In case you missed it, I shared a story I was ashamed to admit, because in 2022, I thought I was smarter than this. Call me crazy for giving the benefit of the doubt.
Long story short, I’m looking for tickets to Sunday’s Bills game against the Steelers, and someone on a “Bills Mafia” Facebook page said they had them. I messaged her to see if she still had them. YES! Great seats, decent price.
When she asked, I provided my email address – and ONLY my email address – so she could transfer them to me digitally…but I insisted that she show proof of the transfer before I forked over the cash. This is when stuff got weird, and after looking at her “proof”, I realized it was a (poorly) edited screenshot of a random Ticketmaster-looking page. I declined.
Bing bam boom, a day later I get a fraud alert on my credit card (remember, I had ONLY shared my email address!) that someone had tried to charge over $1,100 in various places in the country, including a third-party ticketing site. I’ve never been so grateful for fraud alerts in my life.
The good news is, she never got a cent. The bad news is, now I have to wait for the new card to arrive, and then reassign my payment methods, which is a pain.
Moral of the story is: don’t share your email with strangers, and trust no one! 😉
In a related story, in anticipation for the early access Prime Day (10/11 – 10/12), this morning I shared ways to spot a fake Amazon review. Better safe than sorry!
