My web site was hijacked and sending out spam

[martyp]

I did not send out the spam emails from this site. I do not think that any emails went to anyone from my email file, but if it did, I am sorry. The emails had links to something on Facebook.

Two or three weeks ago I started receiving "remove" and "stop spamming me" emails. I checked several of them and none were on my email lists. I responded to a few of them and told them that I must have a trojan in my email and I did not see that I had emailed them. I did get good at ignoring all of the emails. One even stated that that person had died several months ago, it was a work email address.

On Monday, I was working on my web site and went to check the front page and it was not there. I could still work on the back end though. I called the host in India I think and was told that the web site was locked and I would have to unlock it. I told him that I did not lock it. He checked something and then gave me a ticket # and kicked it to level 2 and I had to wait a day.

Tuesday I called and asked what was going on and I was told that my web site had been hijacked and they were "looking into it" and I would know in 24 hours. I started receiving emails from customers that my web site was down.

Wednesday I received an email that We have been made aware of the security issue with your web site oldvintagebaseballcards.com. After further investigation, it appears the tell a friend feature was spamming. The email told me to change some code and then do something and change the code back, or disable the Tell a Friend feature. I did than and called them and told him that I was ready to have the web site put back on line. I was told that the code needed to be changed. I told him that I completed the second option. He told me that he talked to the "guy" and that is what he said. I asked to talk to the "Guy", but that was not going to happen. I got a supervisor and was told that she would have it looked into. They put my site back on line. I put a notice on my front page that I had been down and posted a 6.73% discount code. I have been getting orders and only about 25% of them have used the discount.

If anyone here received a spamming email from me, I am very sorry. For those who have web sites with this "Tell a Friend" feature and start receiving stop spamming emails, this could be your issue also. It was an easy fix for me after I found the feature.

Marty Pritchard
www.oldvintagebaseballcards.com