My email accounts have been hacked!

[bigOz]

Please note that my email accounts have been hacked and attemps were made to obtain money from my contacts claiming I am stuck somewhere in Philippines (?) having lost all my money and cards

I have emailed most of my contacts using another email account I have but many of my recent contacts and most of my Turkish Lesson students I am in the process of contacting. Anyone who reads this post and is a current/former student or a recent contact, please do not respond to these demands and email me using aliesat111@hotmail.com. I hope to recover my email address soon and get the email addresses for all my students.

[Marions]

Just change your password. That should do the trick. As for the 'I am stuck in Spain/Philipines/ the Moon' etc, I have had loads of those but know instantly it is not my friend as the language or some such is not 'them.' VBut just change your password and carry on.

I should n't think anyone thinks the request is genuine.

[Lovelife]

Hi Oz

I received the email, fortunately I had emailed you a couple of days ago so was sure it was a scam email, your 'request' got deleted.

Julie

[bigOz]

Just change your password. That should do the trick. As for the 'I am stuck in Spain/Philipines/ the Moon' etc, I have had loads of those but know instantly it is not my friend as the language or some such is not 'them.' VBut just change your password and carry on.

I should n't think anyone thinks the request is genuine.

Thank you Marion, but I am very familiar with the procedure to change ones password - however, the plot thickens! The hackers know one can immediately change passwords etc., so what they also do is change your password, as well as mobile number and secondary email adddresses in your profile to their own. So when you enter your password it is not valid anymore!

So you would think informing the "slow motion" Yahoo "Help" would sort out the problem. You need to tell them what your problem is. Once you do that, you are locked out proper! You now have to try and change your password using the recovery links as adviced. When you get to secret questions, you are not allowed to answer but told to wait for 24 hrs!

So I wait until today and get through the form where I answered the secret questions correctly. Guess what? When I clicked "next" hoping for a code number, I now got a message "It is believed that someone else may be using your account for mail. For security reasons you are adviced to try again in 24 hrs time...". But it was I who reported the "it is believed..." bit in the first place! And since no hackers but only I know the secret questions' answers, it is a waste of time denying me access to my contacts

[Hippocampus]

Out of interest, what are you using by way of security?

[Marions]

Thanks for the explanation Big Oz. sounds as if certain e mails are not worth having.

good luck. At least I have never had that bother with any of mine. Perhaps I am not worth stealing!

[Groucho]

I got the same months ago from Riaz of Jashan's fame....

[come_on_aylin]

This has happened to lots of my family/friends who have hotmail accounts, it appears their (hotmail) security isn't too great. I have had a gmail account for 8 years and have never had a problem and I'm not aware of any friends with googlemail/gmail accounts having problems. Maybe you could start using gmail?

[bigOz]

This has happened to lots of my family/friends who have hotmail accounts, it appears their (hotmail) security isn't too great. I have had a gmail account for 8 years and have never had a problem and I'm not aware of any friends with googlemail/gmail accounts having problems. Maybe you could start using gmail?

I already do have a gmail account. They could not get into that one it was my Yahoo and hotmail accountsthat were compromised, I wrote off the Hotmail account and recovered the Yahoo one - minus my past email message folders.

As I wrote to my contacts, the moral of the story is:
If you get an email claiming to be from Yahoo, or Hotmail even with an original Yahoo or Hotmail logo (easy to copy and paste original logo from website!). NEVER respond by clicking any ID confirmation links requested by the email. Just send it to "spam mail" folder.

Remember: Yahoo, Hotmail or other mail service providers will never ask you to do this by sending an email. Instead, they ask for any ID confirmations using a pop up dialog box on their "log in" web page!