URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

[Nathaniel]

Dear All,

This is just to let you know that my e-mail addresses/contacts have been hacked into by person/s unknown. Don't know how this has happened but could have been caused by my PC being kept switched on overnight so that the "duplicates software" could clear the duplicates.

I have informed the Police (data protection dept) as I am told that they have some means of tracking these fellows. It is of course quite embarassing as I have been busy all morning answering phone calls and not living it up in good old "Ukraine"!.

Sarawark, please let our mutual friend know that everything is under control as best as possible. My e-mail address is OK and I have changed my password. However, all my addresses in the contacts file have been cleaned out. It is empty.So perhaps my bank manager too will get an e-mail from me!!!!!!!!

It would seem that with Christmas around the corner the hackers are out in full force. I have just been told of a clergyman who has suffered the same fate. Also other friends who have had this problem.

I have advised my bank that no payment (over £50) is to be made via my account without it being cleared by me- just a precaution- although my online account is secure as best as I know.

Thank you very much for letting me know via this thread as well via PM's.

Regards
Nathaniel

[AndyMackie]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Glad to hear you survived the robbery at gunpoint and don't need £2100 after all, Nat....

[2Beers]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Hi Nat I received an email Supposedly from yourself today asking for money but My software flagged it up as a Phishing email and asking for the same amount as Andy has quoted.

It might be of benefit to others if this was posted in the main forum as not everyone reads this one

[Nathaniel]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Thanks Andy and Alex for your comment. I really dont know how the hacker had got into my e-mail address book as I have a double security password to my e-mail account. I am of course very embarrased & annoyed about this as all my contacts have been approached- even my former work colleagues as far as Portsmouth & Scotland in UK and from my contacts overseas- nephews, nieces, including "ex girl friends"!!!!!!!! More so when I have a double security password to my e-mail and e-mail accounts. Perhaps this is Christmas coming early.

I might also mention that about 3 years ago, someone had opened a Newcastle Building society account in my name and transferred £500 to it from my then Lloyds bank account. I played the merry devil and got the money refunded the same day. So perhaps eternal vigilence is the nature of things today. Some of the members e-mail addresses were obtained by me as I was trying to help a mutual forum member some months ago- I am sure you will remember- I was more or less the defacto "treasurer". It was because of all this that I had a double password security set up, and
it is a case of "wondering" how the scammer managed to breach this level of control. It has never happened to me before.

If Robert thinks that this should be transferred to a main thread on the form as a warning to members, I will be happy if he could do this.

[Dave_S]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Nat, 'shutting the door after the horse has bolted' I know, but I never use my main e-mail address for forum registration, as forums do get 'hacked'.

I use a secondary e-mail address for anything other than personal stuff, and this regularly gets bombarded with 'spam' and 'Phishing' e-mails.

The only place these parasites can get this e-mail address is from forums etc, where it is used.

That's another reason why I never pass personal information, such as bank details (when selling things), or address details etc, via a forum's PM system.

There's a lot of very clever people out there, that like to use their IT skills, for fraudulent activity.

Dave

[briansquibb]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Get well soon!

[Nathaniel]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

DAve & Brian. Thanks. I do not use my e-mail address for forum work. It so happened that I had requested some forum members to send me their e-mail addresses(to keep things away from the forum for the reasons you have now mentioned) so that I can send account details (the Charity account I set up) to the individual donors. This was actually late last year and quite forgot about the whole thing- till now. Thats how the hackers have sent the SOS e-mail to some forum members. The worse thing now is that I cannot use my debit/credit/& savings accounts cards as they have been "frozen"- couldn't pay a supermarket bill today either via my debit/credit cards or my savings account card by calling at a cash point. I am also going away for a few days from this Wed- Sunday.

[David Stallard]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Just checked my webmail and the email got picked up by Virgins spam bot. I would have checked here / with you first.

glad it's not real and that all is okay.

.DAVID.

[Nathaniel]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

Thanks David. I have now changed my password- another double lock (two PW's) and will see how things are. My bank matters are now OK after some phone calls to their fraud department.

[Nathaniel]

Re: URGENT -E-mail address has been hacked into.

I have now made further progress with the Police. I have got a copy of the e-mail and I note that the reply address is xxxxyahoo.com which is not the one I use but I had put this on FACEBOOK. There is also a photo of a bearded middle eastern gent which is actucally Me in disguise. You can guess who that fellow is. I do not frequent Facebook or mess around with it but as I get several links to it sent to my proper e-mail address, I thought I would set up a different one- the one ending xxxxyahoo.com I do not use Facebook (nor twitter) or other social networking sites as I think it is for the upwardly mobile younger generation. So it would appear that the hackers got my real e-mail address via this,Facebook link.

Well I will keep you all informed of any progress as I go along.