Ghost printing
My printer inexplicably generated a paper airline boarding pass bearing my name for a flight I didn't book. I immediately checked my bank account online for any charges that might be related to that purchase, but I found none. I called the police, the airline and my bank to investigate this potential fraud. I had all working feverishly on this most alarming matter.
Long story short: the email address associated with my HP printer's ePrint account is apparently similar to that of another person sharing my name, who evidently inadvertently gave the airline my ePrint email address. United then emailed his boarding pass to the address given, which was then received and processed by my printer, handily, albeit mysteriously, producing a paper boarding pass that landed on the printer receiving tray.
Longer version.
I called United Airlines. After sitting in a queue for nearly 40 minutes and after ascertaining identifying information from me, they confirmed that the person who booked the flight was not me, and that the boarding pass was sent to me by mistake and therefore didn't indicate fraud. They couldn't explain how my printer was involved, which still had me quite concerned.
I called my bank. Not knowing amount or date of a transaction, my bank was not able to immediately find any record of a transaction that might be attributed to the purchase of an airline ticket under my name, fraudulently or otherwise.
I then turned to my printer setup pages. as I discovered there is an "ePrint" feature which sends documents to my printer via email. The email address associated with my ePrint service bears my name. I had forgotten I set this up this account and feature when I installed the printer.
It is now conceivable to me that another person with my name also owns this style printer and the ability to send documents to it. It is plausible that the email address associated with his ePrint service is similar to mine. In fact, on inspection, my ePrint log revealed that an email bearing the subject "Boarding pass for confirmation xxxxxx" was sent from unitedairlines@united.com to my printer around the time the boarding pass began printing.
I have since restricted received ePrint emails to reject all but those addresses I have supplied. There will be no more mysterious boarding passes landing in my receiving tray unless a hacker manages to make that happen.
Long story short: the email address associated with my HP printer's ePrint account is apparently similar to that of another person sharing my name, who evidently inadvertently gave the airline my ePrint email address. United then emailed his boarding pass to the address given, which was then received and processed by my printer, handily, albeit mysteriously, producing a paper boarding pass that landed on the printer receiving tray.
Longer version.
I called United Airlines. After sitting in a queue for nearly 40 minutes and after ascertaining identifying information from me, they confirmed that the person who booked the flight was not me, and that the boarding pass was sent to me by mistake and therefore didn't indicate fraud. They couldn't explain how my printer was involved, which still had me quite concerned.
I called my bank. Not knowing amount or date of a transaction, my bank was not able to immediately find any record of a transaction that might be attributed to the purchase of an airline ticket under my name, fraudulently or otherwise.
I then turned to my printer setup pages. as I discovered there is an "ePrint" feature which sends documents to my printer via email. The email address associated with my ePrint service bears my name. I had forgotten I set this up this account and feature when I installed the printer.
It is now conceivable to me that another person with my name also owns this style printer and the ability to send documents to it. It is plausible that the email address associated with his ePrint service is similar to mine. In fact, on inspection, my ePrint log revealed that an email bearing the subject "Boarding pass for confirmation xxxxxx" was sent from unitedairlines@united.com to my printer around the time the boarding pass began printing.
I have since restricted received ePrint emails to reject all but those addresses I have supplied. There will be no more mysterious boarding passes landing in my receiving tray unless a hacker manages to make that happen.
