Unique way to confirm hacking of an email account.

Tweet

We are now all aware that email accounts are often hacked and it happens especially during trip to any foreign country when one’s email account is hacked and messages are sent to different email addresses thus discovered from hacking. The content of each and every message is more or less the same; “I have lost everything including my credit card and passport and all other vital documents. At present I have no money with me. So immediately send me as much money as you can.” I have heard of such frauds happening here and there but so far never had any practical experience of it. But today I had to face such a bitter experience in my personal life. My sister in law is now at Vienna with his family on an educational tour. We used to communicate with him through emails and very rarely over telephone. Last night I received such an email from him. Initially I was puzzled and got very much nervous. But soon I came to sense and contacted with my other brothers and sisters over telephone. Unfortunately none of them had still then checked their emails. On knowing everything they logged in their email accounts and they also discovered the same message. We all tried to contact him over telephone but all our efforts went in vain. The style of composition of the message had already aroused suspicion of a fraud. For confirmation of it, what we did was unique in nature. Each of us sent him an email asking him to answer some easy questions related with him to prove his identity like nick names of all our brothers and sisters, names of my late parents etc. Moreover, the language we used was our vernacular but the letters used were in English alphabets so that the hacker cannot understand anything of the content of our individual messages and as a result he could not be able to prove his identity. And in reality, the result turned out to be as we expected; no answer came within the next 48 hours and meanwhile we were able to communicate with him over telephone and the whole truth came to light. What I want to advise all others is that never get panic if you receive any such message from any of your dear and near ones visiting particularly any foreign country, ask him to prove his identity by answering some easy questions related with him. Always use your own mother tongue but the letters used should be in English so that it seems Greek to him. I personally believe that it is one of the easiest ways to prevent such online frauds which are very rampant now.