MANCHESTER--A Manchester man says someone was able to use his cell phone number and credit card number and create an Apple Pay account, charging hundreds of dollars in merchandise to his card.
Apple Pay is a simple way of making a payment with the touch of your cell phone rather than swiping a credit card. Larry Lefebvre is the victim, but there's an unusual twist: he doesn't even have an iPhone!
"You can’t have Apple Pay on an Android device," Lefebvre explained.
He was surprised to wake up to two emails from his credit card company, Capital One. "The first one stated Apple Pay was enabled on my cell and the second was alerting me of some charges that occurred. The first one was for $126 and the other for $130 plus," said Lefebvre.
When he tried to make a phone call, he says he got recorded messages from Verizon, essentially saying the call couldn't be placed. He then used a landline to call Capital One. The representative told him more purchases were also attempted.
"One was from Best Buy for $5,000, but that got declined. When I logged into my Verizon account and saw my actual cellphone number was listed as a Blackberry device. I have Android," said Lefebvre.
He also noticed several text messages exchanged from his phone number that he says he never sent or received. They're from a number that begins with 000.
Fortunately, everything was resolved in just a matter of hours.
"I was able to get them to turn my phone on and the Blackberry off," said Lefebvre.
Capital One also deactivated the Apple Pay account in Lefebvre's name. He said, "The one link between the two accounts is the Verizon bill autopay is set up on the credit card account that got hacked."
Scott Driscoll, president of Internet Safety Concepts in South Windsor, said cases like this serve as reminders that we need to protect ourselves as best as we can.
"Unfortunately, when it comes to these people who are hacking into our things, when there's a will, there's a way. Less is more, like when we sign up for accounts, sign up to register for accounts, only give them what's required. I'm changing passwords all the time. I recommend you do it as often as possible. If you can do it after every purchase that's great cause sometimes we forget and it is a pain but that's one more layer of safety," he advised.
Driscoll says it's also important to log off of websites and computers at work or other public places. He also says to make sure you have a password lock on your phone.
FOX 61 reached out to Verizon Wireless, who said, "We take reported incidents of fraud very seriously and are looking into the matter."
Verizon also recommended customers click here for more information about identity privacy.