Impostor

Life has been... stressful, as of late. Paul and I are once again involved in the Eagan Community Summer Theater, which is The Music Man (we're in the pit orchestra). It is literally taking up ALL of our free time. It's fun and we wouldn't otherwise be able to play very often, but it's a HUGE time commitment.

We had rehearsals last Thursday night, Friday night, all day Saturday, Monday-Wednesday night from 6-10:30, senior preview Thursday night, opening night Friday, and a show Saturday. This week we begin a series of shows Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and next week Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and two shows Saturday before its long awaited conclusion. Oh, and any time that we're not doing a show, it's playing in my head. Can someone say wiped out?

On top of all of that, my identity was stolen. Not so far as my banking information (yet), but I have no idea what information this person has. Long story short, I got a couple of emails from facebook at 3:09 and 3:16 on Friday advising a password change request and then a confirmation. I don't know why, but at the time I really didn't think too much of it. Later in the day, I tried to check my email on my phone and was denied as it said that my user ID and password were incorrect. Wtf? I got home and tried to get into my email but was denied once again. When it clicked that I'd been hacked, I clicked a link within Gmail that said "My account has been compromised." It lead me to a password reset, where it said that it would send further instruction to my recovery email... great, something over which I had no control. Funny thing was, the recovery email address listed (partial, for security reasons... HAH!) was a yahoo.com account. I don't have a Yahoo account. Then it said that if I no longer had access to this recovery account, that I could wait 24 hours in order to answer a security question to retrieve my password. Wonderful.

So then I tried to tackle facebook, to which I also didn't have access. Clicked a similar link about my account having been hacked, and was asked to enter one of three things to verify my identity: a) my email address (there was no way that I was entering that... it wasn't mine at the moment; b) my facebook page URL (which I didn't know; or c) my name and a facebook friend's name. I went with (c) and entered my name and Paul's name... not recognized. I'm not totally clear on what happened with facebook, because Paul was the one working on it. Ultimately, he had to click a link that said something like "my friend's account has been hacked." Again came the promise of a wait time before any hope of a resolution.

A tortured 24 hours came and went before I was able to answer "my" security question... which wasn't mine at all. Clicked yet another link about not being able to access my account which led to a questionaire with specific questions about my account (What are 5 email addresses I email frequently? Were you invited to join Gmail? By whom? What date was that? What other Google applications do you use? What date did you start using those? Blah, blah, blah...). After filling out the form and submitting, it said that it would take up to 24 hours for their investigation before they would contact me at my provided university email address.

I received an email a couple hours later saying that they had concluded their investigation and would grant me access back into my account. As soon as I reset the password and got in, I very quickly noticed that ALL of my emails, ALL of my contacts, and ALL of my data was completely gone. This was when the tears came. I never really deleted emails because there was enough space, so I had emails from the early days of Paul and me, emails that I had saved from Stephanie, recipes... my whole life, and it was all gone. I followed the steps in the email sent to me and made sure that all of my desired settings were intact.

I discovered that the individual that had hacked my account had set it up so that all of my emails would be forwarded to them and then deleted in Gmail. Sooooo I turned THAT off. I recorded the email address and reported it to Windows live, where the account originated. They later informed me that they had closed the account as it violated terms of service, but no word on my emails. I also found a few other interesting things while sifting through settings. My country had been changed from USA to Yemen. Also, when I looked up the IP addresses used to log into my account, they were all over the world. A couple from New York, France, Illinois, Nigeria... wow.

I now have gained back control over my Gmail and facebook, but who knows what information this person gained from reading all of my emails. I would never be dumb enough to put my SSN in writing, but I don't know anything else I had that might be considered useful to another. I immediately changed my banking password and put out a fraud alert as a precautionary measure. But, I can't begin to describe how angry I am, and how violated I feel. Here's hoping that was the end.

In the mean time, I'm going to continue being exhausted. Good night.