Hacked information in the wrong hands and my cell phone reported lost by someone

Here's a follow-up to my post on how a few personal details can get into the wrong hands and how worried the guy is about his actions.

A few months ago, my Starbucks account was compromised. I was at the car dealership, waiting for my car to be done with servicing. I logged into my Starbucks app and noticed two transactions that were foreign to me. One happened in Miami. The other in New York within five minutes. There was no way that I was in two states in that period, especially when I was still in Canada.

I called Starbucks support and the woman was helpful. I didn't like when she asked which card it had come from. I have Starbucks cards in both the United States and Canada. Sure enough, it came from a U.S. card. The balance wasn't huge. The person purchased a drink and some food. Nevertheless, Starbucks reimbursed the funds and cancelled that card for me.

My Starbucks account had my phone number there. If this guy logged on and used that card, he likely got my cell phone number. I have since removed my cell phone number from the account, as it's far from being mandatory.

As for tracking me with check-ins on Yelp and Twitter, he has too much time on his hands. It was a good wakeup call for me. I stopped the Twitter check-in from Yelp. I tried it out on Saturday and all was good.

I don't go down without a fight. I'm interesting that way, as I like to gain a bit of information about this person.

On my Twitter account, which was still public, I replied to my own tweet. I addressed the guy who stalked me. I said that he has been reported. He was messing with the wrong person. I have both voice recordings with his swearing and threats thanks to an app that I have. I recommended that he back off, as he was messing with the wrong person.

It is all true. I lucked out and bought an app that tells you whether phone numbers are safe to pick up. You can also report numbers that are considered nuisances. It also records all calls for protection and potential evidence down the road.

He got scared. This part of the story is still speculation, though.

On early Monday morning, just after I had posted my last post, I got an e-mail alert acknowledging that I had reported my phone lost. Really? It wasn't me.

I got that issue resolved online. As a security measure, I have a PIN associated with my cell phone provider on my account. This person reported my phone lost through the phone, which the person at my provider confirmed.

The woman with my service provider said that it is likely that the person entered his phone number incorrectly when reporting his phone stolen over the phone. Part of me hopes so. The other part of me thinks that this guy panicked and thinks that reporting my phone lost will help slow things down. Revenge? Perhaps. It's dumb, though.

The other thing is that my phone number, if you searched for the first seven digits, comes out being with a different cell phone provider. He would have to do a ton of digging to figure out that it's with my current provider. So, it leads me to believe that my number was reported by accident. I can't prove anything here, though.

Ah, the joys of having information in the wrong hands in a digital age.

Currently, my Twitter account is private. We'll see if that helps, too. I have learned so much this episode. Hopefully, we have reached its end.

Learning from checking in on apps and broadcasting my location on social media

I had something odd happen to me yesterday. Some may consider it scary. I have a feeling that I have put some of the puzzle pieces together.

After work, I went to Starbucks to get a beverage. The baristas there were nice. I ordered my drink through the app like I usually do, went through the drive-thru, got my drink, and drove home.

I normally check in using my Yelp app. Some people are afraid of having their location shown. For me, I used to be in this camp. My thought is that checking and then leaving is okay. I'm gone that any stacker can't catch up to you.

Well, here's the odd part. I must have been twenty minutes away. I got a call from this Starbucks location. It was the cafe's phone number on my phone. It was one call after the other for a total of four calls. No message was left.

It then shifted to a completely different number. When the third call came in, I was waiting at yet another drive-thru. I answered the call and stayed silent.

The guy on the other end knew my first name and my phone number. He was wondering why I wasn't answering. Well, I was at a drive-thru deciding on what I wanted to order. He eventually hung up and called back for a fourth time.

I had placed my order. I picked up and said hi. He proceeded to say that I had checked in on Yelp and asked, "Why the f*ck do you check in so many times?" I decided to hang up on him. I didn't like the swearing and I didn't understand why he was so upset.

I have an app on my phone that not only blocks these calls, but I can report them to a database and add my comments. I did just that.

I see a couple of things that contributed to this incident:

• When I checked in on my Yelp app, it also broadcasts that check-in on Twitter. The guy saw my tweet on Twitter. I looked at the interactions and found one hit in my statistics. Only my friends on Yelp know my check-ins and they are decent people who would not harass me.
• As for getting my phone number, my Starbucks app was compromised a few months back. My phone number was likely obtained from that incident.

Put my tweet and my phone number together, and you have someone out there who doesn't have a life.

I also feel that he has a software application where he can change the phone number that ultimately gets displayed on your phone when you receive a call. It seems rather clean that he used the Starbucks number to call me four times, and then used another one with a different area code exactly four times in the same rapid succession.

When he swore at me, it was quiet in the background. He obviously was not at Starbucks. You cannot be in two different cities in the Greater Toronto Area within seconds.

When I was in Dallas, I disabled my check-ins being broadcast to Twitter. I don't know what possessed me to put it back on, but I have decided to permanently stop it.

It's quite the lesson. The good news is that I have set up these precautions and will see if it makes a difference.