Thursday, September 13, 2007

This was rather scary

So tonight at around 8:55pm (30 minutes ago) I was taking a photo of my latest book pile, getting it ready to post here, when an email came through from Amazon acknowledging that I'd just changed my email to long-silly-address@mail-relaying-service.com and that my password had also been changed. I rarely get spam these days, and the email looked like it had actually originated from Amazon, so I checked the header. It had. The message was real.

Then I went to Amazon itself, and discovered that my email and password indeed had been changed - and I was locked out of my account. I log onto Amazon only from my home and work PCs, and my password isn't easy to guess, so I have no idea how this could have happened. Maybe someone was using a password-generating program and managed to get in.

After spending about 15 minutes on the phone with a customer service rep from India, verifying various address/credit card details, I have my account back. I'm just fortunate I had the PC on when that password-change email came through, or else someone could've gotten in and bought whatever, using my credit card, and had it shipped to them.

Anyhow, if you get an email regarding a password change from Amazon, don't assume it's a spoof - check the message header to be sure.

Book pile photos coming up.

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