I sent the following email to the Office of The President of Skype and various other departments and received an automated email to "come here" - so I will repost that letter and see if we can resolve this in a "smooth, cheery, holiday" fashion. Here we go:
RE: Fraud case
Dear Office of the President of Skype,
Marilyn J. and Associates,
and others CC'd below.
First, happy holidays. May your New Year and association with Microsoft prove fruitful for you and the crew.
I don't patronize easily, so you really do have my sincere best wishes despite the rest of the
content below.
My apology for bringing this to your desk at this cheery time of year,
but unfortunately, time is of the essence here to avoid further
problems due to the hacking of my account and financial losses
described below.
You may recall last year at about this time,
my skype account - gppceo - was hacked,
skype purchases were made out of Europe on my
credit card, although I am in San Francisco.
The first hack cleaned out my bank account,
cost me a long list of bank overdraft service charges,
bounced checks, lost merchant good credit standing,
and took 3 months to clear up with Bank of America,
who never did resolve it all and the entire event
cost me several hundred dollars.
I licked my wounds and thanked the Office of the President of Skype
for the $30 credit (about 1/10th of my losses), and within 60 days,
the entire process happened again: it appeared to be the same
group and another series of hard pressed negotiations took
place with Bank of America - and Skype - and while this all
started in December, 2010, it was not resolved until June 2011,
cost me several hundred hours of my time, nearly $500 in fees
and charges with the bank and really was never resolved.
BofA eventually closed the account - two of them - both
corporate accounts I had with them for over 5 years, which
also impacted our credit standing, when we had to go to a new
bank. The loss of credit during these tough times caused a
collapse of the corporation, 150 people hit the bricks without
jobs and so I'd like you to understand that a simple "hack" of
your database - the credit card numbers there - something that
started as less than "a $100 USD event" cost nearly a million
bucks by the time you add up all the losses to everyone
affected. I lost a skype phone number I had used in literature
(so all the literature had to be tossed - another $3,000 loss),
and I could go on, but I prefer to just get one with life rather
than mourn the dead for much more than 2 stouts and a couple of
jokes at the wake.
I write software - much of it for banks - and have the tools
to hack and crack nearly any type of system. SSL is not secure,
can be hacked in under 45 seconds with the right tools and
internet is certainly a playground for financial system hackers.
You are not alone.
I have some ideas on how you might improve your security, but
that is a topic for another letter altogether.
This letter is quite personal: I need to get my simple
subscription activated. There are no snowballs in hell
this year that would prompt me to give you a credit card
linked to the new bank accounts, so I went to a store and
purchased a "throw-away" card - $25 - and wish to apply
it to my skype account BEFORE (key word - read that 10 times
please) my subscription expires in a few days and I am
unable to MAKE CALLS DURING THE HOLIDAYS.
You screwed me to the wall last year at about this time,
left me broke and scrambling at Christmas, ended up getting
150 people unemployed shortly thereafter, and I would be ever
so grateful if we could avoid that drama this year.
So please - if someone would be so kind - I have the card,
would love to give you the 16 digit credit card number
(not to be delivered by email), perhaps in a Skype Chat or
some secure place - skype phone call - whatever you wish.
Considering the plastering I took last Christmas,
and the $30 credit from your office, that barely covered
the first hour of that 200+ hour drama, I do hope you
can see my point, honor my simple request, ensure I
am not disconnected, take my $25 payment somehow,
someway, no problems, smooth as silk and thereafter
we can all have a Merry - Stressfree - Christmas.
In summary, I want to give you money and for whatever
reason, your web site isn't accepting this $25 "Throwaway
Gift Card" and we need to fix that so you have your money
and I have my skype subscription without interruption.
Is this a reasonable request?
Thank you in advance for your attention to this letter.
Sincerely,
Craig Mead
Skype ID: GPPCEO
p.s. you have my apology for the various CCs for this email.
These have been collected and were used to ensure "someone"
received this request.
Again - happy holidays
