Hotmail account hacked

Yesterday I received an email from a friend in the State of Washington, offering me the deal of a lifetime. Too good to be true? It usually is. But what I immediately noticed was the number of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. I knew she was a better writer than that, so I wrote back - but not to her, to her in care of her husband, asking if her e-mail account had been hacked.

And, sure enough, it had been. They replied that the hotmail account had been out of use for months, after having been shut off by hotmail.

If you become suspicious after an email is returned to you as undeliverable, but you don't recognize the To: email address and had never sent it, contact your email provider. It could be that your account was hacked or a virus planted. Keep your good name in the clear by taking the initiative.

Several years ago one Woodstock resident found that her AOL account had been closed after it was used to send thousands of spam emails - from her account, but not using her Address Book. She reported it to AOL, and AOL restored her account. The same thing immediately happened again, because there was a virus in her computer. It took about four hours for her to remove the virus, following instructions from AOL.

And, by the way, don't click on links in any message that you consider suspicious, even if it is from a known e-mail address.