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My Flight Sim days could be over


Alan1963

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Hello all, i don't post on the forums much but i thought i'd tell you my tale and wish we could go back to the days of buying Flight Sim products from a good old shop in a box. The reason that my simming days could be over is that back in September i was the victim of Credit Card fraud and they took a total of £4500 off it. Oh i contacted my card supplier, the company the fraudster purchased at (a London stocks and shares trading company) and the Police Action Fraud and i got the money back within a couple of days and was issued a new card.Now i love Flight Sim as we all do and part of the pleasure is purchasing a new product that you've been looking forward to or having a good day at the sales at such times as now. But having now been the victim of this crime i feel that i never want to put my credit card details anywhere on the internet again (once bitten twice shy) and indeed haven't. I have no idea how or where they got the information, iv'e bought a new AV programme and run a full scan but that hasn't found anything amiss on my PC and the only sites iv'e purchased from since last Christmas are the major Flight Sim sites, the worrying thing is that they even changed the "second level" of security that is the card secure code, that's how i found out when i went to buy something and went through to the second level where it asks you a question and you answer it and it kept telling me my answer was wrong,that's when the alarm bells started to ring for me! So i wondered if anyone else has had the same thing happen or what your thoughts are about this. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

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Identity theft in the manner you experienced can happen to anybody, no matter how careful you are.  Sadly, the digital world we live in has expanded the world for fraudsters.  My PayPal account got hacked and PayPal was less than helpful.  My Bank was the the real hero in this instance.  Needless to say, I no longer have a Paypal Account.  The internet is not the only dangerous place for identity theft, one of my friends at work had his credit card compromised at local grocery store.  That being said, an honourable well established retailer like Aerosoft will always do their best to accommodate you and do you right.  Also, your Bank will give you many protections as demanded by your country's consumer protection act.  I wouldn't fear using your credit card just because of your experience. 

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You may not have to give up completely.  There are a few companies (I believe Aeorosoft are one that accept bank drafts and maybeeven cash,..does anyone remember what that is... 

The firms that do not are a problem and one in particular is not getting any more of my business, however in most countries you can buy from the bank a prepaid credit card which is only valid for the amount you have placed on it.  

Keep simming....

 

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Thanks very much for the replies all, i don't for one second think the problem came from here as the last purchase i made here was at the end of January and it wouldn't be fair to go pointing fingers at anyone but i do have my suspicions as iv'e had years of using  my usual sites with no problem at all. But my last few purchases were made at a couple of sites that i had not used before dealing only in products of an Eleventh version of a specific sim that i have recently purchased.But again because it happened after i began using these sites is not proof of anything. Thanks for jogging my memory about the prepaid card harry, i had thought about it but it slipped my mind .

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  • Aerosoft

I can only say that Aerosoft does not get your creditcard data. The moment you enter it you are actually on the site of bank, we only get the okay or not okay. But yes, you have to be careful. 

 

BUT there is an option. Select pre-payment as payment option. Then we hold the order until you had your bank send the money to our bank. It does not get any safer.

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6 hours ago, Alan1963 said:

But my last few purchases were made at a couple of sites that i had not used before

 

Well what are the names of couple sites?  I am sure you do not want other shoppers to become victim of what you had experienced.

 

 

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

What kind of information the answer to your question would contain? 

Lets assume there would be 10 stores in that list, where 1 was hacked, but you do know which one. So 9 out of 10 stores would be suspected falsely. 

What if Alan have a trojan on his machine, and actually 10 out of 10 stores are not guilty at all?

 

The real learning you can take from things like this: be careful with your personal data. Don't put any undeserved trust into any website. And even if you trust a company, they can still be hacked.

 

So, think twice before you hand over any kind of personal data. And install proper security software on your machine (anti virus, script blocker for the browser, a.s.o).

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Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply and giving me other options, Mathijs i didn't know about that method of payment so thanks very much for that. Aharon, Tom is absolutely correct on this it would be wrong of me to name sites when they could be perfectly innocent in all of this, just because my AV programme didn't find anything doesn't mean there's nothing there. I do try to be careful with my browsing and my AV programme will stop me entering any site that it thinks is dangerous as the other day when i clicked a link from a reputable Flightsim news site to another site and it blocked me from entering with a huge red warning but i think that was the AV being over sensitive there as iv'e never heard anyone getting any virus from there.

So once again thank you everyone it was very kind of you to take the time to respond.

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