What’s worse than thieves hacking into your bank account? When they steal your phone number, too. Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein recently fell victim to a type of fraud known as port-out hijacking, also called SIM-swapping.

One Monday morning in May, I woke up and grabbed my cell phone to read the news and scroll through memes. But it was out of cell service. I couldn’t make calls or texts.

That, though, turned out to be the least of my problems.

Using my home Wi-Fi connection, I checked my email and discovered a notification that $20,000 was being transferred from my credit card to an unfamiliar Discover Bank account.

I thwarted that transfer and reported the cell phone issues, but my nightmare was just starting. Days later, someone managed to transfer $19,000 from my credit card to the same strange bank account.

I was the victim of a type of fraud known as port-out hijacking, also called SIM-swapping. It’s a less-common form of identity theft. New federal regulations aimed at preventing port-out hijacking are under review, but it’s not clear how far they will go in stopping the crime.

    • shortwavesurfer
      2·
      4 months ago

      Coinsbee.com. Buy an Instacart gift card and load that on your account. Then buy your groceries with that and just go pick them up when they’re ready. I suppose technically that means that that bit of Monero flows back into the Fiat economy which sucks but I do put more than just my grocery money into it so some money always stays in Monero each month no matter what

      Edit: By buying it through the gift card service, I’m also signaling to the economy, at least in some small way, that I prefer Monero instead.