Lost email access hijacker hacked my email. Then tech company locked my account and threw away the key

[Streamerz]

Florida.

I suspected that someone had hijacked my email account and quickly changed the password and recovery email.
While trying to access the damage, I called the email provider and asked if anyone had signed in outside of the country or even my state. This information is something normally provided but for some reason was blank. They promised to look into this and get back to me however the next day I found I was completely locked out of my account.
My new password was not working and my recovery email was not working either.
I called to find out what was going on and treated like a criminal from the beginning. I confirmed information about emails sent and was told it was wrong even know I was reading the subject line on an email I had sent my brother word for word. He had printed out the email. Somehow my account had become blacklisted or shadow banned in such a way that even with all the correct information they will not allow me back in.

I have all my information in this account such as information needed for other upcoming legal cases, lots of money in Gift card purchases, rebate rewards from programs, paypal account linked, amazon account linked, all sorts of receipts and order confirmations, etc.

So I am victimized by the original hacker than a second time by the email service provider who is treating the victim in this situation as the criminal. Whatever they wrote down on my account is causing these customer service agents to just hang up the phone when I call and ignore mountains of information I provide them. These are foreign call centers in which English is not their primary language. I am not sure if this started from a misunderstanding but these notes or flags left on my account are causing them to act maliciously. To the point they won't even accept when I provide them with correct information and now just hang up the phone on me when I call.

What theories of law could I possible use here? Right to access? Identify thief consumer projection law? Defamation/slander, negligence? I would prefer to skip the legal system and just get this sorted out however this way system works, once your account gets blacklisted, then its like all the new reps just repeat the notes left by the old rep and the problem just compounds. So what started from someone asking if a hacker signed into his account from a foreign location has turned into a full account forever lockout. Please let me know the theories of law which might apply here?

Thanks.

 

[quincy]

Florida.

I suspected that someone had hijacked my email account and quickly changed the password and recovery email.
While trying to access the damage, I called the email provider and asked if anyone had signed in outside of the country or even my state. This information is something normally provided but for some reason was blank. They promised to look into this and get back to me however the next day I found I was completely locked out of my account.
My new password was not working and my recovery email was not working either.
I called to find out what was going on and treated like a criminal from the beginning. I confirmed information about emails sent and was told it was wrong even know I was reading the subject line on an email I had sent my brother word for word. He had printed out the email. Somehow my account had become blacklisted or shadow banned in such a way that even with all the correct information they will not allow me back in.

I have all my information in this account such as information needed for other upcoming legal cases, lots of money in Gift card purchases, rebate rewards from programs, paypal account linked, amazon account linked, all sorts of receipts and order confirmations, etc.

So I am victimized by the original hacker than a second time by the email service provider who is treating the victim in this situation as the criminal. Whatever they wrote down on my account is causing these customer service agents to just hang up the phone when I call and ignore mountains of information I provide them. These are foreign call centers in which English is not their primary language. I am not sure if this started from a misunderstanding but these notes or flags left on my account are causing them to act maliciously. To the point they won't even accept when I provide them with correct information and now just hang up the phone on me when I call.

What theories of law could I possible use here? Right to access? Identify thief consumer projection law? Defamation/slander, negligence? I would prefer to skip the legal system and just get this sorted out however this way system works, once your account gets blacklisted, then its like all the new reps just repeat the notes left by the old rep and the problem just compounds. So what started from someone asking if a hacker signed into his account from a foreign location has turned into a full account forever lockout. Please let me know the theories of law which might apply here?

Thanks.

Here are links to the FTC and to Florida‘s Attorney General on what to do if your email account is hacked:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recover-your-hacked-email-or-social-media-account

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/957A7C53EE0E961E85257F77004BE172

If you haven’t taken steps already to notify your banks, credit cards, the credit agencies, your personal contacts, etc., and closed accounts and/or changed passwords, do this now. You should also scan your computer for malware and viruses.

Your email provider should have a recovery service but if you did not add password or access protections to your account, you might find that recovery is now difficult.

 

[adjusterjack]

What theories of law could I possible use here? Right to access? Identify thief consumer projection law? Defamation/slander, negligence?

None of those. This is a contracts matter. The provider's terms of service is the contract that you agreed to when you opened the account. If the provider has breached the contract you may sue for monetary damages if you have any. If the provider followed the terms of service and the decision was based on their interpretation (not yours) they likely did nothing wrong.

Time to get yourself another email service. In fact, you should have more than one anyway.

 

[quincy]

Actually, the email hacking should be reported to the police as identity theft.

 

[Streamerz]

Here are links to the FTC and to Florida‘s Attorney General on what to do if your email account is hacked:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recover-your-hacked-email-or-social-media-account

http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/957A7C53EE0E961E85257F77004BE172

If you haven’t taken steps already to notify your banks, credit cards, the credit agencies, your personal contacts, etc., and closed accounts and/or changed passwords, do this now. You should also scan your computer for malware and viruses.

Your email provider should have a recovery service but if you did not add password or access protections to your account, you might find that recovery is now difficult.

I was hoping to contact the police and authorities with a file on the IP address and locations of those responsible for hacking my account. However the battle has been shifted towards towards the email provider treating the victim(me) as the hacker and possible the hacker as the account owner.

The links had very basic tips but do not address what to do when the email provider is the one who has hijacked your account because you called into complain about how your account was hijacked.

I believe there are rules for when a identity thief victim to clear their name with the banks and other financial institution because they would also be treated at the bad actor who stole the person identity.

