I got Punk'd.

[Akverno]

Best soundtrack ever.

Tough luck Aeq. Hopefully you catch the prick and can sue him (or if it is somone you know in person beat his ass). On the negative side, if the guy knows enough to be able to install a keylogger on your system he probably knows enough to ghost his IP. Hopefully if it is someone incredibly smart with a computer you can find the keylogger and locate where it is depositing the information so you can track him. Did you take this perticular computer offline? am I the only one who thinks that this would be a good idea? That way if the guy isn't a complete genious and has it built into the program to auto delete for certain parameters you can find the program before he deletes it if he has off site access, especially if you have a non firewalled cable modem/ dsl / whichever. Good luck with all of this nonsense.

[Akverno]

I just thought of something, if you use outlook check the outgoing emails. I used to have a strokelogger on a computer I was using and I could configure it to automatically email results on a daily basis through a POP email client. Just a thought.

[Reel Deal]

Man, sorry to hear about this bud. Any update?

[PShabi]

You know how Party says "never give out your account details from anyone?" Listen to them.

I just got a PM from Lou.

While I was in Vegas, I was worried about missing out on my party acceler8tor bonus. It would've cost me $480 and I had been working for 6 weeks on it.

I decided to stake Lou on my account, giving him full profits and allowing him $250 to play with. Even if he loses the $250, I make money on the bonus.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Lou couldn't make time to play for me. However, he left the email w/ my account details in his Yahoo account!!!!!!

Good thing, when I got back, I decided to change the pw. I totally trust Lou, but I just didn't feel comfortable. My thought was, if something fucked up happens to my account someday, I don't want to wonder if it was Lou.

Considering the level of spinelessness of the fucktard we're dealing with here, I'm sure he tried to get into my Party account. Needless to say, that would've been bad. Very bad.

Just goes to show, that ANYONE having your pw is potentially harmful.

I wonder if Party can tell what IP has tried to log in to my account unsuccessfully in the past week or two? If Stars won't divulge this information, I don't see why Party would but you never know.

[Van_Broke]

Problem is these e-fags are probably running through a proxy server so I doubt their IPs will be available. I mean I'm sure they can be found, just not by Party or Stars.

[Talking Poker]

I suspect it will be a lot easier than that. You're giving this guy too much credit. Top level scam artists, sure, but I've got my money on this guy being a brainless fucktard that didn't cover his tracks.

If Lou had pshabi's Party info in his Yahoo account, he likely also had his own Stars/Neteller info in there as well. That means this guy only had to get into ONE account to access all three (and however many more, based on the sensitive info in there). No keyloggers needed. Also, if he had been using some sort of keylogger, I would expect that Lou would have run into more problems by now, and not just those couple of accounts.

We'll see. As much as this situation sucks, I'll be very interested to see how this turns out. You would think someone would know better than to target an actual lawyer, wouldn't you? I mean, isn't that just asking for trouble? Might as well target the local FBI guy while you're at it.

[bunny]

I'm wondering if you ever forgot your password and had them send it to your Yahoo. This is one way someone would have access to your password.

I continually change my passwords on all poker accounts, quite often.

Another tip: If you've forgotten your password and the poker site sends it to you in your email account, be wise enough to change it immediately.

[PShabi]

Then you drag MOTHERFUCKINSHABI into it? My god, why not just go after Zeus himself!!!!!

[badblood44]

The fact that it was a Neteller account hacked too should hopefully help solve the case. Neteller requires knowledge of the numerical account, numerical SecureID and password. Guessing all 3 is not as likely as guessing a password to a poker site.

I too hope you find out who did it and take appropriate measures.

[Akverno]

I just realized it could be as simple as logging onto yahoo instant messenger and leaving it open on a friends computer. If it has access to your email they could pop it open. And if you happen to be an organized individual and have your emails organized with all of your poker emails in one folder it would be easy to pop open your accounts.

[Aequitas58]

Here's a partial update for the railbirds:

(1) Yahoo Customer Support has been no help at all. Their response time is next to shit, but it's expected as they are so big. I was kind of savvy this morning: I used some information gained from Stars, applied it to my newly-jacked Yahoo Email account and obtained access. I instantly re-changed the passwords and personal information. My account is in tact, thankfully, nothing was deleted.

(2) Talked to Stars support, obtained his IP address, traced his IP - which led me to his street address. I have requested a postal inquiry from the Postmaster of his city to verify. In the interim, I have also reclaimed "Aequitas58" on Stars. With $.02 left in my account, and feeling susceptible to future hijacks, I contacted Stars support, created a new account and transferred my FFPs. I am now playing on Stars under a name that will remain secret. This person's accounts, (three to be exact), have been shut down and (I believe) his IP banned by Stars.

(3) I have deleted my Neteller account, and I will have to create a new one before re-depositing.

(4) I know who this person is, and it is a member of this forum. I have spoken to this person, and I have been promised that the money will be returned to me. I stressed to this person that, as a lawyer, I have not yet pulled the trigger on the possible charges he might be facing. These include, but are not limited to: wire fraud, bank fraud, criminal impersonation, criminal mischief, identity theft, harrassment, and maybe some new crimes generated by this wave of new cyber-"law." This person has until Friday to get a check or money order in the mail. For the time being, I will refrain from exposing this person.

