A Hack, a Scam, and a Comcast Tale of Woe

My Comcast email account was hacked last week.  Actually, it was completely taken over by a hacker for about 24 hours!

The reason for the hack was so the hacker could try to perpetrate a con.  The hacker tried to get the contacts in my address book to buy Amazon gift cards for him/her.  The entire incident was aggravating, to say the least.  But such is the culture today.

Dealing with Comcast’s customer unfriendly system and trying to regain control of my email account is the tale of woe I’m referring to in the headline.  And I’m pretty sure Comcast’s terrible customer support figured into the hacker’s plan.  So if you have a Comcast email account you might want to read this and take whatever steps you can to mitigate any potential problems.

There is also, however, a Catholic slant to the story that I’ll get to near the end of this article.

Surprise!

It was a real surprise when I was unable to access my email account.  After a couple unsuccessful attempts to login I called Comcast.  About six hours later – and it really it seemed much longer – after talking to a number of unhelpful offshore account reps in three different countries (one even quite deliberately – not accidentally – hung up on me!) I finally got a rep who was able to help me.

I suspected, when I made the first call, that fixing the problem was going to be an agonizing process.  I’ve been a Comcast customer for over 30 years and over those 30 years Comcast’s customer service has gone from bad to worse.  For a time I was even keeping a record of all the Cable TV and internet problems I had and how long it took Comcast to fix them.

I kept telling myself, however, Comcast was experiencing growing pains – that they were growing so fast they couldn’t keep up with the problems.  And when their cable TV and internet service works, it works pretty good.  But my hacked email account just may be the proverbially straw.

The hacker managed to change my password and inserted a new, secondary email address and cell phone number for account verification.  Comcast’s account reps could easily have fixed this (as I finally found out six hours later).  But it seems Comcast’s offshore personnel have procedural guidelines they have to follow, even if they don’t make a lot of sense.  Sadly, for me, no one, not even the supervisor who hung up on me, was willing to take any initiative.

I’m sure all of this factored into the hacker’s plan. The hacker undoubtedly knew that Comcast’s customer support is atrocious.

The Scam

It appears the hacker sent emails from my account to everyone in my address book asking if they ever purchased anything from Amazon.  As far as the people receiving those emails knew, it was Gene M. Van Son asking the question.  The email did, after all, come from my email address.

If someone replied back affirmatively, the hacker then replied to the responder saying, in effect, ‘my credit card got declined and I need to purchase two $100 Amazon gift cards for my niece for her birthday, which is tomorrow; can you purchase them for me and I’ll pay you back?’

I know this was the hacker’s scam by emails I was able to recover from my email ‘trash’ file.  Coincidently, it was also the same scam that was perpetrated on me a few months back!

One of the guys in the golf league I am on had his email account (also a Comcast account) hijacked by a hacker.  None of the guys on my golf league, including me, fell for the scam.  But we all felt bad for the guy whose account was hacked.  Now I really felt his pain because I was feeling it myself!

I’m not sure how the hacker was able to take over my email account.  There is obviously a vulnerability somewhere in the Comcast software. The hacker was aware of this and was able to exploit it.  I also tend to think Comcast is aware of the hole.  The question is, are they unable to fix it or do they just not care?  (These are all some things to think about if you have a Comcast email account.)

A Messed-Up Email Account

I’ve since found out at least one of the people in my address book fell for the scam, and I’m hoping no one else fell for it.  Some of the people I’ve contacted since ‘the event’ said they figured my account had been hacked.  I think I got control of my email account back before much damage was done.

Once my account was back in my hands, however, the hacker/scammer was still trying to work his/her con.  One of my friends got an email from the hacker three days later with instructions for purchasing the gift cards.  The email came from “GENE VANSON” but the email address following my name was clearly not mine.

Happily, the hacker was too late.  I had already sent out emails warning people of the scam.

After I got my account back I found that the hacker really messed up my email account and also my address book.  He/she created a file called “Collected Addresses” into which he/she (probably with a software program) moved just the email addresses from my address book.  Then he/she deleted all other information attached to each address.  This made contacting the folks in my address book to let them know about the hack and the scam problematic.

There were other problems with which I’ve had to deal. Suffice it to say the hacker/scammer really did a number on my email account.

The Catholic Slant

As one my priest friends responded when I emailed him explaining the hack and scam, “Imagine the mindset of the person who does something like this.”  I cannot, try as I might.

I’ve encountered a few less than virtuous people in my life, including a con man who bilked my dad out of $200 back in the 1970s.  But then this same con man tried the same con on my brother-in-law a couple months later.  My brother-in-law grabbed the guy, locked him in a room, and called my dad.

When my dad arrived he told the man they’d turn him in to the police unless he paid back the money he took.  He did.  The man called his sister who brought my dad the money.  She also profusely thanked my dad for not turning her wayward brother in to the police.

I’ll never know if my dad did the right thing by not turning the con man in.  Did the con man repent or did he continue his life of trying to con people out of their money they legitimately earned?

A few years ago I wrote an article for CS entitled, “No, We DO NOT Need Better Systems.”

In that article I wrote, “More laws and secular progressives changing our systems in a misguided attempt to make them better are not the answers.  We need better people.  We need people who are not so easily swayed by the devil.”

I also opined in that article, “Imagine if the world was peopled by devout, practicing Catholics, all trying to lead virtuous lives.  In all likelihood, there would be no war, no poverty, no hunger, no racism, and no murder.”  There would also be no scams like the one I’ve written about here.

We Need Better People

The bottom line here is that politicians will NEVER be able to fix the problems in our world.  Unscrupulous people will always break laws, and hurt fellow human beings.  It takes better people to make a better world, not more laws.

As Jesus instructed us all, at the end of His Sermon on the Mount (Mathew 5), “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Forgiveness

It’s not easy forgiving someone who has wronged us in some way.  But Jesus tells us we must.  So Mr. or Ms. Hacker, if somehow you happen to read this, know that I forgive you.  I’ve also prayed for you.  But the hours of irritation and trepidation you caused will be hard to forget.

In trying to “imagine the mindset” of the hacker, I wonder if he is thinking, “It’s your own fault for choosing to use Comcast email.  It’s a buggy system and you are stupid for using it!”  But that does not condone his actions.  The system may be buggy, but he made a deliberate choice to exploit it and he caused needless ‘pain and suffering.’

I shudder to think what might happen if he picks on some elderly person who has heart problems, and is in poor health.  Will the shock of not being able to access his or her email, combined with Comcast’s inept customer service, cause the person to have a heart attack?  While this may be a remote possibility, it could happen.  If so, his little hack will have resulted in someone’s death.  Unintended consequences, or if you prefer, the butterfly effect, will always abound.

The Aftermath

I suspect the hacker was messing with my email account for at least a few days before he took it completely over.  For one thing I was deluged with a couple hundred requests to confirm my account from companies and organizations I had never even heard.  This happened a couple three days prior to my account being taken over.  The hacker may have been testing his programs or trying to create some kind of smokescreen for his endeavors.

I also got notifications from Kohl’s that the item I ordered was ready for pickup and that it had been picked up.  It appears that the hacker was able to place an order based on information I kept in a Kohl’s email file.  I contacted Kohl’s and they removed the charge from my account.

The hacker also deleted my Amazon account and all the invoices and order information I had in an Amazon email file.  I thought I got Amazon to restore my account but it seems maybe they have not.

Needless to say, I’m still dealing with the problems the hacker created.  It has not been fun.  But I’m not worried about what may happen next because I found out long ago that Jesus is The Solution To All Your Problems.