Porno vodka

[pphaneuf]

"You're looking at this bottle in an almost pornographic way." — cpirate, while I was pondering my bottle of "emergency vodka".

"You now have a choice between not opening this bottle, and alcoholism." — cpirate again, trying to save my soul.

Fear not, I haven't opened the bottle. It might be promoted from "emergency vodka" to "celebratory vodka" soon, though.

On the other hand, I got a call from my bank telling me my ATM card might have been cloned, and that I should check my reports and stuff. I tried doing so, but the Internet banking interface wouldn't let me in (sort of understandably). Should work itself out, but I'll have to check this out.

Still, cooked myself some italian sausage and pastas. I have many friends who have ninja-type skills when it comes to cooking, but me, being able to keep myself alive is already a great deal of success.

I hooked up my XMMS at work to last.fm, as this seemed pretty cool. It indeed was, until it imploded, a bit later. Oops, sorry everyone!

Comments

[dzuunmod.livejournal.com]

They have little machines that they slip over top of the regular slots where you put your card into the ATM. They read the cards and store the information from them. The thieves can then take their machines away and use them to make copies of dozens of people's cards.

Alternatively, the crook can be someone who works at a dep or something and who swipes the card in a second machine while you're not looking - before or after swiping it in the regular one.

In both cases, there'll either be someone there trying to spy your PIN, or a camera placed somewhere in the hopes that it'll capture the keypad as you punch it in. This scam's been around for a number of years...

[dcoombs.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And I've seen this once, at the CIBC at Somerled and Prince-of-Wales. Late at night, I thought the card-slot looked a bit funny, I had trouble inserting my card, managed to get it in, watched the machine decide something fishy was going on and eat my card, the screen started flashing "Out of Order; Go Away" or something, the guy in line behind me (who had just come in) encouraged me several times to type in my PIN anyway because it might work (suspicious), at which point I left and phoned the bank's 1-800 number to let them know.

In retrospect I should've phoned the cops. (There is, you'll note, a police station three blocks away on Somerled.)

Oops.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Damn, I was dumb. I'm usually rather careful about these things, but something similar happened recently.

[dcoombs.livejournal.com]

Where, and how similar? Tell story!

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

At the Caisse Populaire on Centre, in Pointe-St-Charles. There are two ATMs there, and there was a guy struggling with one of them, then he gave up. The other one was busy, and the ATM wasn't saying "defective", so I took a chance with it. I think the guy might also have suggested that it might work for me, or something to that effect, which I found a bit odd, but shrugged off. I did, didn't work right, so I waited for the other one. I'm not certain, but I think the guy hung around, which I presumed to be to wait for the other ATM.