The Best of Times

Several weeks ago I tried to access my Hotmail account and found that the password had changed. I tried several passwords and none of them worked! Microsoft was supposed to have a way to recover the account by answering a question but the answer to my secret question had also been changed. I was a bit worried about this because I had recently started using Live Mesh to keep my documents synchronized between my several computers. I hoped that there was just a technical problem and that my data was either lost completely or at least not compromised.  I tried several other ways to recover my account with no success.

Then a few days ago the story got even better. I never used that account for email, only to sync documents, so you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from a good friend on my real email account telling me that he though my Hotmail account had been hacked! He said that he had received the following email from “me!” The email is one of those classic scam emails and so I’m including it here. There are tons of problems with this email and I would never send such a thing.

I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now.

I’m stuck in Scotland with family right now, we came down here on family vacation, we were robbed, worse of it is that bags, cash and cards and our cell phone were stolen at GUN POINT,and it’s hard to get hold of a phone here in Scotland it’s such a crazy experience for us, we need help flying back home, the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is we still have our passport but don’t have enough money to get our flight ticket back home, please i need you to loan us some money.

All we need is $2,500.00 but anything you can spare right now will be appreciated and I promise to refund it to you as soon as I arrive back home safely.. You have my word!

Thanks,

Well, I obviously wasn’t in Scotland. Also . . . how was I able to access a computer to send an email but couldn’t find a phone to use? Did I have a laptop with me? Well if I did, why didn’t the thief take that too. I don’t know! I guess it will remain a mystery.  Anyway, the moral of the story is: change your passwords often.

P.S.  I may not be the best writer, but my grammar is not that bad!