180.000 daily limit!

[dracula]

This morning I woke up (i live in Europe) only to see that my adwords PPC account I already spend "today" $8900.00. I thought its a Google error and tried to send a message to the Google adwords team. 10 Hours later no reply and I looked into my gmaíl hoping the reply was there - nope nothing.
I went back to my Google adwords to the campaign who showed $8900 and could see:
the click was put at 99.00, the keywords where changed to rington keywords ( we sell airline tickets) and as well the ad no looked like this:

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It looks like somebody hacked my Google Adwords account, and using it for their purposes.

Who is reliable in this case ?, what should I do ??

[activeco]

It's too serious for a proper advice from here. If you don't have a phone number of your Google contact person, you can try this link too: AdWords Help | Google Groups.

Good luck.

[kgun]

And the date is?

[activeco]

Doesn't look like aliens are involved.

[kgun]

Re: 180.000 daily limit!

Originally Posted by dracula

This morning I woke up (i live in Europe) only to see that my adwords PPC account I already spend "today" $8900.00. I thought its a Google error and tried to send a message to the Google adwords team. 10 Hours later no reply and I looked into my gmaíl hoping the reply was there - nope nothing.
I went back to my Google adwords to the campaign who showed $8900 and could see:
the click was put at 99.00, the keywords where changed to rington keywords ( we sell airline tickets) and as well the ad no looked like this:

Download Hot Ringtones
Get Complimentary Ringtones
Download The All What You Want
crank ringtone descargar ringtones gratis hindi ringtone hindi ringtones mp3 ring tones mp3 to ringtone poly ringtones ringtones grátis

It looks like somebody hacked my Google Adwords account, and using it for their purposes.

Who is reliable in this case ?, what should I do ??

Is there a period (.) error involved or is it april first?

180.000 What do that format imply to Google?

1. USD 180 or
2. USD 180 000?

[Peter (IMC)]

Definitely comunicate with Google using their contact form. And create a new gmail account to use to login to your account and take the old login out. This definitely looks like somebody got access to your gmail address.

I never saw something like this before, but I'd expect that if you explain the situation, Google may give you a refund. They probably won't give you your money back, but will credit your account with that same amount.

Also I'd go to the police and report this.

[subhzash]

Originally Posted by dracula

This morning I woke up (i live in Europe) only to see that my adwords PPC account I already spend "today" $8900.00. I thought its a Google error and tried to send a message to the Google adwords team. 10 Hours later no reply and I looked into my gmaíl hoping the reply was there - nope nothing.
I went back to my Google adwords to the campaign who showed $8900 and could see:
the click was put at 99.00, the keywords where changed to rington keywords ( we sell airline tickets) and as well the ad no looked like this:

Download Hot Ringtones
Get Complimentary Ringtones
Download The All What You Want
crank ringtone descargar ringtones gratis hindi ringtone hindi ringtones mp3 ring tones mp3 to ringtone poly ringtones ringtones grátis

It looks like somebody hacked my Google Adwords account, and using it for their purposes.

Who is reliable in this case ?, what should I do ??

Are they changed destination URL also??

[dracula]

thank you guys,
I contacted Google twice and now 24hours later still no response. I changed my gmail password, paused the Campaign and this morning I could see Google has stopped all my adwords campaigns totally all over.

For those who did not believe it : they set the daily spending to onehundredeightytousanddollar, and the bid for ninetynine dollar per keyword, resulting in an average cost of $26.00 per click.

this happened on Aril 01 2008 and until I have seen it it must have been 12 hours or so (I sleep during the night)

So be aware friends this could happen to you! Also I had a pretty strong password.

[dracula]

Originally Posted by subhzash

Are they changed destination URL also??

yes!
they changed all!

[subhzash]

Originally Posted by dracula

yes!
they changed all!

Use the adwords editor tool. login to your google adwords account and go to tools there you can find the adwords editor tool just download and install in your system. In that tool you can find the option to check recent changes.

I hope there you can locate which site people used your adwords campaign




Regards
Subhzash
subhzash@gmail.com

[dracula]

[QUOTE=subhzash;368940]Use the adwords editor tool. login to your google adwords account and go to tools there you can find the adwords editor tool just download and install in your system. In that tool you can find the option to check recent changes.

I hope there you can locate which site people used your adwords campaign




thank you Subhzash

I could find the link www.renizanz.com/ringtones-cube/?dat=MzM2&OVKEY={keyword}, of course the link does not work any longer and when I put in renizans.com there is no index page any longer only a parent directory and a tmp/ directory.

