Virus Attack !! Dead Emails

"The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry."

If you have one of the newer versions of the iPhone, you’ve probably already figured out what an amazing gadget it is.  You have your own little computer lady that talks to you, answers questions and assists in sending emails or texts.  In addition your own little weatherman resides inside.  However, I must admit he certainly isn’t as accurate as we would hope he would be.

My little phone is amazing.   In a pinch and in addition to a communicator, it can also be a  GPS, a radio, an entertainer, a book, a camera, a photo album and the list goes on. It almost instantly receives a copy of my new emails.   The mute button is also a favorite app because I certainly don’t want my phone to  “ding” every time new email is received and especially at 3:00 AM.  I am content to discover any new emails after I wake up and not before.

Wednesday morning I noticed a ton of Mailer-Daemon emails had arrived in one of my email accounts.  Now this email account is the oldest one I use and it’s mainly one I’ve used with family and “old” friends.  However, my contact list is merged with the one I use with others.  It seems sometime during the night my email account was busy sending out emails to some people in my contact list … not everyone but some.  I’m thinking the ones who didn’t get it may have had their own server ambush the virus laden email before it hit their inbox.

This mess started with an email from a friend I used to work with.  When I first received it I didn’t open the link.  Everything was fine.  The   next day I went back and wondered what this friend might have sent.  Now that was the wrong thing to wonder.  I opened the link.  It never went to a page and I closed it but alas …. too late.  Now my messages were going out similar to the one I had received.

Trojan Horses hide everywhere

This Yahoo account had been set up about 8 or 9 years ago.  At that time we also had a DSL line through SBCGlobal (now AT&T).  My SBCGlobal  account forwarded mail to the yahoo account.  Easy … I thought. 

It seems when Yahoo and AT&T decided to get together they merged these two accounts.  Thus, my Yahoo account became an Yahoo AT&T account.  We eventually moved and the DSL line  cancelled.  I learned that normally an email account was deleted after about 100 days.  Well, not so in this case. It must have slipped through the cracks.

No virus is fun 

Wednesday I tried to change my password on the Yahoo account but was forwarded to the AT&T website.    I couldn't change the password because the account in their system no longer existed.

AT&T has a customer care center in the Philippines.  How do I know?  Well, over the last five days I'm sure I've talked to all of the employees there.  Some I could understand and others not so much.  I've been told all sorts of things, been transferred everywhere including busy lines and even been disconnected.  Every new person I talked to assured me they could help.  Every new person I talked to meant I had to start from scratch explaining the situation.  When I did get someone who could help, case numbers were established with a promised return call.  The two return calls came when we were driving and then walking the dog.  Phone numbers left to return the call were to a switchboard and not to someone who could access those case #'s.

Proceed with caution

All in all I have probably spent several hours on hold trying to get these accounts unmerged.  It'll be interesting to see my cell phone bill ... or maybe not. 

Saturday .. I decided to try again.  First in the morning ... no help. We even went to the AT&T store.  No luck.  I thought one more time in the late afternoon.  Did my luck change?    This time I managed a little luck.  I found someone who transferred me to a 2nd tier maintenance person.    I'm thinking I just might have hit pay dirt.  However, fixing the problem required taking the yahoo accounts off the server and closing them.  It's a scary thing to close old email accounts especially since everything you have is attached to them.  Supposedly, things should be up and running again on Monday.  I'm hopeful.   In the meantime, I have had to set up a new email account ... just in case.

It wasn't a virus that caused this.  The little email that selectively went out to some and not others was just something that triggered my attempt to change the password.  It seems an old dial-up phone still attached and an old webhosting account may have been the culprits .... may have been is key.  The billing portions had been closed out but not the accounts ..... my fingers are crossed.

That's what I've been up to!

‘Tis life on the road.