Clinton Rogers: ‘Technology is wonderful – when it’s on your side’

So there I was feeling very relaxed after a week’s holiday in Spain, sitting in the airport in Alicante, when I received a text message which would cause me grief for days to come.

A friend was pointing out that he had received a “rather odd” email from me, saying I was ill in Spain and needed “a favour”.

Of course it was a scam – someone had managed to hack into my email account and send messages to my contacts (at the last count, about 100!). The emails went on to ask for money or vouchers from Amazon.

As I write this column, to the best of my knowledge none of my friends have parted with money – or if they have they haven’t told me!

But I understand now when people say they feel “violated” when something like this happens. 

As a journalist with the BBC, I covered numerous stories about vulnerable people, often elderly, who had been duped out of life savings by cons like this.  It is truly wicked.

And on a practical level it is also massively irritating and time-consuming. I spent the best part of three days trying to close down the scam and restore my email account.

The problem was, these people were very clever. Every attempt I made to change my email password failed. They were always one step ahead – and for as long as they had control of my account they could continue to try to extract money from people.

In the end I spent 90 minutes on the phone to BT (who operate my email account) and they were extremely helpful. But even they had to work hard to shut down the scammers, close my account and set up a completely new profile.

It has also cost me money. I am now hiring an IT company to sort out continuing email problems and make my account and my computers more secure.

How did the scammers get into my account? Did I do something to compromise my security? Probably – but if I did I have no idea what and when.

My message to you is be aware. I know you’ve heard that a million times, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it again.