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Friday, February 08, 2019
Ack! I've Been Hacked!
Why or why do bad people think that it's okay to steal?
It started off with my FaceBook account-the security department asked if it was me logging in at 3:30 a.m. on a certain morning? I assured them it was NOT! The only thing I do willing at that time is go to the bathroom!
So I changed passwords, told everyone if they get something from me-it was NOT me and went on about my day. Problem was, I went back on my page about 8 hours later and found that EVERYTHING was now in FRENCH!
Since I took Spanish in high school and haven't had even a class in that since 1972, it took me almost 20 minutes of icon clicking to find my way back to having my page in English. Grrrr.
Then I started getting emergency alerts in other languages from Amazon. First off, I don't have an Amazon account, but Steve does. I forwarded those to him. He changed the passwords and had Amazon delete the trouble-causers there.
After that, I received numerous requests for me to "verify my information" at banks that I had NEVER heard of-so I just kept pressing delete.
Then came the BIG alert: Cox sent both Steve and I alerts asking us if we had just added not one, but two new e-mails?
Guess what I spent my day doing after that notice????
Yep, first I called Cox and waited 5 minutes for someone to get on the line. Then he sent me to fraud control-where I now waited for another 25 minutes for a live person there to answer my pleas for help. The nice woman helped me change the initial password and security question, but said Steve was going to have to change the PIN.
Seems that if we didn't change that, the hackers could still cause us endless problems. There went 2-1/2 hours of my "me" time on Sunday.
Luckily, Steve took the change I made and was able to change the PIN from work while he ate his lunch.
It didn't end there either. Nope, we now had to change passwords/PINs on all of our devices.
If you're wondering what else this hacker(s) did? Seems that one of my survey sites, where I've been saving up to get some Denny's/Starbucks cards was part of this disaster! Yep, the thief spent $145 of my tediously earned money and bought themselves game cards and Itune cards!
Thankfully (albeit, they weren't very nice about it) the site cancelled the gift cards and put my money back. They chided ME for not using that amount of funds and said to change my password because they wouldn't do that again. I wrote back just as nice a note telling them I had already changed the password AND if they had looked at my activity they'd have noticed I've only used these funds for Starbucks and Denny's and had NEVER purchased gaming cards or iTunes. I said the only reason I hadn't used what was there was that for some stupid reason they only allowed me to "purchase" those particular gift cards was once every 3 months. If I had been able to use what was there-I would have!
If you're wondering-other things to use the points on were magazines, discounts on airline tickets and other things that I have no use for at any point!
Any wonder why I hate technology?
It started off with my FaceBook account-the security department asked if it was me logging in at 3:30 a.m. on a certain morning? I assured them it was NOT! The only thing I do willing at that time is go to the bathroom!
So I changed passwords, told everyone if they get something from me-it was NOT me and went on about my day. Problem was, I went back on my page about 8 hours later and found that EVERYTHING was now in FRENCH!
Since I took Spanish in high school and haven't had even a class in that since 1972, it took me almost 20 minutes of icon clicking to find my way back to having my page in English. Grrrr.
Then I started getting emergency alerts in other languages from Amazon. First off, I don't have an Amazon account, but Steve does. I forwarded those to him. He changed the passwords and had Amazon delete the trouble-causers there.
After that, I received numerous requests for me to "verify my information" at banks that I had NEVER heard of-so I just kept pressing delete.
Then came the BIG alert: Cox sent both Steve and I alerts asking us if we had just added not one, but two new e-mails?
Guess what I spent my day doing after that notice????
Yep, first I called Cox and waited 5 minutes for someone to get on the line. Then he sent me to fraud control-where I now waited for another 25 minutes for a live person there to answer my pleas for help. The nice woman helped me change the initial password and security question, but said Steve was going to have to change the PIN.
Seems that if we didn't change that, the hackers could still cause us endless problems. There went 2-1/2 hours of my "me" time on Sunday.
Luckily, Steve took the change I made and was able to change the PIN from work while he ate his lunch.
It didn't end there either. Nope, we now had to change passwords/PINs on all of our devices.
If you're wondering what else this hacker(s) did? Seems that one of my survey sites, where I've been saving up to get some Denny's/Starbucks cards was part of this disaster! Yep, the thief spent $145 of my tediously earned money and bought themselves game cards and Itune cards!
Thankfully (albeit, they weren't very nice about it) the site cancelled the gift cards and put my money back. They chided ME for not using that amount of funds and said to change my password because they wouldn't do that again. I wrote back just as nice a note telling them I had already changed the password AND if they had looked at my activity they'd have noticed I've only used these funds for Starbucks and Denny's and had NEVER purchased gaming cards or iTunes. I said the only reason I hadn't used what was there was that for some stupid reason they only allowed me to "purchase" those particular gift cards was once every 3 months. If I had been able to use what was there-I would have!
If you're wondering-other things to use the points on were magazines, discounts on airline tickets and other things that I have no use for at any point!
Any wonder why I hate technology?
