Hi, I returned from overseas, and apparently my email was hacked. I spent the last 3 hours changing all my accounts. Now I find I can’t get texts!
“We’re sending you a security code” never arrives. I’m going to switch providers, switch phone numbers if I must, but how is this happening!!?!
(this is a dupe thread, sorry mods)
I can’t get into my facebook, I don’t trust anything right now. My identity has been stolen
Also, how the hell do I text my new email to my thai girlfriend +6 number sans phone?!?
I finally called my bank after changing email, and somebody changed it back
Are you getting any other texts?
sometimes, but it’s random. Anything financial or personal never shows up. e.g I try to log into facebook, it says it doesn’t know me, I provide mobile number “we’ll send a text, yay!” never shows up.
nm, see above
I think it started when I connected with someone’s Instagram today. Things went straight to hell. HALP
Somebody cloned your phone sounds like. Yes the technology exists, has for a while, no it’s not common, or at least I don’t think it is, probably the only thing you can do is get s new phone and phone number.
For the rest I dunno.
Crap. Thanks 
Off to Verizon for SIM and new number
Wait, you were overseas, missed that. Start there with you phone seevice provider, thats where the problem is and where the solution will be found. Did you put a local service sim card into your phone while overseas? Things like that will be some of the questions to amswer to figure this out.
DO MOT GO TO VZW RETAIL STORE FOR TECH SUPPORT.
Those people are sales staff and pirates bordering on out right thieves and utterly ignorant and will lie to you when it comes to tech support issues.
I say this as one who tried his hand as tech support at s vzw call center
wtf? I’m, in USA. You’re giving me no options
I’ll ask for a new number, start over. Why is that a problem? And I’m going to ATT
And yes, they suck. So what. I open a new account
Weird things can happen with a cel phone just traveling in the US.
My very first live call at the call center was from a guy who went to Virginia to visit his mom, and his phone thought he stayed there instead of going back to his home state. Sometimes the call switching center gets “stuck” and won’t release your phone back to your home area.
Do you have Skype? If not, you can send one free SMS a day from http://www.talksms.com/. Use that one free message to send your new email to her.
We travel to St Martin every year for vacation. Some years everything works fine with our phones. Some years texts do not work, but Facebook Messenger does. Some years WhatsApp is the only way to talk to the US. This year I couldn’t text (send or receive) for the first week, then suddenly everything worked the second week.
Update: I hope I’m close to the end of this identity theft. The advice I was given was that the unique ID for my phone (IMEI?) was what was hacked, and there was no way to fix this short of a different phone with a different ID. Info here, though I’m less than sure how reliable any cite I find is, I’ve seen contradictory info quite a bit. More info welcome if anyone has some.
Since my phone and email were both compromised, the perpetrators could have gotten into anything of mine via “forgot password?” links plus getting my 2 level authentication texts. So I’ve had to lock my credit (Experian, Transunion, Equifax), reissue all my credit cards, buy a new phone and abandon my old phone number, yadayada. Most of this was easy, some of it wasn’t*.
Googling about, it seems that some (Android?) phones can be truly cloned (the entire phone contents snatched) with just magic software and proximity to the device. It’s unclear to me if this is even illegal, or what the defense is. I’ve put a VPN on my phone (ExpressVPN – it seems to slow data down less than others) but it’s unclear if that is a defense or just window dressing.
FWIW, one of my financial institutions claims that this issue is becoming more prevalent in the US, and that there are groups in Florida and Texas actively swiping phone, um, stuff. Is this true? Got me.
*Citicard, I’m glaring at you. Why send me a new card and then call it fraudulent and lock it - twice over two weeks, during legit purchases? Then once that’s cleared up, declare if fraudulent three more times over two more weeks? Twice for the same transaction! Jesus, a month of this nonsense, and probably 8-10 hours on the phone. I’m out. Hello, Chase!
Dude.