Share your VPN story with the VIP

As an IT professional, I've noticed that the security weenies increasingly try to make life hard for everyone with the excuse that it's for security purposes, so people must jump through hoops - which everyone tries to get around, often successfully and with no real security risk or downside.

And then when a security breach does occur, it always seems to be that the company itself was caught with their pants down, and that their own security measures were inadequate or not followed to protect their customers' data.

Since they already keep a vast amount of information on all of their customers, there's no reason at all that the companies you do business with should not also allow you to keep a profile specifying where you live and what accounts and third-party vendors are allowed to make charges, and from what country.  This is not hard to set up especially for recurring charges.  We do this successfully with USAA for a family member who uses a debit card overseas drawing on a US account.

For the time being though the VPN seems to work to outwit the security half-wits...

I had to put travel alerts on my Chase credit cards to use here.  My account gets temporarily frozen when I use it in the US, even after calling them 5 times to let them know I'm travelling back to the states and will be using my card for rental car, lodging and etc.  They always assure me that Florida is my home state and I will have no problems using my card only to have them decline my rental car transaction at the counter.  So frustrating!!  But so far, they have never declined an international charge, go figure.

Ok, but using a VPN you have to basically go through an intermediary and if they aren't reputable then they can basically get your credit card details. But I feel everyone's pain, I've been inconvenienced too.

vsimple wrote:

Ok, but using a VPN you have to basically go through an intermediary and if they aren't reputable then they can basically get your credit card details. But I feel everyone's pain, I've been inconvenienced too.

All the website I go to that involve financial transactions use the https protocols, hence the data is encrypted. The VPN provider isn't able to steal jack from me.

An expat without VPN story is like an expat without a smartphone. Stuck in their ways............

I have another VPN story to tell. 

A few weeks back a friend of mine who is 77 years old and has lived in Ecuador 7 years called to tell me he had been the victim of identity theft in the United States.   Apparently someone had gone to Target near his former home town and tried to buy $2,000 in electronics using instant credit.  They were rejected but he found out they had a legitimate drivers license with his birthdate on it they had somehow managed to get from the DMV.  He told me he was going to a relative in the states to help him get credit reports so he can see whether there is any other activity. I told him to get the credit reports himself over the internet.   Unfortunately the website that offers you free credit reports once a year has a geographical limitation placed on it and is not accessible from Ecuador.

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/fore … ion.action

I was able to access that website from my PC but only with the VPN turned on.   So I ended up going over to my friend's house and helped him pull up those three credit reports and then save them as adobe pdf files for later viewing.   There were about 5 unknown "hard" credit inquires all around the same date including one from Target.

I then told him that he ought to sign up for a credit monitoring service in case there is another attempt to apply for credit from this unknown thief.   Based on a Google search I determined that there was a recommend service called CreditKarma.com However, Once again it is geographically restricted and is unavailable in Ecuador unless you activaate a VPN.

https://www.creditkarma.com/registratio … navailable

Cap

ital ONE 360 rejected this transaction possibly because it was foreign sourced

I suspect this is a common issue. HSBC regularly blocked my cards due to suspicious activity (Transactions in Indonesia), the first occasion leaving me stuck 200 miles from home without a penny to my name.

I finally managed to get them and they unblocked it but not before I had to sell something very cheap in order to get the money for the bus home.
I had serious words with them and they credited the money lost through the sale so I could replace the item,.
The trick is always to inform the bank you're long term abroad, and repeat the information from time to time. They blocked me several times over the next two years but they've got the hang of it now.

This was before the days of my smartphone and skype so calling the UK was hard work and cost a fortune

In most cases, if I need to activate a vpn, it is on my PC, laptop, phone or tablet   However, there are times when I need a activate a vpn on a router and today was such a day.

I tried to turn on Pandora radio using my Amazon Fire TV device which is attached to my TV, but it was giving me out of the country message.  As I usually do I confirmed the proxy service was activated, which it was. 

While I could have played Pandora from a Windows PC,, I decided to activate a VPN on my secondary router to try and get my amazon fire tv to play.  This router had previously been configured following these instructions from my proxy/VPN service, so all I needed to do was re-enable the VPN, which took about 15 seconds.

Anyway, it worked and I am listening to Pandora as I write this.  Probably tomorrow everything will be back to normal with my proxy  and I can disable the VPN on this router. 

P.S.
I find playing Pandora through android based devices such as the Amazon Fire TV device results in few commericals than if I listen on my Windows based PC or laptop.