A starbucks card from Groupon can be sent electronically or it can be sent to an address but a change in email address or physical address has to be processed by you as a gift in your account, so it would show up in your account even if someone else had access to it. That all suggests a billing error by Groupon.
@teriwtt – how STRONG was your password?
The most common way that passwords get hacked is simply through brute force using a computer program that tries out common passwords or letter sequence – see http://www.bmyers.com/public/1958.cfm for a list of 500 very common passwords.
I use a password manager - LastPass – to keep track of mine.
Check this page:
https://howsecureismypassword.net/
Try entering your old password there to see how long it would take to crack. (Don’t enter your new password there - it’s a legit site, but obviously it’s dumb to enter a password that is actually in use on line --but you can get by entering a password of similar length and complexity)
A couple of years ago I was watching a computer security lecture, and the guy giving the talk said there’s a list of 1000 passwords which will gain access to 70% of all accounts.
I’m fairly certain our password was NOT on one of the most common lists… it was a combination of various information from our past.
We’ve now spent the last many hours changing passwords and I am cross-eyed. Interestingly, we changed the Groupon password last night, then tried to change it again today… when I try to log onto Groupon with the new password from last night, it says it’s an incorrect login. When I attempt to reset my password by entering my email address so it can send me an email with password reset, it tells me they have no account affiliated with that email address, and I get an email from them telling me how sorry they are that I’m not signed up yet with Groupon and will I please sign up. But when I try to sign up for a new account with my email, it says the email is already in use and unavailable.
I’m really starting to buy the premise that Groupon is just really screwed up.
Totally agree…groupon is screwed up. I’m signed up. I am supposed to get daily groupon notices in my email. And I did get them…for a month or so. Then they stopped…for no reason. So I signed up to receive the emails…again. I still don’t get them in my email, so guess what! I don’t buy anything from groupon.
Teriwtt…it’s just a royal pita because you really don’t know what happened…and you probably never will.
I don’t need to request a new cc every 12 months. It seems like I just get new ones about that often. At least the last couple have not changed my actual CC number…just the expiration date and security code. It’s annoying.
I was told the same thing as MaterS (post #1)when my card number was stolen. They first made a small purchase on one of those phone cube things, and then a grocery store before trying something big.
That means that someone who finds one of your passwords can log in to all of your other accounts.
^^^ But it’s easy for me to remember.
^^ easy for anyone else to remember if they discover it.
Nothing is safe, even password managers.
I keep a list in an Excel file on my computer. The file itself is password-protected, and the passwords themselves on the list are not literal. For example, I put on the list the clue “Old Fat Kitty” to refer to a particular obese feline I used to have. Only I know which feline it is, and only I know that one of the letters is replaced by a number.
I feel pretty confident that my PWs are protected that way. I think the only risk I have is that someone running those programs where they try millions of PWs may stumble upon my PW.
But yea, couldn’t that also happen to someone whose password is one of those mishmashes of letters/numbers/symbols/lower case/upper case, etc., like the kind your cable provider sets up for your wireless router? So I think you’re as safe as them.
My main concern about my PWs is that when I die, no one will be able to access any of my stuff.
@VeryHappy, here is some information about making digital property accessible for your survivors.
" The best advice we can give clients is to keep a detailed list of their digital property with access information - user name, password, PIN, security question and answer, and who has access or at least how to access an “asset vault” of all of the required login data. This digital inventory will be useful to clients, who can then prepare a digital property memo.
Author Matthews tells clients not to opt out of paper financial statements. Although she advises them to toss (shred) the statements as soon as they’re received, their existence means the account won’t be hidden. One of her clients bought an old-fashioned address book, which is kept in a location away from the computer, that her family uses to track accounts and passwords. Another client prepared a list of all accounts, security questions, and current passwords and gave it to her in a sealed envelope with written instructions on when and to whom it is to be released. We recommend the gold standard, keeping data in an encrypted electronic file for security and identity-theft reasons. With any of these approaches, at least someone is thinking about how to deal with digital assets after death."
OP, the password protection in Word is very weak. I can get into any password protected doc in Word inside of 30 seconds.
Get 1Password and use it!
We have a handwritten list of PWs. They’ll have to break into the house to find it. We still get paper statements because I actually reconcile them in Quicken. We don’t have our financial accounts linked into Quicken, either. Do most of our banking online, but tend not to have credit card #s associated with online merchants.
Now if DH could quit losing his credit cards on business trips…
I know a couple of people that had handwritten lists of passwords and had the list stolen and used after a burglary. Not a good idea.
That’s one reason I went to LastPass – I can write my LastPass master password down and keep it with the other “when I die” papers.
I use 1Password. I think their security model is very good, particularly if you download it from the App Store, because there’s a technical difference now - which I hope goes away soon - in synching if you download from Agile Bits directly. That is, Apple won’t let them use iCloud without App Store download.
I had a Groupon that I wanted to try and “redeem” last Friday (11-13) - their app was not working each time I tried it on Friday and so I couldn’t access my Groupon. I checked Twitter (something I always do when I encounter trouble on a website and saw that there were many references to website/app problems - that day at least. Wondering if this had anything to do with your charge - some fluke???