Yes...WHY?!

This post my own sequel to my friend, Randi's post. About 2 weeks ago after having her computer attacked by a bad virus, she made a post asking why the world is full of mean people who just sit around thinking of ways to terrorize innocent people by slamming them with awful viruses that can ruin their computers, which are so much a part of our lives now (pictures, personal & business documents, etc), for no apparent reason except to just be mean. I could feel her pain because I've had 3 computers in the past 6-7 years get attacked; 1 was not salvageable and had to have the hard drive erased, the next was fine after a computer friend/neighbor was able to find the cure, and the 3rd is great after I spent 2 weeks last Christmas in a continued conversation with a wonderful volunteer from www.geekstogo.com. It's similar to the geeksquad, but is a free site run by the computer superheroes who want nothing more than to help people who get attacked by these vicious beasts (and will accept small donations, which I graciously gave after all the help he gave me) by having you do the work on your computer with instruction from these awesome people. I would recommend it to anyone who feels comfortable enough with digging into the inner confines of your computer. ANYWAY, the reason for my post...

I have a yahoo email account that I've had for over 10 years that I use when there is a possibility of receiving junk mail, so that I don't get junk in my hotmail account. This is where I get my babycenter.com newsletters and other random stuff. I had an eBay account with this address that I've only used 5 times in the last 5 or so years and not at all recently. We usually use Troy's account, if at all. I only check this email every few days and for some reason I haven't checked it for almost 2 weeks...until last night. It was midnight, Troy was crashed out on the couch, and I was finishing up my Christmas browsing. Just before getting off, I thought, "Hey, I haven't checked yahoo in a while...I'll just do that really fast." "Really fast"...yeah right. When I logged on, I found multiple emails from eBay confirming all my supposed bids for several unlocked Motorola RAZR phones (dated the 11th). Dang it. Luckily, 1 bid was outbid and ended. Then there were more emails from eBay canceling all the rest of the bids on the other phones and another email from eBay saying my account was suspended because they suspected fraudulent activity. Whew. Then I found another email dated the 6th from eBay.com.hk...yes, that would mean Hong Kong and, yes, it was in Chinese, reminding the owner of the email what the eBay user ID was...on top of that, it had already been read. Shoot. I went to panic mode and quickly changed my email password, which, due to my terrible foresight and naiveness, was the same as that eBay password, my hotmail password, and various other account passwords. Yes, I'm an idiot. It just so happens that I just changed my hotmail password that I have never changed in the 7+ years of having it just last week because I got an email that said it was from MY email address and was titled, "What is to be done with your wife?" (which, yes, I was smart enough to not open), so either my alter ego was sending itself an email about trying to get rid of my wife that I know nothing about or it was junk mail...I assumed the later. I figured the junk fairies were just randomly picking addresses and putting them as both the TO & FROM address, which probably still was the case, but I changed my hotmail password anyways. Coincidence? Probably, but that makes it a really freaky one. Back to original story...of course, I could not just go to bed and leave it until morning. So, as instructed by eBay, I contacted the LIVE CHAT agent at eBay to confirm my identity and reinstate my account. The lady said the no-name monsters had tried to sell a RAZR phone, but the emails said they were trying to buy them...either way they took off whatever fees were charged to me. My registration info in the account still had my Mesa info from 4 years ago in it (the lady had to prompt me with the middle prefix digits to jog my memory of my old phone # to verify my identity) and she told me that eBay monitors what computers you use your eBay account with, and if your account is being used on a different computer, they will call your contact phone # to verify if it's you or not. I thought that was pretty cool. So I had to update all my info. Then, with my password book in hand, I proceeded to change passwords and information in all the other accounts associated with that email, that had the same password, or that had the same user ID that I had on eBay. THEN I went through all my emails in the yahoo account (all 650+ of them) to find any accounts that I knew weren't in my recently created password book, just in case the thieves did the same and got any other account info. So, needless to say, when I finished 3 1/2 hours later, I was angry and tired. I had to wake up Troy to drag him off the couch and explain why it was late (or early, I guess) that by the time I went to sleep it was almost 4 am. And being a stay-home mommy of 2, I didn't get the relief of being able to sleep in on a Saturday morning because such things don't apply to me anymore.

And now my kids are about to kill each other, so I have to go, but to finish my post... Yes, WHY did that person hack into my email account and try to it use my info for his/her/it's own selfish purposes? Why do people feel the need to be so cruel to others for no reason? Why, when I try to be a good person and respectful of others that I do or do not know, are others trying to do the opposite? Why is the internet, such a wonderful techonology, abused and used for such horrid things by evil people? I guess we may never know the answers to these questions, so for now, I'll just hope that the villian who tried to use me will someday mess the wrong person and pay for it big time... Jerk...