Last week, I got an email alert that someone tried to access my email account in Miami, FL. I live 200 miles away. Didn't really think much of it at the time, and just figured it for routine spam.

So I open my email today and see that I have about 1000 emails. This is fun. I normally get 20 emails a day. I see that every one of these emails is that I "subscribed" to an email list. These are email list from all over the world. And I am now subscribed to thousands of them. Apparently its a common email attack. And its fucking annoying. I seriously get about 10 emails per minute all day long.

I'm afraid that this email address that I have used for 20 years straight, is now beyond compromised and I will have to forget about it and use a new email address.

One of the emails was from Cabelas. For a $500 purchase. What? I login to my Cabelas account, and sure enough, some fuck stick has logged into my account (with my actual password, FUCK!) made an illegal purchase. They used my billing address, but the delivery address is to some apartment complex in south Florida. The last four on the credit card I don't recognize, but that credit cards is attached to my real address and zip code. Oh boy.

I call Cabelas and they cancel the charge and order before shipment and put a fraud hold on my account.

Now Ive been in damage mode for the past several hours. I am logging into every account I have and can remember and changing my passwords.

I may have to put a fraud hold on my credit so no new accounts can be opened. I'm looking into that now.

Anyone ever dealt with this shit? Any tips? Is my email address now permanently fucked?

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Anyone ever dealt with this shit?

Several times. And once is one time too many.

Sorry you're going through this. But you have to go through it -- you can't just let this shit drop.

Good luck to you. You'll get past it, but you'll be angry and frustrated for a bit.

Use secure passwords. You will not be able to remember them. It's fine to write them down or use a password manager.

Many folks get caught since they use the same password everywhere. Even if it is a good password, if it is used at multiple sites, you can be compromised. Use different passwords for different sites. It's a PITA, but will save you in the future.

Use two-factor authentication for your email account (and other accounts too). If the service does not offer it, find another email service.

Sorry you have to deal with this.

Yes, but try 30,000 emails a day. There was no recourse but to retire the email address.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I login to my Cabelas account, and sure enough, some fuck stick has logged into my account (with my actual password, FUCK!) made an illegal purchase. They used my billing address, but the delivery address is to some apartment complex in south Florida. The last four on the credit card I don't recognize, but that credit cards is attached to my real address and zip code. Oh boy.

You may have much bigger problems than you think. At the very least I suspect a computer or other device you've used to log into Cabela's is compromised with a keylogger.

You may be an identity theft victim.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Now Ive been in damage mode for the past several hours. I am logging into every account I have and can remember and changing my passwords.

Hopefully not using the computer or other device you suspect is compromised?

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
I may have to put a fraud hold on my credit so no new accounts can be opened. I'm looking into that now.

You should, IMO. Immediately.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Anyone ever dealt with this shit? Any tips? Is my email address now permanently fucked?

My name, address, SSN, etc. has been stolen from the U.S. Government, Experian and a couple others, so I'm pretty much screwed. I have credit reporting locks on Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, and a security freeze on my consumer report at ChexSystems for good measure.

Make absolutely certain you record all information necessary to lift the freezes as necessary, and store it where it cannot possibly be lost and where you'll be able to find it again. (I've a neighbour failed to do that. Hoo boy!)

Post your opinion somewhere on-line and use your email address, and then the person(s) you pissed off will use your email address and subscribe and post to all manner of things, and the result will be a prolific amount of SPAM and what-all.

I get user's asking me to "make it stop", and my reply is, "life is tough, and sometimes it kicks you in the balls".

All you can do is move on.

And create a new alias similar to the old name.

And never use your "preferred" email for anything that risks it being used for such an exploit.

I have, but it’s been many years ago...probably close to 10?

I was actually on my email and saw it start to happen in real time


All of a sudden I start getting “thank you for buying” emails, and PayPal transaction notifications (this was before the bullshit anti gun PayPal stuff) and then all of a sudden the emails would disappear

Change and lock the PayPal password, but not before I had ordered over $6000 worth of iPads and had them sent to Huntington Neach, CA

Big problem....at the time my PayPal account was linked to my bank account

I talk Wachovia fraud, put a hold on it...but it won’t take effect for 24-36 hours

Talk to PayPal...the money will leave in 12-18 hours

Great....call Wachovia back...they tell me too bad, nothing we can do

Walked into my local Wachovia office and told them I wanted to close all my accounts...a lot of money

Gee, guess what, they actually could do something

I said great, and closed all the accounts anyway

Fuck them

Called the cops in my jurisdiction. They sent out a cop and took a report

Got a call the next day from a cop on CA. Talked to him

And that’s the last I heard about it

It was a shitty afternoon

Sorry to hear of your problem.

Re: “Anyone ever dealt with this shit? Any tips?”

No I’ve never had such a problem. As for tips, I have three:

#1 – I’ve used a superb $20/yr email service, FastMail.com, since 2001.

#2 – I use a password manager app to generate long, strong passwords. A different PW for each of my many accounts.

#3 – I have a Mac, and run a MalwareBytes scan prior to every backup, to insure that each of my backups is clean. MalwareBytes has never issued any report other than “Congratulations, you are clean.”

My email address is almost as valuable to me as my SS#.

quote:

You may have much bigger problems than you think. At the very least I suspect a computer or other device you've used to log into Cabela's is compromised with a keylogger.

You may be an identity theft victim.

This