A few hours ago I was typing casually away when my wife said something like, "Oh the bank called this afternoon.  They had some kind of problem with the check for our mortgage payment and wanted to verify our routing information."  This of course set off alarm bells in my head and I replied, "We don't write checks for the mortgage.  We have direct debit.   You didn't actually give our account information to some joker that called you out of the blue did you?"  Her silence spoke volumes.

We immediately called the bank, who also holds out mortgage, and verified that no such call was made.  The service rep naturally had the procedures for the occasion, but I still have to take tomorrow morning off to go to the bank for the paperwork.  Then I have to notify all the institutions that do automatic transfers for and against the account.

Grrrrr!

You and she need to have a serious talk. But don't be too hard on her. It was dumb but a lot of people do the same thing all the time. Mine will give anyone that ask for it her SSN. It's a habit I can not break her of.

Social Engineers can be very convincing.  Like Gunslinger said dont be to hard on her.  Just take a minute to talk about it, dont get upset.  Everyone makes mistakes.

Yes, social engineering is insanely evil if you can act.  I've used it more than a few times in my line of work, and it's amazing how a $20,000 firewall can be compromised by some kid who wasn't told he shouldn't be giving out information.

It happens, and most people operate on a level that they're not expecting to be exploited by it.  Me, I'm just a touch paranoid, and very untrusting, but it still happens.

God Bless Texas

I agree with Gunslinger.  It took me a while to break my finacee of SSN thing, but now she's rabid about it.

You might want to contact the Post Office. The attempts on your account may involve mail fraud, and the Postal Service, unlike many federal agencies, will pursue and prosecute.

Nothing teaches a lesson like a personal screw up.  Your wifes silence was in fact the lesson being learned.  STUNNED SILENCE = "Oh Syhte I have effed up".

A simple "I trust you won't let this happen again" is all that need be said.  

No use rubbing her nose in it, I think she got the point.

how about something more along the lines of "Let's try and keep our personal financial information as private as possible.  And verify that those asking for it really need it."  

She is blonde right?

Tell her she's too old to act so damn Stupid and a Smart Woman Learns from her Mistakes and a Fool of a Woman never Learns anything.

Who wears the Pants around there anyway?

[img]http://www.culturebeat.net/Barfly2.jpg[/img]

"Oohhhh, Yeaahhh......I Need A Drink...."

Thanks everybody.

We moved everything to a new account today and closed the old one.  Since the same bank also holds our mortgage they just updated the pointer in the database.  The other institutions that we have have automatic transactions with took the rest of the morning.

I didn't yell at her or anything, but I was a little cold for the rest of the evening.  Everything's fine now.

The bright side is that we caught it so fast and that, "I promise it will never, EVER happen again."