When I look under whois i get:

Creation date / registration date 01april 08

Phred Jackson
3311 Estudillo St.
Martinez CA 94553


it looks like this has only been registered the domain for this atempt. He succeed to make 318 clicks at a cost of $8,468.07. What a criminal mind.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by dracula

thank you guys,
So be aware friends this could happen to you! Also I had a pretty strong password.

This story shocks me.

1. I don't have an AdWords account, but an AdSense account. There I get: Last login: x days ago. So I have to remember my last login.
2. From one of my hosts I get: Last login from: IP.
3. You should set a limit and a daily maximum using a strong password and a pin or card with codes lik you use here for logging into bank accounts. You should use Opera when you log in. When you set this limit, the amount should be reported back to you in number and text format before you confirm the limit.
4. You should get an email warning if anything important happens to your account. That warning could be sent to another email account. Changing this setting should not be possible from your account without additional information, like confirming one or more questions that should be very difficult to guess.

[janeth]

Thats some scary stuff. I hope they catch the guy and put him under the jail.

[subhzash]

[QUOTE=dracula;368955]

Originally Posted by subhzash

Use the adwords editor tool. login to your google adwords account and go to tools there you can find the adwords editor tool just download and install in your system. In that tool you can find the option to check recent changes.

I hope there you can locate which site people used your adwords campaign




thank you Subhzash

I could find the link www.renizanz.com/ringtones-cube/?dat=MzM2&OVKEY={keyword}, of course the link does not work any longer and when I put in renizans.com there is no index page any longer only a parent directory and a tmp/ directory.

When I look under whois i get:

Creation date / registration date 01april 08

Phred Jackson
3311 Estudillo St.
Martinez CA 94553


it looks like this has only been registered the domain for this atempt. He succeed to make 318 clicks at a cost of $8,468.07. What a criminal mind.

Here http://whois.domaintools.com/renizanz.com shows address and phone number. Register the case nearest police station. And before registering collect all the details about the click and destination URLs. Make one soft copy as well as print out

Take action against that guy


Regards
Subhzash
subhzash@gmail.com

[janeth]

Make sure it's the right guy first.

[dragonfeet]

Hi, dracula,
I'm from Malaysia. I'm a new internet marketer.
This case happen to me also.
I found that from 30 March, someone hacked into my adwords account, set up a campaign with daily budget of 8000, and until yesterday, it already cost up to 15K in 4 days time!!!!!
I have reported to google, but until now almost 1.5 day, still not yet received response from google.
There is few thousands already charged to my credit card. I cancel the card already and file a disputed form to my bank to claim back that money.
Hope google can cancel all the unauthorised fees.
It's really really really terrible.....
I feel very depressed....because I haven't make any money, but already facing a huge lose.....

[Feydakin]

In most cases Google will charge your account one time per month.. Before that happens remove your payment information from the Google account so that they can't charge you until the discuss options with you..

We pay with a credit card that is only used to pay for Google Adwords and nothing else.. It would be simple for us to cancel that card to keep it from being charged..

What Google "should" do and what they actually do may be two different things.. But it would be very hard for them to declared these clicks as anything but fraud and either refund you or not charge you to begin with..

And finally, use better passwords and make sure that your computers are secure..

[dracula]

Just to let you know how efficient Google handled my case, I must say very customer friendly.
The say they will never invoice me for that amout, and I look now forward that they reopen my account after I changed the password.

The Hacker went into the system using my gmail account. How he came over my password, no idea, as I found no malware on my computers I am using

[Portucuenta]

Originally Posted by dracula

Just to let you know how efficient Google handled my case, I must say very customer friendly.
The say they will never invoice me for that amout, and I look now forward that they reopen my account after I changed the password.

The Hacker went into the system using my gmail account. How he came over my password, no idea, as I found no malware on my computers I am using

Something really similar happened to me last week, instead of ringtones it was office and other microsoft software. And it happened as you described, google were really efficient, and I have no idea either how they logged in. From other sites, they say it is due to a spyware, but couldn't locate it here neither.

[dragonfeet]

Dear All,
Is it better to use prepaid payment instead of post pay payment on Adwords account?
Please advise.
Thanks!

[innominds]

I agree with you dragonfeet!
As we need to give the credit card details so in that way we can limit the expenditure provided we use a low value credit limit card.