Credit Card Fraud

Yesterday morning I attempted to pay for some purchase with my Mastercard and to my surprise the card was declined. I tried again, same result. This was surprising as I had enough funds in the account and was well below my limit. Got into work and logged into my bank account to confirm – nothing untoward on the credit card statement.

I then called my bank – Lloyds TSB – who transferred me through their credit card fraud division.

I was informed that my card had been blocked because they had picked up “suspicious” activity on it on the 13th of October. Someone had attempted to make two large value purchases online – one of these being at the Misco website – totalling about £1000. When I confirmed that I hadn’t made these purchases, my card was cancelled and a new one requested. The bastard who ordered using my card will never get his stuff delivered.

I was quite shocked. Being very security conscious this came as a big surprise to me.

I still do not know how my credit card details got into the hands of the fraudulent criminals.

The evening on the 12th I had purchased 3 software program licenses – all three transactions had gone through fine. The fraudulent transaction was attempted the next day, so I suspect that the breach of my credit card details occurred during one of these three transactions.

I have emailed all three merchants and informed them, however, no replies have really be reassuring.

Waiting for the replacement card now then changing all on-line payments to the new card number – a necessary pain!!

Steve Jobs

It isn’t news anymore that Steve Jobs died yesterday. It was a sad loss for the world of computing.

I have never been an Apple user and don’t envisage being one anytime in the future. I don’t agree with the tie-in between hardware and software that using an Apple product entails. I also hate iTunes with a passion!!  I write code for the Microsoft stack and am therefore tied to the PC platform.

However, there is no denying the genius of Jobs. His uncanny ability to give us products that were beautiful and functional. Products that were trendsetters rather than followers – with other companies chasing to catch up and never quite succeeding.

Every time I pass an Apple store, I always walk in and admire the products that I don’t use! I hope that Apple after Steve Jobs will continue to be a leader in innovation and in bringing us the future.

I grew up admiring Steve Jobs and Bill Gates – it’s sad to loose one of my teenage idols.

Who knows, I might even end up buying a Macbook Pro one day!

The Kitchen Garden

The kitchen garden is coming along great. These pictures were taken about a month ago.

Only the British secret services could think of this

Operation Cupcake: MI6 replaces al-Qaeda bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes

It feels proud to be British. Made my day!

Religions compared

Awesome!