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Daily Archive for Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

HACKED! Not a way to be in touch with friends :<(


Apologies for having to reach out to you like this, but I made a quick trip to the UK and had my bag stolen from me with my passport and credit cards in it. The embassy has cooperated by issuing a temporary passport, I just have to pay for a ticket and settle Hotel bills. To be honest,i don’t have money with me,I’ve made contact with my bank but the best they could do was to send me a new card in the mail which will take 2-4 working days to arrive here.i was thinking of asking you to lend me some quick funds that i can give back as soon as i get in,i really
need to be on a last minute flight that leaves in a few hours.

I can furnish you with info on how you will get me the money. You can reach me via (chrlnesson@aol.com) as am logged on via a smart device or hotel’s desk phone, the number is, +447045749898.

Thanks
Charlie

this well-crafted message begging money was sent, judging by the rush of calls coming in to me, to every email address in my address book.

my gmail account was hacked yesterday morning. my effort to regain control of my account has not yet been successful. it’s no piece of cake, Google offers only a flat web interface with no human behind it and no way to send a message. After my first try i get this back:

Hi,

Thank you for filling out the account recovery form. We know losing access to your account can be a frustrating experience and we want to help.

At Google, we take your privacy and security seriously. We’re committed to returning accounts only when we’re sure we’re giving them back to the accounts’ owners. Unfortunately, based on the information you provided, we were unable to verify that you own this account. To ensure that we are not compromising the security of the data, we can’t return the account at this
time.

If you can provide additional information to verify that you own this account, please visit http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?ara=1 and submit another request, providing as much accurate information as possible. If
you’re unsure about specific dates, provide your best guess.

Because Google doesn’t ask for much personal information when you sign up for an account, we don’t have many ways to verify that you own an account. In order to verify that you’re the real owner of an account, we need specific details about your account during the recovery process. We also can’t accept identification documents as a proof of account ownership because we don’t consider this a secure method. For more information on this policy, please visit
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=117219

If you are unable to provide specific information to recover the account or would like to create a new account, please visit
https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation and understanding.

Sincerely,
The Google Account Recovery Team

—————-

Please do not reply to this email. If your question was not answered,
please visit the Google Accounts Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/accounts

which sends you around the same loop again

:<(