Today, my husband called me at work, and he was in hysterics. He was laughing so hard, I could barely understand. The few words I could make out were “your email,” “hacked,” “erection” “my dad and your ex.”
I finally deciphered what he was meaning — my old Yahoo account, which I rarely use, was apparently hacked, and my husband was on an email list that included him, his father and my ex-boyfriend and it said “Win the sexuality! And forget about impotence” and had a link to something spammy.
Awesome.
Then, the emails started coming in. I got to give those spammers some credit. Almost all the emails said something different and some even looked semi legit.
After I finished laughing, I had an “Oh crap” moment. This is the account that I opened when I moving from DC to Florida nearly eight years ago, and it had a slew of contacts from my old job, as well as other people I’d met through work or other purposes. People like a reporter at the Wall St. Journal. And two old bosses. And the entire alumni softball team I played on in DC. In other words, people I have not communicated with in eight years.
So I quickly sent this email out to my entire address book:
By now, I hope you’ve all realized that I did not send that last email. Apparently, I’ve been hacked.
Some of you have been in my address book in this rarely used account for so long that you probably don’t even remember me anymore. So, this is awkward, but how are you doing?
Sorry for the spam!
Jackie
The best part was that I started hearing from people I haven’t talked to a long time. I got messages from my cousin-in-law in Atlanta, an old work colleague who lives in Belgium now, the aforementioned ex-boyfriend (who now, by the way, happens to be a good friend of mine and is friends with my husband, so don’t get the wrong idea!) and, the most shocking of all — my ex-best friend.
She and I were best friends growing up and she was even a bridesmaid in my wedding five years ago. Then, about two years ago, I suddenly realized one day she had de-friended me on Facebook. Even better, she was STILL friends with my mom and brother — just not me. I have no idea what I did wrong. Since then, I’ve sent a birthday card and Christmas card but never heard anything back.
But today, she sent back a nice email and asked how I was doing. So, now I’m stressing over what to write. When I tweeted about it, I got this response:
You know what, I think @KidDictionary is right — it is kismet. So I think I’ll just respond with a pleasant email and see where it takes us. My husband really wants me to reply, “I’m doing great. We should really catch up on Facebook sometime.” Smart ass.
How would you respond?
So what’s my takeaway from today? First of all, clean up those address books! I have no idea how I got hacked so I’d like to say I had some advice for how to avoid it. But, given the fact I’ve had that same password (even though it was a really good one) for eight years, I think changing passwords every so often is a good idea.
Know what else I learned? Maybe spam isn’t such a bad idea. Got someone you’ve been putting off reconnecting with? Send a fake spam and use it as a conversation starter!
As I have gotten older, I have become a lot more direct. However, I have learned most people can’t handle when someone is like that, so I pull it back a little. So in a situation like this, I think it all depends on how much I want to reconnect with someone. If I really do, then I would answer their questions in detail and ask similar questions back about them. If I am not into it too much, then I would reply back with brief answers to questions, ask maybe a question or two and then that’s it.
Either response, you can always find out later why they decided to disappear.
I like your husband’s suggested response too. haha
Oh, I don’t know what you should do, but I definitely want to know how it turns out! I have an ex-really good friend too, and she broke my heart when she de-friended me IRL, before the days of Facebook. So I’m always interested in stories like this. Please let us know what happens!
I liked DadJovi’s response. 🙂 That is all.
You handled the hacking pretty well, normally those things go unacknowledged! I think a polite response is good enough, and see where it goes 🙂 People do strange, unexplainable things sometimes!
First off – I love that you suggested we send a fake spam. That totally cracked me up. Apparently someone logged into my email recently too – though nothing (as far as I know) happened – I just got a message from Google saying “you logged in from new jersey yesterday – was that you” – UM NO! I haven’t left Illinois in ages and I haven’t been to New Jersey in over a year. Needless to say – I have been frantically changing all my passwords since you can get my passwords through my email. Now im struggling to remember all the new passwords. lol.
I definately think you should give that friend another chance. you may never know what happened. or you may find out 5 years from now over coffee – I have an old friend, similar thing, only we were kids. we were best of friends for years and then one day we were the best of enemies. granted we were in middle school. years later – we reconnected and she came to my wedding. neither of us knew what happened but we are really close again now. and ultimately – I’m all about second chances… most of the time 😉
Thanks for the comment! Aren’t spammers/hackers the worst? There’s GOT to be a better way to make a living!
I’ve responded to the friend with a light and breezy email. Baby steps are probably the key, particularly since she lives across the country.
And I had one of those middle school fallouts too. It seemed so much worse then, I guess because you see your friends all day, every day in school. As an adult, it’s a bit easier to adopt the “outta sight, outta mind” mentality!
But I’m still glad to hear reunions can happen!
nice to know i wasn’t the only one that got hit yesterday, except it was my still active hotmail account! but can totally relate to old contacts, people you haven’t talked to etc. sometimes it’s nice to reconnect though.
I am in the same situation with an ex-best friend right now! And coincidentally she was in my wedding 5 years ago…and then un-friended me on facebook (and twitter and LinkedIn…and stopped returning emails, calls, etc.) about a year ago!
About a month ago I got an email from said ex-friend explaining why she got upset with me in the first place (still getting a dig in but saying she forgives me for what she thought I did wrong)…and that now she wants to be friends again and share all of the milestones in our lives that we’ve missed over the last year. I still haven’t responded. I’m so hurt by her actions from when she went through the whole un-friending process, I don’t know if the friendship is worth salvaging! I’ve had a response in my email drafts for 2 weeks now and just don’t know whether I want to let bygones be bygones…or try to make it work.
Looking forward to seeing what you end up doing & how it all works out!