(5) How did he lose the money? LOL. I guess he was surprised to only see ~$300 in there. I'm buying a house, and poker is taking a major backseat. Nevertheless, he sat w/ all of it at $15/30 lhe, and lost it w/in 10 hands. Stars cannot refund the money.

MISC:
-Neteller and Stars support are completely top notch. I had my Neteller problems dissolved in 1 hr, and I was able to get on the phone w/ Star Security w/in 24 hrs. At least that's a positive.
-I have not had to make a deposit into online poker since depositing after taking my bar exams (when I came back from my break). TY and GG, hijacker, for making me re-deposit.
-Be careful with your personal information. Let too much out, and someone can take advantage.

[johnp158]

Wow.

[PShabi]

Yes, wow is right. Also, as a warning to the board:

Having your city and birthdate posted on the internet is all someone needs to get into your Yahoo account. That's it. Mr. Morals actually told Lou that.

And to you, Mr. Morals. There is no doubt in my mind that you tried to log in to my account w/ the details that were in Lou's inbox. Consider yourself lucky that you did not gain access and fuck up my bankroll. Because I guarantee you that a $150 plane ticket to Missouri would've been well within my means and you would regret the day you signed up for this forum.

I'm almost hoping you don't pay Lou because I KNOW he will fuck you up to the fullest extent of the law, and then some. Get out of your little habit of scamming people right now, because you aren't always going to have the computer to hide behind.

[bunny]

If it is a member of this forum, I think we have a right to know who it is. We might all be in danger of this type of scam.

I also think he/she should be banned immediately.

[melioris]

Aeq, I strongly suggest you go after this individual to the fullest extent of your capabilities. By aggressively pursuing prosecution of this individual you ensure that this individual does not repeat this crime, particularly against a more helpless victim that he/she can really hurt financially.

Also, this is part of the problem with the nebulous legal nature of online poker. But you still have the NETELLER fraud to hit this person with, even if you don’t want to get into the pokerstars part of the crimes this person committed against you.

Revealing the identity of this person is of minor importance. This will come out in good time. Taking steps to ensure the mechanism this person exploited is no longer in place is of far more importance.

You’re a young lawyer, I am sure you have read some of the classics. WWJCD? (What would Julius Caesar do?) Get Roman on their ass.

[bunny]

I still don't understand how he got into your neteller account. Was this person a friend of yours, that you met on here? Is that it. Did you ever let him play on your account? Did he hijack your computer or just guess your Yahoo password and got into your Yahoo account where all your passwords were stored?

Glad you caught the s.o.b.

If I were you though, I'd report him. He might be scamming other people and it's up to you, since you know who it is, to stop him.

edit: I tried posting this right after my last post, but didn't seem to work. But I fully agree with Mel on this one. You can't just think of your case, Aeq. You have to think of all the other people he might have done this to or will do. You can't pardon him, by letting him go free after he compensates you for your loss. It's not right.

[Aequitas58]

At this juncture, I don't think you have a right to know who it is.

[badblood44]

I'd like to reiterate bunny's question about how the Neteller access was compromised.

Any information you can share about how the account's were breached would most certainly be valuable to everyone here.

[Aequitas58]

Yahoo was my Neteller email account. My Neteller account details were saved in an email, which was saved in my inbox.

[GeoffM]

Nobody has a right to know. It's your business. Just ensure the money is given back. This is absolutely crazy though. I'm glad you were able to get the money back Lou. This has made me re-think my relatively generic passwords for all of my email, poker and work related.

Edit to add: I have a pretty good idea who it is but will hold judgment.

[bunny]

Was it random that you were the "chosen one" Aeq? Or was he gunning for you because you pissed him off?

[Reel Deal]

GG asswipe.

[Talking Poker]

Does it matter?

As far as this forum is concerned, I'm respecting Lou's request to take no action for the time being, for obvious reasons.

The lesson to be learned here is that everyone should be more careful - always. Keep your account info and passwords secure and do not share them with anyone, ESPECIALLY electronically. As pshabi realized, if the person you share them with doesn't keep that info secure, you could be screwed.

Also, as for the Yahoo account which was the open window to this whole mess, clearly that is not very secure if all it takes to get in is to know someone's hometown and some other basic information. So I wouldn't consider ANY webmail program secure. If you download your email to your PC, via Outlook/Eudora/whatever, that's much more secure than leaving sensitive information online in a web based account.

[bunny]

Yes. I think it matters. If it was random, then he might have someone else's personal information. Anyone from here, for that matter.

But I'm sure Aeq will let us in, in due time. So I'll stay out of his business.

This most probably has nothing to do with any of this, but I used to have a Yahoo account awhile back. Every once in awhile I'd log in, a window would pop up stating(something along these lines... "We have signed you out from other computer, please try signing in again." The weird thing was that I wasn't signed in, nor was anyone else using my computer. Too Twilight zoney for me, so I got rid of Yahoo.

[PShabi]

Random or not:

He had Lou's birthday, hometown, first and last name and that was all he needed to access yahoo. That's the key here.