HELP URGENT! My email got changed, not by me

#1

I just received an email from dreamhost telling me that my contact email account was changed. I DID NOT MAKE THIS CHANGE!

I can’t log into my account to receive technical support. When i try to log in, dreamhost does not recognize me email account, which tells me that someone did change my email account. YIKES!

How do we fix this problem before whoever changed this account does damage to my site.

when i try to contact the alternate website to contact support my browser tells me that “This Connection is Untrusted” - the alternate site is:

https://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgi

If anyone knows what i can do please let me know. I’m really starting to sweat here!

#2

I just tried the email that it was suppose to have been changed to and it bounced back … i’m assuming this is a good sign. The email is waby89@yahoo.com

I still can’t log into my account. Dreamhost does not recognize my email address. foo!

any help would be greatly appreciated.

#3

Use:
http://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgi

It’s not an SSL site, so drop the ‘s’ in ‘https’ and that’ll work for you.

-Scott

#4

Thanks. I’ve now sent the “general sales inquiry” people a message explaining the problem. I still can’t contact support since i can’t log into my account - my email is no longer recognized. I get the following message from them:

  • "We’re sorry… your email was unable to be processed by our automatic support system, and so is being returned to you.

  • “We could not find your email address in our customer database and so couldn’t accept your email. Due to the HUGE volume of spam we receive at this address, we’ve been forced to implement this new policy.”

I then got forwarded to the link you provided.

I guess i’ll have to wait until i hear back from DreamHost … arggh. Hopefully it’s nothing major, but since my email is not being recognized i am a bit worried.

On the bright side, i backed up everything on my site so if it has been tampered with at least i have a backup.

i got my fingers crossed.

#5

just to give an update for those that may be having this problem.

After confirming my credit card info i was given a new password and i logged in and reset my password.

Unfortunately all the information in my account has been changed. My website is not longer linked. Contact info is wrong. Another websites is listed as being hosted. etc … basically this looks like a worst case scenario so far, from my end anyway. My website is still down (obviously).

I’ve let dreamhost know about this and I’m waiting for their reply.

#6

well why don’t you change the contact info, delete any domains that are unfamiliar, and readd your own domains? you are more than likely going to have to reupload all of your website files again. you have access to your account again, that is all that matters. you can do the rest yourself.

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES

#7

Well, i would like to know how and why this happened, and to try and make sure it doesn’t happen again (i know there is no guarantee but it would be nice to have a backup plan, at least from my end).

The second reason is that I’ve never had to restore my account and reset everything. I’ve been with dreamhost for three years now and this is the first real problem I’ve had. I’m going to sit down right now and see what i can do since i haven’t heard from them yet about restoring everything. I’m hoping that there is an option to kick things back to what they were last week or two weeks ago … etc. … I’ll wish myself luck with this task and hope that dreamhost can find the problem (and maybe put things back the way they were if i end up messing up - I’m not sure how much info has been changed yet).

by the way, thank you for replying. It made things a lot easier for me. At least i knew i was not alone and someone was listening and willing to give advice.

peace,

chycho

#8

ARGGHH!

Everything has been changed, and, unfortunately, i don’t even know where to begin to start correcting the info. Crazy.

I’m going to wait to hear from dreamhost (it’s Sunday right now). Hopefully they can reset things to what they where 4 days ago.

#9

Can you log into the panel right now? If so, change your password, and update all of your contact information. Then update billing info.

-Scott

#10

I already changed my password.

And now i just changed my name, address, phone number, and url.

I just checked and the changes have been made. Hopefully this doesn’t confuse the dreamhost support group since i had sent them an email saying that the info was wrong (now it’s been corrected)

Every other fields has been changed though and some of the fields i have no idea what i’m suppose to put in … it’s my first time dealing with something like this :frowning:

#11

its always a good idea to keep a local copy of your website and mysql databases just in case something like this happens. this advice doesn’t do you any good right now but in the future you might want to keep a copy.

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES

#12

Lesson learned from my end.

DreamHost has been really good the last three years. This is the first time that anything this dramatic has happened, and WOW what a pain.

I’ve sent them more question from my end and a little explanation of what happened, but I haven’t heard back yet.

