Monday Confessional - Hacked

Last week my gmail account was hacked... while I was on the phone with the hacker... in India... after giving him my password.

Wait, that's not even a hacking.

I was scammed! After I called the scammer myself!

Not my finest moment. 

The short story goes that my iphone died and I received a replacement one for free, had everything restored on it, but had to set up my email again in the settings. Which didn't work for some reason. So I called my phone provider, who, after being unsuccessful in their attempts to help me, suggested I google gmail's help line.

Which I did.

TIP: Do not lazily call the first number you see in google search results after typing in: "gmail help number", without actually clicking on the website link it belongs to. And then don't give the person that answers the phone your email address and password.

It's not like the warning signs weren't there.. in fact there was an actual audible BEEP BEEP BEEP that kept interrupting our "technical support" conversation, and the WHOLE TIME I was mentally questioning whether this was a legit conversation or not, and whether or not I was possibly the stupidest person in the world. But because they sent me a verification code, I didn't bail until I was asked to pay a "one time fee" of "only $99.99" to remotely link computers and secure my account from future hacking attempts.

To which I said, "no way is that legit, sir."
And then was quickly told goodbye and hung up on.

Guess what happened next? Almost all of my emails disappeared.

(Isn't this the loveliest tale?)

So next I banged my head on the computer desk and called myself a fool and changed my password twice more (after kicking off the user in India that gmail told me was still in my account), and found gmail's REAL website, which of course has NO contact phone number anywhere at all because real gigantic companies are frustrating and rude like that.

This is all very embarrassing. I chalk it up to it the fact that it was late in the afternoon, at the end of the week, and I'd just used all my brain power grocery shopping and budgeting, and please don't judge me.

(p.s. I still can't get into my gmail account on my phone. Send help.)