I’m Not Selling Viagra

Earlier this week it seems “I” sent out an email with a mysterious link to the people in my address book, up to and including distant relatives and prior employers.

 

That’s an awesome way to keep in touch. Not.

 

I haven’t learned exactly what I was advertising in my email – my cousin tells me he never opened it because the return address was nonsense – but I have to assume I was asking for money because I’d gotten stranded abroad, looking for someone to hold a large sum of money in their personal bank account, or perhaps even hoping my friends would take my word for it and start using Viagra.

 

Those are the most popular scams these days according to The Google.

 

For kicks and giggles, as well as the embarrassment factor in sending Great Aunt Bertha junk email, I’m going to go with the Viagra theory. Everyone needs a good Viagra story, right? Because penile dysfunction is so common we need to hear about it during prime-time television and every time we see spam in our email accounts.

 

Plus, with four kids, I would assume most of the people we know are guessing penile dysfunction is not a problem in our family. (Unless you’re all about population control and then you’d assume the dysfunction is simply in our inability to stop the procreation process.)

 

I’ve consulted The Google and discovered my encounter with spam is actually not a symptom of hacking. Instead it’s called “spoofing.”

 

“Hacking” involves someone literally breaking into your email account and using it to send messages. I did get a message from Google a few weeks ago asking me to change my passwords because someone from Ecuador was trying to log in.

 

I’m not in Ecuador and I don’t speak Spanish (except when ordering Taco Bell and 99.997% of the world would agree that doesn’t count). Or Ecuadorian. I will have to consult The Google for clarification on the language spoken there but I know it’s not English, which is my mother tongue.

 

After this alert, I promptly changed every password to every email, website, social media account, and banking system with which I am affiliated.

 

I am now locked out of every email, website, social media account, and banking system because I can’t remember my new passwords. I know they involved letters, numbers, and symbols found on a traditional keyboard but that’s where my knowledge base dries up.

 

My strategy in changing the passwords was to pretend a sprightly chipmunk did the hokey-pokey on my computer keyboard. Whatever buttons pushed would be the new password.

 

In retrospect this wasn’t the best philosophy. I don’t have the same mental acuity, energy, or wingspan as the average chipmunk. Nor do I perform the hokey-pokey well.

 

Who am I kidding? I just plain forgot to write the passwords down for posterity. Lovely.

 

Anyway, I recently changed the passwords so I know my accounts weren’t hacked.

 

Conversely, I’m “spoofing” my friends and family and the furniture salesman I worked with while ordering twin-sized bunk beds for the college residence halls. (Hi, Bill! Hope you’re enjoying the Viagra you ordered on my recommendation!)

 

Spoofers steal the email addresses from your contact list. The Google says this is due to a malware or virus. The only feasible reason I can guess I was targeted is by accidentally clicking to unsubscribe from an email list.

 

I unsubscribe regularly. I could have been foolish enough to fall for this ploy.

 

BUT. If there’s a virus on my computer my husband has some explaining to do.

 

This is because he has a love affair with Apple products. In addition to regularly quoting the mantra, “Once you go Mac you’ll never go back,” (which tends to make me feel like compulsively washing my hands when he says it) he has assured me Macs are programmed with more safety locks than Fort Knox. Or the kitchen of a new mama who has an extra $50 and got set loose in the Safety First section of Babies R Us.

 

There’s something suspicious going on.

 

Just in case you get a message for me while I try to get to the bottom of this mystery I’d like to clarify:

 

• I haven’t left the country. If I need money I will call you directly.
• I haven’t come into a large sum of money that needs a discrete disposal into your bank account.
• I’m not using Viagra. Promise.

 

Have you ever been hacked, spammed, or spoofed? What did you do to fix it?