Just a friendly reminder on keeping your passwords updated and use multi layers of protection on your online websites and stores.

This morning I was rudely awaked with a text message letting me know that someone in CHina was logged into my Itunes account. They were unsuccessful in making purchases because I had text alert set up and have to give permission with a code sent to my phone to allow access. Without that I would have been hacked with likely hundreds of dollars of purchases and never known a thing until Itunes sends receipts two days later or my husband gets phone alerts on large purchases on the credit card.

If you have the option to protect your accounts like Amazon, PayPal, Itunes and Steam has that force you to put in a code they text you in order to make a purchase, do it. It can save you a whole lot of trouble! Plus, you will be made aware that someone has your password so you know to change it. I had to scramble because I used it multiple places. My bad.

Ana

Thanks Ana! I will be checking all my 'sites' for any signs of misuse. Wow!

Thanks Ana.

Goodness, Ana. Thanks for the reminder. I hope there are no more incursions.

Thanks for the warning Ana. The world sure has changed since I was a little gumper. I wish the spirit of Gameboomers would spread across the entire world.

Thanks for the reminder and sorry you had to "scramble".

I had that happen to me Ana. Not fun. They were about ready to hack into my bank account. Very scary. It was caught before any damage was done.

Midgie

Thanks for the heads up.. just went in and set up my apple account

Thanks, BrownEyedTigre

Not had anything like this happen to me, thankfully, but it HAS happened to some of my friends - and TWICE to one of them !!!!

My daughter's bank account was hacked last week for three different amounts, supposedly from 'iTunes'...she doesn't have an account with iTunes. The bank was very understanding and refunded the money back into her account next day. Hubby and I have had our bank account hacked twice, once for a substantial amount from a casino in LA and once from Amazon for 3 books totalling £100 that we didn't order. We had the account refunded each time without any problems but it left us feeling sick that people can do this. On the other hand, we've been trying to make purchases online using our debit/credit cards and been declined. Our phone would then ring and it would be a member of our Bank's fraud team asking us to verify that the transactions were legitimate. Better safe than sorry!

We have had phone calls before being allowed to make purchases too. While its annoying, it's better to be safe.

Happy to see you all adding the double protection!