Perhaps this metaphor may help explain the situation. You arrive home to find that your home keys no longer works on your home door and there are squatters living in your house. When you call the police while being very upset, the police mistaken you as the squatter/thief and arrest you while letting the criminals back into your house. You then explain that they have made a mistake and offer to get a copy of the deed or talk to your neighbors but the police claim that they don't make mistakes and its you who made the mistake as they haul you off to jail unless to listen to reason.

In my situation, its the email provider which is acting extremely unreasonable. I have the password and the recovery email for the account and they are saying " we don't care, we think you are the hijacker" I tell them I can show them order invoices for things ordered and confirmation sent to the mail for the past 10 years and they are responding " we don't care, we think you are the hijacker", I can show them how my IP address has logged into the account successfully for years and years up until a foreign IP address logged in and their response is " We don't care, we think you are the hijacker and the foreign nigeran IP address is real" This might be a combination of foreign low IQ individuals who the company does not trust at all using some kind of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. For whatever reason, they have become completely unreasonable and I can't gain access to my account despite my best efforts. I do not like the idea of litigation in this situation but feel like a judge or jury may be the only people willing to listen to reason.

If I had not called in asking for help with the last 30 days of logins with IP address and/or locations, I would still have access to my email account.

They somehow took that request an excuse to change my password and recovery email on file. So their actions have directly caused me to lose access to my account.

Are there any theories of law which I can sue under in this type of situation? It does not appear that normal diplomatic options will work or normal customer service.

Thanks

 

[Streamerz]

None of those. This is a contracts matter. The provider's terms of service is the contract that you agreed to when you opened the account. If the provider has breached the contract you may sue for monetary damages if you have any. If the provider followed the terms of service and the decision was based on their interpretation (not yours) they likely did nothing wrong.

Time to get yourself another email service. In fact, you should have more than one anyway.

I do have a lot of money worth of gift cards on my email account as well as evidence needed in court.

Don't Doctors still get sued even with having people sign promising not to sue? My old company made customer sign things promising not to sue and we still got sued and even lost with that in place. Those were actually signed agreements not some "click to agree" that no one reads. In all honestly, how many people will read those TOS when signing up for social media instead of clicking " ok, ok, ok" to get out as fast of possible? How do email providers get sued over data breaches when I am sure their TOS said they can't be sued and not responsible for anything"

What about this concept of " equity" where even if there is no law for it, you ask a court or jury to do something because they feel its the right thing to do or there should be a law for it? I don't mean it as some kind of woke buzzword but more of a legal term.

Let's say that your $1,000 drone crashed on your neighbor's property and he refuses to give it back. He said that if you step foot on his property, he will have you arrested for trespassing and has a sign saying on my property, its " Finder's keepers"

Are you saying there is no law that would give you access to get your property return and it would turn into some kind of real estate law battle?

I may have $1,000+ in gift cards stored in my email over the past number of years. Some of the company which sold them to me are not even in business anymore. I am more interested in the return of my property rather than continuing to use the email service.

Thanks.

Update: I found online AI something called " Unconscionability" and said " there are several potential outs to arbitration clauses. Some of the most common ways to challenge an arbitration clause include:

1. Unconscionability: An arbitration clause can be deemed unenforceable if it is considered procedurally or substantively unconscionable. This means that the clause was imposed in an unfair manner or that the terms of the clause are excessively one-sided"

 

[Streamerz]

Actually, the email hacking should be reported to the police as identity theft.

Exactly what I was in the process of doing during the aftermath of the hijacking of my accounts. I was trying to get some login history with the IP address and/or geographic location of whoever signed into my account during the suspected days. Other email providers provide this openly to help the user. This email provider normally has it but for some odd reason, it was completely blank as if someone had cleared out this information to cover their tracks. We left things as if they were going to try to find out why the information was missing for sign in history but instead went into attack mode with me as their target. Perhaps something was miscommunicated or lost in translation in the offshore call center.

I'm not sure it would lead to any arrest since you would probably need a very skilled IT team which knows how to investigate these type of crimes. This might fall outside the scope out a local police department. You would probably need some kind of federal cybercrimes department I am thinking.
Still if you think it might help me regain access to my email, please tell me.

 

[quincy]

Exactly what I was in the process of doing during the aftermath of the hijacking of my accounts. I was trying to get some login history with the IP address and/or geographic location of whoever signed into my account during the suspected days. Other email providers provide this openly to help the user. This email provider normally has it but for some odd reason, it was completely blank as if someone had cleared out this information to cover their tracks. We left things as if they were going to try to find out why the information was missing for sign in history but instead went into attack mode with me as their target. Perhaps something was miscommunicated or lost in translation in the offshore call center.

I'm not sure it would lead to any arrest since you would probably need a very skilled IT team which knows how to investigate these type of crimes. This might fall outside the scope out a local police department. You would probably need some kind of federal cybercrimes department I am thinking.
Still if you think it might help me regain access to my email, please tell me.

If you report the email hacking to your local police, they should forward the information to the appropriate state agency that handles cybercrimes.

It is likely that you will not recover all that you lost (e.g., e-giftcards). You probably won’t be able to use the same email account again. But you will want/need a police report to proceed with your email provider.

What you should be doing now is protecting whatever you still can protect. This will be time-consuming and a hassle but is necessary.

Get fraud/hacking alerts posted on all of the credit agency reports, report the hacking to the police, cancel all credit cards and bank accounts (change accounts), get a new email account and notify all of your close contacts of the change (be careful to whom you give this information), run a security scan on your computer, update all virus/malware protections.

Although hackers can be traced, law enforcement resources are limited and it could be best to believe that the hacker will remain anonymous. You might want to do some investigation of your own, by trying to recall all questionable links you might have clicked on and to whom you might have revealed your passcodes (intentionally or unintentionally).

Good luck.