If i don’t hear back from them, I guess I’ll be on my own, which will really suck considering my Hosting Plans have also been changed - plans that aren’t even for my site - that are on 10 year terms paid on a monthly basis - like $1,000 for some shite like this … This is something DreamHost will have to eventually deal with and contact me for since i had already paid for my web-hosting on a yearly basis - I’m paid up for until mid-2010… good thing I have records of this.

The one thing i am very surprised about though is that DreamHost allowed all my information to be changed after i had contacted them to let them know that my account had be jacked … I am very disappointed by this. They should have at least frozen the account so no changes could be made until things were resolved. Not impressed at all.

anyway, like i said, lesson learned.

#13

can you not go to billing=>manage account and change the plan and such yourself?

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES

#14

I can pick the option to “end it today”, but does this bring back my old plan? I can also change the plan to less than 10 years.

But here is the problem. My original plan is no longer there, and now there are two plans instead the one that i had - and they are both for the wrong website. Right now it shows that I’m hole for almost $1,000 instead of me being payed up until mid 2010. Maybe deleting these plans is the way to get DreamHost to look into this and tell me what has been changed, what information has been accessed, how this occurred, and how to return all my settings. I don’t have any answers right now. I have no idea what has been done.

The way i look at it is that this is the scene of a major accident and i have no idea what is going to happen when i start deleting or editing these fields. DreamHost should be looking into this.

What i also find amazing is that it was so easy for them to get access to my account. They changed my email and automatically guaranteed that i could not access support because the filter that DreamHost has set up bounced back all my initial inquires since my email was no longer on file. I was finally able to get a reply from DreamHost from their sales team … NOT GOOD! There was no secondary check to make sure that this was me changing the email. They just sent me an email saying that it was changed and if I wasn’t the one that changed it to contact them, but i couldn’t contact support directly since my emails were bouncing back because me email was no longer on files … what a silly loop. Not good at all.

like i said, a major lesson learned.

#15

Correction, I just tried to end the hosting plans and this is the message that i get from DreamHost:

“You cannot end your last hosting plan. If you want to leave DreamHost, you should close your account.”

What a mess … Seriously DreamHost, my site has now been down for three days, my account was hacked, all my information changed, I’m suppose to be in the positive and you show me that i’m $1,000 in the negative, I have no idea what has been compromised, and no answers YET!

I’ve now officially stopped sweating and getting very annoyed.

#16

well the only thing you could do for now is to change to one of the other plans and put it on yearly. or you could just wait until DH gets back with you. i would be upset too and hopefully you will get your old plan back.

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES

#17

I hope so too. I’m slowly starting to delete fields now. I’m going to do this slowly and see if it will trigger a reply from DH. Not sure what i will do after i delete the last bit of info, it really depends on what DreamHost does.

It’s really too bad, i was just about to get start on working on two other websites to be hosted with them… argh!

#18

i wouldn’t start to panic. just make sure all your personal information is corrected and just work on your sites like normal until they get back to you. i seriously doubt they are going to leave you high and dry.

are your domain names registered through DH too? you should still have them you know, unless whoever got into your account transferred them away. i am sure there would be a way to retrieve them if they were stolen from you though but i don’t know how long it would take to get them back but it is possible if that did happen.

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES

#19

Unfortunately, because of this, my website has been down for three days so i can’t do any work on it.

as for the domain names, i thank my lucky stars that they were not registered through DH.

Right now I have two tickets open on the DH support contact page, I’m hoping to at least get an email from them telling me that they are looking into this.

#20

you don’t have any of your files? if you still have your domain names you can go to manage domains==>add new domains to readd them. worst case scenario you will have to start from scratch. did you use a cms of some sort? were your mysql databases also tampered with? if they were not you can reupload and just put the database information in the default configuration files. it would be a real pain if you had a custom template and no backup of that but at least all of your data would be there and you could redesign the template.

http://www.marciesgifts.com
PM for custom CMS(drupal,joomla,etc)/Blog(WP,MT,etc
)/forum(phpbb,smf,etc) install/transfer $75.
[color=#CC0000]$25 Off[/color] w/promo code SPRINKLES