Identity Theft

I experienced first hand how Identity Theft can be as little as stealing your email address but cause a huge upset impacting your friends and family...
On Thursday as I was beginning a long weekend away with family, my husband received an email from an account using my firstname.lastname@yahoo.com.  I thought it was just spam as I do not have any Yahoo accounts.  However, as I began receiving email after email and phone call after phone call, I realized that this was much more than a SPAM email.  Someone hacked into my Gmail account on August 19, 2010 and changed the settings and password.  They then created a yahoo email account under my name.  They also hacked into my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts at the same time stopping all of my methods of online communication (except Twitter).  Next they sent an email to all my 700+ contacts through both my email account and the new Yahoo account they had created.  They set up my Gmail account so that all emails would be forwarded to the Yahoo account.  The email they sent to my contacts was as follows:

 

:::START EMAIL:::

Subject: My Plight

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and I came down here to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation.unfortunately,we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash and credit card were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us. We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills. Well I really need your financially assistance..Please, let me know if you can help us out? Am freaked out at the moment!!

Stefana.

:::END EMAIL:::

If a person would respond to that email, they would respond with the following:

:::START EMAIL:::

Subject: Western Union Details

Glad you replied back to my email..My phone as been stolen by the muggers i have nothing left on me and I'm grateful to God that i still have my life and my passport cos it would have been worst if they made away with my passport. all i need is 1,450 pounds you can have it wired to me via Western Union. Here's my info below

Stefana [MYLASTNAME]

30 Leicester Square, WC2H 7LA,

London United Kingdom

As soon as it is done, kindly get back to me with the confirmation number. Let me know if you are heading to the WU outlet now???

Keep me posted.

Stefana.

:::END EMAIL:::

The email was tailored based on the message or questions sent from my contacts.  On Facebook they prevented anyone from posting to my wall so I was not able to warn anyone and they changed both my password and my password reset information.  Also on LinkedIN they changed my password and password reset information. After about 24 hours of working to reset my passwords, shut down transactions to the western union account and tell everyone this is a hoax, I was able to get everything back under my control.  All my passwords have been changed and all computers scanned for viruses/spyware.  It’s a good thing I have layers of passwords that I use (some are for banking, some for credit card payments, some for email/Facebook).  For my email, Facebook and LinkedIN accounts, I had the same login information.  Well that has surely changed as of today. What upset me the most is that these people were actively conversing with my friends telling them where to send money, etc.  Also, being that I was in the car when this happened (and about 6 hours from my destination) I had to try to resolve all of this via my iPhone, which was not easy!  I’ve reported the incident to the FTC and the police.  My friend James had Western Union shut down all transactions to the address identified above (thank you for the support James!!!) while I emailed each of my contacts through my iPhone letting them know to ignore the “My Plight” email. I wanted to apologize to everyone who received this hoax and ask that if anyone did send money to the hackers – please let me know immediately so that I can report it to the police and FTC.  Lastly, I want to remind all of you that I would never ask you to send me money through email.  If I have access to email, I would have access to call you (SKYPE!!!).  Also, as a few friends suggested, you should know better than to believe that someone mugged me… me? of all people!?  I would definitely hurt them severely and probably steal their wallet too. J

 

Thank you to all of you who were able to assist and warn me on Thursday.  You are all great friends… and if you really do want to send me money… you can send it to my house J

 

-S