I am not sure I can handle this one very well.

One of my oldest and most used emails has been hijacked.

I feel as if I had fallen into something as painful as it would be to fall or sit upon these cactus.

After thinking I had resolved my problem last night, someone got an email with a 2:30pm time on it today. And just now someone said they got one at 12:20pm today.

Called Comcast and the tech told me that anyone can use someone else’s email address as a return address and make it look like it came from them!!!!

Only if someone uses that return address, it will go nowhere. But the links in these emails are very dangerous to anyone who opens them.

There is NO WAY to stop them from doing this!

So I am wondering why every email account isn’t hacked many times over?

He didn’t have an answer for that question.

The scan of my computer says it is clean, no virus or Trojan found.

The tech then said that Norton could miss finding a Trojan on my computer! That was not reassuring at all. And that someone could be watching and recording my keystrokes. But it more likely is someone has just hijacked my email when that uninvited user was in my Comcast account. And I still don’t understand how they could have gotten into the account as a user, as I changed that password and security question in December.

None of this information makes me comfortable about doing business on the internet for myself or others.

I will call my favorite tech tomorrow and talk with him about all this.

Changing one’s password and security question doesn’t resolve this problem. Nothing can resolve this email hijacking from happening.

I am thinking this is what happened in my Hotmail account also, but that seems to not be sending out many emails with my address. Then there is one of the gmail accounts that also seemed to be doing that. All of these accounts have lots of information I refer to and many business associates I work with on many levels. Then there is the big Gallery project that I am using this email to contact people about participating in it.

So now I am really worried about how I can do any business on the internet at all!

Started out the day merrily working on collecting the information sent to me from people that want to participate in the Commonwheel Artists Old Spokes 40th Anniversary Gallery Show.

About 1pm, just as I was about to take a brunch break the phone rang. It was my brother. He was driving somewhere and decided to call an see if I would pick up the phone.  I did, and I went out to sit in the sunshine and talk with him. He keep coming up with things I have never done, that he wants done. Learning new things is always good, and could help in my or Commonwheel’s business also.

We talked about his closing one of the Trust bank accounts and cleaning out the safety deposit box there that is holding nothing but a few papers now.

And he asked me if I had problems with my hips. I don’t, other body parts like my knees, yes. But not my hips.

We chatted about many internet business and marketing ideas and needs he would like me to help with: Parish Gap Band,  Ellis Brush Mower, and a friend’s Sinister Frog book.

And soon after our conversation, he asked me if I would want to do web sites for other people. In our conversation, I had told him I really didn’t want to have more web site clients. Family ones were fine, but other people were hard to work with and either gave me info with a hurry up deadline, or didn’t give me enough info and pictures to do what they wanted done or didn’t explain what the wanted to have on a web site or complained they were overcharged and on and on. That caused him to talk about how band members didn’t do what they said they would do, along the same line as how I described working with clients on web sites. After we talked, he had gone to the paper he writes articles for and told me that the owner had looked at Parish Gap’s site and liked it. He needs help because he has too many businesses that want him to create a web site for them, and he is too busy to do that. Thus, my brother thought he’d ask if I wanted to take on some of his clients. I said I’d have to think about it over night.

This was before I knew that my email was so terribly hijacked.

Then I had an interesting Expert Media webinar with Tony Laidig. Got a bit more technical for me than I want right now, especially with all this craziness going on. And haven’t really wanted to do webinars. But if someone does want to do webinars, he laid out all the equipment and work one would need to do in order to be successful doing them.

Got a little bit of work done on my taxes. The book part is very convoluted with payments coming in all different ways, and Amazon changing its payment timing this year.

I lost track of time and forget I needed to be at City Council at 7pm, when I looked at the clock and it was 7:15pm I did jump in my car (I would normally have walked) to go there. By the time I arrived, they had already approved the banner hanging request, and another Commonwheeler was there for a different reason. So we were represented.

I never miss appointments or meetings! Just goes to show I am more stressed than I want to admit about this problem.

Back on the computer, I called Comcast again, and tried went on hold for Norton twice more. Each time stayed on the line to stay in line for the next person to help. After about 50 minutes, it hung up on me!

No help there.

Then I tried to compare MacScan to Norton. Couldn’t find any real current reviews or comparisons. Nor did I want to just go buy another virus program without feeling that it would find Trojans better than Norton that I get with Comcast Service.

I did get the activity window back into view on my desktop, but it seems to be very quiet. No more active than what should be there for my working on the computer.

What to do next?!?

Feeling Very Frustrated and a bit depressed.

Need to get some sleep for I have a very busy day tomorrow at home and with meetings.