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How I lost my Yahoo ID!
http://www.dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/aug2009_daily/06-08-09/artical/artical1.htm
I have just been through a horrible experience of losing my Yahoo ID to a hacker-cum-con artist.
The horrible experience begun with a message that I received in my In Box on August 1 from "Team Administrator Yahoo Account Service". The message said, "Dear Account User, This Email is from Yahoo Customer Care and we are sending it to every Yahoo Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestion's due to the anonymous registration of Yahoo accounts so we are shutting down some Yahoo accounts and your account was among those to be deleted.
"Due to the congestion in all Yahoo users and removal of all unused Accounts, Yahoo would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons."
The message from "Yahoo Customer Care" asked me to send following information to avoid closure of my email Account for good: user name & email ID, password: verification of password, alternate email address, date of birth and country/territory.
The message also warned me that "Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
I submitted the information least suspecting that the fake email was send by a hacker.
On Sunday, my weekly day-off when I was enjoying an over-night picnic organized by Karachi Union of Journalists at a farm in the Gadap suburb I did not opened my email account. However, attempts to open it on Monday proved futile with a message that my account was remain shut down another couple of days "due to security reasons". In short I was unable to access my account despite numerous attempts Monday.
On Tuesday August 4 I made numerous attempts to access my Yahoo email account that remained blocked for "security reasons". I, however, got the shock of my life when I opened the email account on the Hotmail. In the In Box among other messages there was a message to me from myself send from my Yahoo Account from "Syed Aslam" with the Subject "Urgent Help Needed".
The message sent on August 3 said, "How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn't inform you about my traveling to Africa for a program called "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education, It as been a very sad and bad moment for me over here and the present condition that i found myself is very hard for me to explain. I am really stranded in Nigeria because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because i have no money on me to clear my Hotel bill, I am now owning a sum $2000 for my Hotel bill.
"I need you to help me out with a sum of $3,500 urgently so that i can arrange and travel back home, I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don't even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how important and urgent i needed your help. I am sending you this e-mail from the city Library and I only have 30 min, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me immediately through Western Union or Money Gram and I promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home.
"Please you are the only one I can explain my situations to right now, kindly keep this confidential until I return home safely, just keep this within yourself and here is my information to transfer the money through Western Union Money Transfer."
The message from "Syed Aslam" came with a complete street address in Nigeria: "288 saianakakudinah Road; City: Victoria island; State: Lagos; Zip code: 23401 and Country : Nigeria". It further said, "Please you must send me this necessary details (Amount sent, MTCN, Sender's full information) or scan me the western union receipt and have it emailed to me as soon as possible, will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise you will have your money as soon as i return back home. All i need is your financial support and please do keep in prayers for me.Thank you and hope to hear from you soon, Syed Aslam"
It was at this point in time that I realized that a hacker has taken me for a ride. That got me worried immensely. You just can not imagine just how happy I was when after numerous attempts I did manage to access my Yahoo account. The first thing I did was to change the password and set other things straight including deleting the "alternate account" that the fraudster had created in place of my "alternate account".
I was shocked that the bastard retrieved the email addresses from the "Sent Folder" to sent the nefarious message to around hundreds of my such contacts including such prominent leaders of the Lawyers Movement like Munir A. Malik, President of Sindh High Court Bar Association Rasheed A. Razvi and dozens of other eminent lawyers; eminent columnists Dr. Shahid Masood , Orya Maqbbol Jan; Registrars of Supreme Court and Sindh High; personnels of TV stations and print media.
I checked my In Box and opened a message sent on August 3 from the administrator of www.makepakistanbetter.com, a website that carries my articles; such as this one published in this newspaper and to whom I had sent more articles for posting, that confirmed that I was indeed being hacked. The message said, "Asslam O Alaikum, Dear br Aslam. Thank you, I will be publishing them later but want to inform you that your yahoo account or your pc is hacked in some way because i got this below spam mail from your id today. So, you better change your yahoo password and run anti virus on your system as well".
Somewhat relieved after the success to 'retrieve' my Yahoo ID some of the responses to the "Urgent Help Needed" message sent by the bastard from my Yahoo email account did make me smile. Aamar Guriro, a friend and a 'gypsy journalist' working for Daily Times wrote, "I will send you money tomorrow, send me your phone number and also tell me that when we meet last time for confirmation". Another distant acquaintance Imran at Daily Express enquired, "What's ur add in pak". Reply from a friend Fazal read, "I am no longer at Dawn News but kindly send all your queries/ suggestions/ requests to assignments@dawnnews.tv".
An automated response from Dawn, the leading English Daily of the country, confirmed that "your letter to the editor has been received. Please do not call our office for further confirmation. Only letters which contain the sender's full postal address will be considered for publication". It also guided me to approach the relevant department if I that is the bastard wished to submit an article because "Letters to the editor should ideally pertain to articles or news Stories."
I sent a message to the long list of contacts to explain the situation. It said, "My Yahoo ID, from which I am sending you this email, was hacked and the bastard send you the "Urgent help Message". I have regained my ID back after efforts, Thanks God. I have been a victim of "stolen email identity for a while". It has been a horrifying experience. Sorry for the inconvenience. I am back in command. Is tajarbay say mujhay is bat ka ehsas hua kay Yahoo ya kissi aur email ID ka password jaldi jaldi tabdeel karna chahiyay aur usko mushkil say mushkil banana chahiyay. Once again sorry for the inconvenience. Your colleague, friend and dost. Talib-e-Dua Syed M. Aslam".
On the same day that is August 4 I received a message from Amar Guriro. It said, "thanx God, that you are okay, I was really shocked."
I too have been extremely shocked but thanks to Allah I am back in possession of my Yahoo ID and am now once again in command.
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