bank offers a bank check that's not showing your account information on it, because if you can do that, that installates you or just do money orders. Problem with money orders is they have a dollar limit to them. So if it's a larger limit applied to it, you may have to get multiple of them. Like the post office, I think it's $1,000 limit. So you may have to get multiple of them if you need to pay by money order, money order is the safest way to do it. But if you have to write a check, just understand there's a risk that yours gets breached depending on how they handle the check. Like, if it's a place that doesn't present the check electronically and they just file it somewhere. I mean, you could even have somebody working in the office that takes the check information and breaches you. And you're wondering, well, why would you write a physical check? I'm not even just talking about a physical check. Right. Because you could go online and say, direct debit, and you're still giving the checking account information. You're giving the check number, the checking account number, the routing number. You're giving them enough information to be able to draft a check on your behalf when you do that type of transaction. So you're like, well, should I swipe the card? The card can be breached, too, because every service requires the last three digits on the back, or four if it's Amex on the front. You still have to give them that security code. When you put the card in, in most services, you have to give them the billing address on it. That's all you really need in order to do those transactions. In summary, I'm going to keep emphasizing for a lot of these services, you don't have a choice. You're going to be put at risk. You just have to be mindful about. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. First of all, don't put all your money in one single account because there's a risk. The bank is obligated to make it right as long as you can put the case in quickly that, hey, I got ripped off or something, which assumes that you knew that happened, and it assumes that you know it's a breach. It assumes that you're aware of this stuff, which means you got to babysit your account. Well, that's not what the banks told you. They told you it, set it and forget it, right in the digital age, and it's getting a lot more advanced. It's getting a lot easier to rip you off. And so I'm simply advocating not to leave all your eggs in one basket. Consider multiple accounts. Spread your money out and around to minimize what's going to happen if somebody gets access to that account so that you're not just completely drained and left out in the lurch. I can't tell you anything else to do. I'm just simply cautioning you about something that may be a prevalent issue, and hopefully people out there don't fall for that, for that different type of scam. But it is still a risk, and I want you to be mindful of that risk however you do.
Oh, hall, all.
