I can't believe this! (2)

I'd say to myself: what a fine view to go outside today. That was yesterday.

House cleaning is one of my weekly family events in my home, and I'd love to participate, until I no longer can move or wanted to take a rest for few minutes. My house is always clean every week.

So here's the story that shocked me, my brother... hell, a family of mine.

I take my chances to buy that discounted game along with its DLC before the 25th midnight. I created a new UniPin account using my email address to prepare my purchases at home, so later on I can easily undergoing purchase only from my smartphone, using only Steam app.

Unfortunately, there was a bad news. I used my "college debit card" (or simply debit card; I mentioned so because it was given from the college) to pull out some cash from the ATM, but something went wrong. It said "insufficient funds" so I checked both savings nominee and account mutation. Shocked like a thunder, all my savings were empty, leaving for only 30k in my account. But how?

From the mutation it only displays date and time. It was dated September 10, where I did finished unlocking my PIN as soon as it was blocked on September 7 for unknown reasons. But on September 10 I was only checking the nominee on the ATM at my college. No one pulled that significant amount of cash and know the PIN, except my brother.


So me, my brother, and family are discussing about this. I told the truth to my family that the girl-stealer only came with me into the bank for only accompanying me to unlock my blocked PIN number and waited outside when I went in for savings nominee check on ATM. Then I took her for breakfast together before going home at 9 a.m..

Ah... you know that I rarely used the ATM, and I haven't yet used the e-Banking, so I never get to know about this. Hence, this is my first time the savings account was emptied, even though I was actually at home for weeks (except the schedule on Thursday at 10 a.m.). This story would have gone different (hell, I won't be writing this anyway) if I changed my PIN number as soon as I know this. But... you know clock is ticking; you can't rewind the time back to the past and change it.

My know-it-all brother knows about this and what just happened was like last year's, where people found out that the savings account (either credit or debit card) was emptied even though their cards are on their hands. This is known as phishing, where people are getting tricked by entering account credentials to an insecure location and the guy behind that uses it for criminal purposes.

However, this is unlike the event I encounter with my Facebook account, where I signed in using another computer, doing things and logged out once done. The system has a limitation of 20 events or posts before being blocked and considered as unsafe to use because of "phishing" event (but I never phished) so to restore the account back to normal you have to use one between 4 authentication types (like commentary matching, contact trusted friends, etc.), reset your password to a new one, and delete posts that you aren't posting. Man, I hate this new system, because this prevents me from using another device that I'm using right now. Even though Facebook app on Windows 10 or my phone can get affected.

So to say about this real-life phishing of a bank account, my bro said that the thief might have somebody's credit card information (like, a copy of the card with information contained on a card holder), and this instance was my debit card. And that date was no fluke. As soon as I done checking the account savings, at 9 I went home. And to know that my card PIN was blocked on 7th indicated that the thief is attempting to guess the password and failed on the 3rd attempt. And also, he/she has the information about my card.

Brother also said that there's a chance that it can be brought back by tracking who's pulling out or what events occur during September 10, but you can report this before 20 work days. Well, that was fortunate, because, if the offices are closed on weekends (Saturday and Sunday), I only have 7 days (or a week) before the pull report becomes valid (or otherwise done by me, even though I didn't make any pulls).

There might be any doubt that the thief might be targeting other people with cards, and I'm becoming a victim of one of those.


Well, I did told you at start, this is goddamn ridiculous, because the thief outsmarted me. I lost my laptop (oh shoot, he might be knowing about my Steam account - gotta change the password), and now I lost my savings worth 3 millions and a million saved for my college payment later on for a total of 4 millions. If the bank can't hold liability for refund, I should create a new bank account and save my shits there later on.

To conclude, let me know if any of you out there experience the same thing as mine. I'm going to the customer service of a bank tomorrow and find this sucker.


Lesson learned: If you have a bank account and a bank card, either credit card or debit card, periodically change your PIN number every week or two. As of now, PIN number only has a maximum of 6 digits, and can be unlocked by guessing. Use random number that people don't know and make sure that all digits doesn't contain repeatable or easily-guessed numbers. We don't even know what lies ahead of this harsh world, so never give PIN numbers to anyone.

If you are doubtful to create one, use Strong Random Password Generator website; it helped me a lot since I ran out of passwords ideas. Also, store it to a safe location where only you can access it. Using an old unused phone or a small notebook will do.

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