ListShackPro down for the count?

[shonceman]

How do we know this is the same Josh as Listshack Josh ... it is still a free country so he may have travelled/moved to LA. But Listshack Josh lists his location as Virginia.

In the FB post he mentioned having a Virginia driver’s license, and that his fingerprints were on file with a Virginia police dept. Doesn’t prove it’s him, but I don’t know why some other random Josh in LA would reference Virginia.

 

[shonceman]

Anytime I’m dealing with an unknown vendor or really even a known vendor that is small potatoes (meaning not big like Amazon) I always look for vendors that allow me to pay with my card through PayPal. That way the vendor never sees or has access to my card info. I know PayPal COULD have a breech too. But they have much more security in place than any of us small vendors could. And in the event of something like this disappearance of Josh (regardless of health related, business failure, legal problems, whatever) you can easily get your money back.

You have to protect yourself out there.

When I was getting started as an independent, I used a robocall computer dialing out on four VOIP lines to generate leads. I was paying $300/month through PayPal to the phone service provider, who was apparently just one guy reselling service originating in China. Oddly the service would go down a day or so at the end of every month, right before the next draft. Then 2 days. Then 3 or 4 days. Then...well, I called to cancel, which he did, and everything was fine.

But then at a later date I got a hit on my bank account for $2000 from an unknown, offshore source. (I’ll never know if it was related, but I suspect it was!) It apparently hit me in the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t realize anything had happened until PayPal called me around 9 or 10 that morning to see if I had authorized the transaction. Since it was an immediate transfer from my checking account, it had already gone through. But they said they would be able to reverse it and restore the funds to my checking in about 10 days, which they did. They also gave me a “key” that generates a unique code for each transaction for an extra measure of security (which I think anybody can purchase for a small charge).

So, I said all that to say I can personally vouch for your PayPal recommendation.

 

[Newby]

When I was getting started as an independent, I used a robocall computer dialing out on four VOIP lines to generate leads. I was paying $300/month through PayPal to the phone service provider, who was apparently just one guy reselling service originating in China. Oddly the service would go down a day or so at the end of every month, right before the next draft. Then 2 days. Then 3 or 4 days. Then...well, I called to cancel, which he did, and everything was fine.

But then at a later date I got a hit on my bank account for $2000 from an unknown, offshore source. (I’ll never know if it was related, but I suspect it was!) It apparently hit me in the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t realize anything had happened until PayPal called me around 9 or 10 that morning to see if I had authorized the transaction. Since it was an immediate transfer from my checking account, it had already gone through. But they said they would be able to reverse it and restore the funds to my checking in about 10 days, which they did. They also gave me a “key” that generates a unique code for each transaction for an extra measure of security (which I think anybody can purchase for a small charge).

So, I said all that to say I can personally vouch for your PayPal recommendation.

Yes that sounds like an actual breech at PayPal not the guy you were buying leads from. The beauty of PayPal billing is that I (as a vendor) can never hit your card for anything. I can only send you invoices. You have to proactively pay the invoice. That way you will never have an unexpected draft on your card and the vendor never needs to know any data on your card. MUCH safer than giving your card info to anyone and authorizing them to draft it.

 

[CALTCAgent]

This story had LAPD corruption, tattoos, unique tattoos, former arrest records, solitary confinement, prison showers and soap, violation of civil rights and then a hispanic officer with a british accent acting as the chief of police and Ocean front walk Marina Del Ray. Trippy.

Could this be a perfect dateline NBC crime mystery ? I can hear Keith Morrison telling this story now.

 

[VolAgent]

Anytime I’m dealing with an unknown vendor or really even a known vendor that is small potatoes (meaning not big like Amazon) I always look for vendors that allow me to pay with my card through PayPal. That way the vendor never sees or has access to my card info. I know PayPal COULD have a breech too. But they have much more security in place than any of us small vendors could. And in the event of something like this disappearance of Josh (regardless of health related, business failure, legal problems, whatever) you can easily get your money back.

You have to protect yourself out there.

While good advice, I have much more faith in my credit card company than PayPal to properly resolve the dispute.

 

[shonceman]

Yes that sounds like an actual breech at PayPal not the guy you were buying leads from. The beauty of PayPal billing is that I (as a vendor) can never hit your card for anything. I can only send you invoices. You have to proactively pay the invoice. That way you will never have an unexpected draft on your card and the vendor never needs to know any data on your card. MUCH safer than giving your card info to anyone and authorizing them to draft it.

Maybe it was a PayPal problem. But I’m more suspicious of the Chinese service he was using for VOIP. Apparently the hacker had my PayPal login credentials. In order to use the VOIP, I had to give the service access through my firewall. So maybe keystroke recognition malware? But it might not have been them. Now that I’m thinking about it, my virus protection software twice stopped a virus that I was picking up from an insurance company website! So, who knows?

In any case, to PayPal’s credit, they caught it, fixed it, and stopped it from doing any more damage!

 

[Newby]

While good advice, I have much more faith in my credit card company than PayPal to properly resolve the dispute.

True but the fewer people that have your credit card number the better.

But as soon as you even hand it to a waitress in a restaurant you have a potential security breach.

 

[DayTimer]

True but the fewer people that have your credit card number the better.

But as soon as you even hand it to a waitress in a restaurant you have a potential security breach.

A PA State Trooper I know does this: if they can’t run his card at the table he goes with the waiter/waitress to the terminal ... he has done this for years. He says it is a very common method for cc fraud.

 

[somarco]

A PA State Trooper I know does this: if they can’t run his card at the table he goes with the waiter/waitress to the terminal ... he has done this for years. He says it is a very common method for cc fraud.

Is he in full dress complete with sidearm?

Actually the table swipe service may not be encrypted and your info could be compromised by those who want to steal info.

Most, if not all, of those wireless terminals have very poor security

 

[Newby]

A PA State Trooper I know does this: if they can’t run his card at the table he goes with the waiter/waitress to the terminal ... he has done this for years. He says it is a very common method for cc fraud.

We had three Olive Garden waitresses in our town hit the newspaper for it. They just wrote down the numbers. Waited a month or two. Start buying small stuff.

That would be hard to catch.