While I was safe at home in my office checking email, I was apparently also being mugged in London asking family and friends, old and new, to wire money to me.
Yes, my Facebook account was hacked and someone was chatting up people while pretending to be me.
It was very disconcerting to look at my online chat, which is set to off line, be online and active. I saw several chat boxes open and having conversations with people. One chat was dropping the f-bomb quite liberally. I turned the chat to offline and went to answer the phone. A family member seeing if I was alright. When I came back to my facebook the chat was active and going again. This time I logged off and restarted my machine.
I had several concerned phone calls that day from friends and family asking if I was ok. They figured I wasn't really in London, knowing that if I really was going to London they would have heard about it from me a long time before this. I also had a few responses basically stating " I would have sent you money, but they obviously haven't looked at my account" or "I'm the poorest person on the planet" or "I haven't talked to her in years, why would she contact me when she has that huge family".
Basically, I was hacked by a stupid person.
It was heartening to know that my friends and family are smarter than this stupid hacker person. Many asking probing questions that the stupid hacker person wouldn't know but the real me would have known. It was also nice to feel the care and concern from those contacted by this stupid person.
Facebook, being the wonderful institution they are, has disabled my account because I violated the terms of use by impersonating another person and sending out solicitations for funds.
Seems the hacker isn't the only one who is stupid.
