Rebuilding Rob

About one month ago, I was singing the praises of match.com to anyone who would listen. After all, I met The Auteur through match. She alone has made a supporter of online dating sites.

Out of respect to our budding relationship, I decided to cancel my match membership a few weeks back. I was able to cancel my membership online, without needing to speak to an actual customer care rep.

Fast forward to earlier this week: I got an e-mail from match stating that my account had been re-instated; despite the fact that I had not been on the site once since I cancelled the account. This time, I decided to call customer care and speak to an actual human being.

When I called, their care rep was nice enough. She asked if I enjoyed my time on match. I explained to her that I actually met someone and was very happy with the entire match.com experience. At this point, my biggest concern was getting charged again for a service that I was not longer using. When I asked the rep how my account could have gone active again, she speculated ” maybe you accidentally re-logged into the account”. This left me a little dumbfounded, but she was helping me so I didn’t complain.

Fast forward again to yesterday: I get another email stating that my account had be re-instated. However this time, it is followed by another e-mail telling me that my username, e-mail address and date of birth have all changed.

Now, when I got the original e-mail earlier in the week, I informed The Auteur about it – in the event that the same thing happened to her once she cancelled. I forwarded her this new e-mail and asked her to look “me” up.  After searching, she informs me that, according to match.com, i a no longer a 39 year old man seeking woman.  On the contrary, I am now a 38 year old woman seeking men – all within  time it takes to make a few key strokes.  As match’s customer care line was closed for the night, I had to wait until Friday morning in the hopes that I could undo any damage my online identity might have incurred at this hands of this hacker.

To their credit, match’s customer care staff was great.  I explained the situation to the first operator I spoke with, she immediately got me over to their “corporate care” team, where I was informed that the account would revert to it’s pre-hack appearance status within 24 hours. (it took less than 12).  Furthermore, not only none of my financial information had been compromised, but I was also being refunded my full 3 month subscription fees.

As far as I can tell, the only damage done to my match.com username the 2 e-mails and 1 wink that were picked up…by guys…that were apparently picked up during the hacking.  Naturally, match would not tell me what had happened, so I can only speculate.  Having worked in customer care myself, I think it was an internal thing.  I suspect someone in the company – maybe even the first operator I talked about the first reactivation, saw a closed/inactive account that was paid up for two more months and decided they wanted a free ride.  To be honest, this pales in comparison to some of the things I’ve heard of people trying at my last customer service/call center job.

In the aftermath of all this, I went ahead and changed ALL , my various online passwords – mostly just for peace of mind if nothing else. In terms of tech savvy, I think I fall somewhere in the middle of the proverbial pack – more than some; a lot less than others.  But my list of suspects in this incident is short; and as far as I can tell this is an open and shut case.

I hope…

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

Related articles

• This Model Is Suing Match.com For $1.5 Billion (huffingtonpost.com)
• Response to being hacked (hackingrhetoric.wordpress.com)

The article “Hacked!” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.