Hackers move $35,000 of woman’s money
A Richfield woman’s recent experience losing access to her email to hackers is a good example of the importance of email security. It’s also a reminder that your email provides the keys to your online accounts.
Anita Gantner thankfully hasn’t lost any money at this point, but the hackers moved nearly $35,000 from her retirement IRA to a different company and also tried to move $350 from her bank. She’s spent countless hours trying to regain access to accounts and cleaning up the identity theft mess.
In early June, Gantner stopped getting new mail to her Windstream email account, which she accesses on her phone and computer. She thought that was odd. It wasn’t prompting her by saying her password was wrong or asking for a new password. She just wasn’t getting new email.
She waited a day and tried again. Still nothing.
She searched online to see if there were any reports of a Windstream hack. She didn’t see anything. She phoned Windstream. After waiting on the phone for about an hour — and getting disconnected four times –— Gantner got a representative who said she wasn’t alone and there had been an email hack of the system and someone would get back to her when the problem was resolved.
About a week later, Gantner called Windstream and asked to disable her account. But a week later when her husband sent a “test email,” it went through. She called Windstream again and was told the account wasn’t disabled, but would be now.
In the meantime, Gantner started getting letters thanking her for opening new accounts. She also got locked out of her Amazon account and still hasn’t been able to get into her Facebook account.
Why? Because when you “forget your password” or need to reset it — it goes to your email address on file.
She notified her financial adviser to watch for fraud. About 2½ weeks after she lost email access, the adviser called to say someone had moved nearly $35,000 from her retirement account with one company to another company.
The hackers got her Social Security number to open the new account.
Between calls…
