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.

Stressful Monday morning, but better in the afternoon

Ah, Monday. Either it's horrible or it's okay. I got a mix today.

A new employee joined the company. She is hopefully going to take over a bulk of my work. The problem with her is that she asks a ton of questions without doing much research. It also didn't help that her laptop wasn't available until two hours later.

As I was trying to look up information, I got a ton of questions from her. Ugh. Such a bad time to be asking ridiculous questions.

She brought her laptop home. We never covered how to connect remotely. The answer was on an information sheet that she got with her laptop. Again, more questions. Double ugh.

I got annoyed. Thankfully, things turned around as the day progressed.

My guy sent me a text in the afternoon. It was bad timing, though. I let him know that I was training a new writer and was stressed out.

"Sorry to hear that. Please ping me when you're free. Hope I'm still up," he texted.
"It'll probably be late. I train until 5 pm. I'll give you a try. Miss you," I replied.
"Same here," he said, sending a kiss emoticon.
"You're sweet," I replied, reciprocating with a kiss emoticon.
"You, too," he replied.

He makes my day when I need some cheering up.