Thursday night while i was at work someone hacked into my cellphone account, ordered a sim card and my sim became non usable but they kept my number. They also hacked into my wacmaster@hotmail account but i could still see it on my phone. Just couldnt access it on my laptop anymore.
So just about every account i logged into, credit card accounts, my bank account also my SSI account would ask to send a text with a verification code. Hence they got my bank account, credit cards and Amazon and PayPal accounts. And then they changed all the passwords and began to see how much money they could grab.
The joke was on them though. All their attempted purchases were declined and this morning i placed all my checking accounts on officer hold. Which means nothing else can be taken out thru those accounts without being investigated. They were able to make two withdrawls for 7 and 3 dollars i think they were fishing. Then later this morning befor i knew i was hacked (which became apparent when i saw all my emails languge turn to Russian), my wife texted me to see if her phone was shut off because thats what i thought had happened at that point, she texted my phone number and someone asked her what happened to all the money in our bank account. Then they asked for the login info so they could fix it. They didn't realize that i always send a little heart and lips emojie when i text my wife. So she knew at that point it wasnt me. And when she later showed me the text after she got home from work i indeed confirmed it was not me.
So now everything is locked except my Credit Union card account, and my SSI account. They did change the password on that as well, because they had my number now and the text with the code to login to login.gov and change everything. So now i get to take a trip to the Social Security office and try and fix that.

Thank God i haven't started recieving funds from that yet as i had my old bank account setup to direct deposit.

Also i did check this afternoon when i saw that i had visited the Gimp Chat website at a certain time that i was not online. They didn't post anything. Again i believe they were fishing for money accounts. So i was able to change my password here and block them out. So if by chance any posts look funny not like what i would post PM a mod please, if i do not catch it first.

Again i believe i have successfully locked them out now but they may still be logged in on their phone and able to access still. Please just watch for weird posts.

Now to prove that this is Rod writing this post i have uploaded three new Custom Fonts to my website which also has a new password to lock them out. They are also posted in Custom Fonts for 2025.

I just don't want anyone to think its me if there are any derogatory posts in the future.

Thanks everyone for listening to my rant. I should have taken Lyles advice and used sandbox. Not sure if that would have helped at all but i am no computer wiz either.

Thanks again everyone.

Oh btw i will be creating a new email account as well. They haven't been on it since 1:30 pm today but i just don't trust that email anymore. I don't trust much of anything online anymore.

It was amazing how fast they violated my life.

I still can't figure out how they got a new sim so fast. Can that be done electronicly?

My guess is they used an E-SIM instead of a physical SIM card. They must have emulated your phone number some how. Not sure how it's done, but scammers do it all the time apparently.

I never used my phone for anything other than calls or text. I would never use it for Banking or anything financial. I just don't trust the security of it. I hope you get everything sorted out and back to normal.

How did they get your passwords? Did you have them stored on your phone? I guess they could've used brute force or something. Also they could've used a WhatsApp account with your phone number I guess.

Yet another reason I don't reply to unknown numbers...

I don't have a smart cell phone, but if I did, I would never use it with finance.

Once I saw a video years back where there were these Olympians who had just landed at a Russian airport. The video report said that within minutes of landing, these Olympians phones were hacked (with remote access, I think). Spy is a full time job.

I don't do banking on a mobile phone. They are really vulnerable. Use cash if you have to. They have not banned it yet.

On Linux to generate a 14 bit password
# openssl rand -base64 14

(of course you will never remember it but it's easy to put it somewhere you will remember)

Sorry to hear this, Rod. It would indeed be interesting to hear how they originally gained access.
I guess once they had access to your phone number / SMS (via the SIM card), they could "forget the password" and get a one-time code (to the hacked SMS) to reset the password on some services; maybe that's how they got access to the email, and then similar for other accounts (but they could also use the email as the reset location). Assuming you didn't use the same password for all accounts, of course (then it would have been even easier for them).

Scary stuff. Glad you didn't appear to lose much money from it at least.

Thx Griatch for your concern. Yeah i am still boggled on how they accessed my online Cell Phone account.
I was thinking maybe a data breech on their end but i know other folks that use the same service and they have had no problems. Not yet anyways. Going to contact my phone service today and see what they know.
That is where they started i believe. With the e-sim card which basicaly cloned my phone data.

Pretty devious people.

Sorry to hear about that, Rod. These crooks are getting more and more clever, sadly.

Everything is pretty much sorted now. Thanks everyone for your concern.
Only accounts i can not access now are my
wacmaster email
paypal
amazon
affirm (thru amazon)
and my local credit union credit card account though i did report it stolen and have since received a new one.
Still have to sort out the online account though.
They did snatch 47 dollars from my daily pay account (through work). But that was reimbursed to me.
So in the long run i lost 10 dollars and pulled out a lot of hair. LOL

What really sucked was losing all those serial numbers for commercial software that were sent by email.
Had to re purchase a lot of them. (except for Filter Forge Pro lifetime license. So that was cool.
Lost all my XARA software. Gonna miss that. Don't even think they release XARA 3D maker anymore.
I have it on USB but no serial...

All that wouldn't really matter if my old laptop and Windows 10 wouldn't have gone kapute.

Rod, that’s an awful experience and I’m really sorry you had to go through it—thankfully you acted fast and locked things down. It’s a good reminder for all of us to use multi-factor authentication apps (not just SMS), avoid linking critical logins to a single email or number, and regularly monitor account activity. Glad you’re regaining control, and thanks for the heads-up to the community. Stay safe out there.