Over the weekend a brand new smart phone arrived in the mail. It was addressed to my brother and he had to sign for it. He has a relatively new smart phone already, does not need a new one and would certainly not (and did not) order one from some no-name outfit in New York where this one apparently originated.
He contacted the on-line billing service and was told that he did indeed have an account with them which he informed them was fraudulent and needed to be cancelled. (The billing service, for the record, is a legitimate division of a very large web company.)
My brother also received in the mail and article of lingerie direct from the factory in China. The care instructions are in English but the rest of it is all Chinese. My brother's tastes in clothing do not run in that direction.
He was informed by the billing service that another smart phone is already on the way to him.
Here's the puzzlement:
His bank accounts have not been accessed. No money has been taken from him. The phones (and the filmy flimsy) have been paid for as far as the supplying parties are concerned. He is not being billed for anything. He is not being asked to return anything. The fraudulent accounts have been closed and notices issued so they can not be used in the future to gain access to his assets.
We can not figure out how the perpetrators have benefited, or planned to benefit, from this. Our best guess is it might be somebody in the neighborhood who was hoping to intercept the packages from our mailbox but, since the phone, at least, required a signature for delivery, that brilliant plan was not thought through all the way. Besides, one or the other of us is almost always home. My brother's most paranoid guess is that someone put malware in the phones but he intends to donate them so they will get nothing (from him at least, and it was his identity they were apparently trying to steal).
Either this is some fiendishly subtle and devious plot that is beyond our comprehension, or an act of sheer stupidity.
Right now, I'm leaning towards stupidity.
Here's the puzzlement:
His bank accounts have not been accessed. No money has been taken from him. The phones (and the filmy flimsy) have been paid for as far as the supplying parties are concerned. He is not being billed for anything. He is not being asked to return anything. The fraudulent accounts have been closed and notices issued so they can not be used in the future to gain access to his assets.
We can not figure out how the perpetrators have benefited, or planned to benefit, from this. Our best guess is it might be somebody in the neighborhood who was hoping to intercept the packages from our mailbox but, since the phone, at least, required a signature for delivery, that brilliant plan was not thought through all the way. Besides, one or the other of us is almost always home. My brother's most paranoid guess is that someone put malware in the phones but he intends to donate them so they will get nothing (from him at least, and it was his identity they were apparently trying to steal).
Either this is some fiendishly subtle and devious plot that is beyond our comprehension, or an act of sheer stupidity.
Right now, I'm leaning towards stupidity.
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