#001 Thoughtful Thursdays

I thought I would bring Thoughtful Thursday's back, to let you guys know that if you've received a really weird email (in the form of spam particularly talking about a trip to Spain) to please ignore it because I did not send it to you even though it came from my email account. My primary email account (susanhaugland@att.net) was hacked and all of my information such as publicists contacts, email messages (saved in various folders, both sent/trash, and in my inbox) had been deleted. For those of you I was still going to feature as part of the YA Author's Appreciation, I apologize for taking so long to do it and for also not being able to now, due to this. I will find some way to make this up to you, I promise.

I was sick immediately when I noticed that this had happened. So, that means that everything that you have sent me within the last couple of weeks has been deleted, by the person scoundrel who hacked my account. I would appreciate it if you could make sure you direct any email messages to BOTH of these email addresses from here on out: susanhaugland@att.net (primary) and susan_haugland@yahoo.com (back-up email). I just want to make sure that from now on, I am as safe and thorough as I can be with this. Apparently you just never know what's going to happen.

Thanks to Molli @ Once Upon A Prolouge, I was able to get back a good number of the publicity contacts that I have gotten over these last several months, but I still have some a few very important personal ones that I have yet to retrieve and some email addresses of fellow bloggers I've gotten to know a little better over the last few months. Ugh! This is frustrating. I just honestly don't know what to do, I almost feel lost and violated in a sense. I don't understand how someone with a moral conscience can do something like this. I felt like crying when I logged into my account and noticed all of this.

I don't know how this person was that hacked into my account, but upon further investigation on my part, I noticed that they had created a sub-account attached my primary email account (susanhaugland@att.net) and had been using it to send out spam to various contacts of mine. I immediately deleted that sub-account (after I copied down the information to provide to yahoo), changed my password for my primary email account (susanhaugland@att.net) and the one for my back-up email account (susan_haugland@yahoo.com), and then made sure to fill out the necessary forms to hopefully have all if not most of my deleted email messages and contacts retrieved. As for the retrieval of any of my deleted contacts or emails/folders, I was informed that they would not be able to get them back for me. So, again, I guess I am starting from scratch.

I did provide them with all of the necessary information that I felt they needed to know, plus the information that the guy who hacked the account had used to create the sub-account they attached to my primary email account. They even went so far as to create another yahoo email account with my first and last name in this order: haugland_susan@yahoo.com, which I'm not sure what to do about that just yet. It's just my back-up email address backwards, so I'm hoping they're not about to try and get hack happy with that one any time soon. I feel like I've been incredibly violated and I'm just sick over this.

So, again, I apologize profusely to all of you guys who sent in "guest posts" to be posted for the YA AUTHOR APPRECIATION event. I had every single intention of posting at various intervals within these next couple of months and now I'm just not going to be able to due to this malicious individual who had to get his ya's ya's out by hacking me. If I were a violent person, I could show him what hack happy is, but since I'm not I'll just stew for a bit and then get it over it and move on.

If you read through all of this, you get a yummy Pumpkin Spice cookie - TWO - if you actually commented. lol. Don't forget to come and enter my GIVEAWAY FOR DRAGONSWOOD by Janet Lee Carey and a super snazzy bookmark made by the lovely Holly Cupala.

TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY (TWEET, FACEBOOK, OR BLOG ABOUT IT) AND ENCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND FELLOW BLOGGERS TO PICK UP A COPY OF THIS AMAZING BOOK OR GIFT IT TO SOMEONE THEY THINK WILL LIKE IT!