Now the phone does not accept incoming calls!!!

[mint]

After yesterday's excitement of my email having been hacked and spending hours on the phone and on line, reassuring worried friends and family and proving to them that I am not at death's door in hospital, I find that the phone now does not ring and takes the caller straight to messagerie.

Not only that, the messages do not appear on the answering machine but do appear in my email where I can listen to them.  What this means is that some people are having to call at my home because they think they cannot get through on the phone.

I realise that telling me what to do might be a bit of a long spiel but please just set me on the right path?

I have a gigaset (I know many of you have this telephone because it's you who advised to buy this phone!) so could you perhaps explain what YOU would do to get it accepting calls again?

Thanks.

BTW, I can ring out on it OK

[NormanH]

I sent you an email btw

It MIGHT be an online setting on the orange.fr site but as I have free I can't be sure

[mint]

Yes, I have looked at the on-line setting but I cannot see anything.  Having said that, I'd bet it's something bleedin' obvious.  I am out of kilter, lost my boussole, out of my depth and, and......all the other appropriate phrases will come to me when I have finished this[I]

You sent me an email, quel email?  It is as I feared, someone somewhere has done something horrible to my email function[+o(]

Plus, it never rains but it pours!  I thought I'd get out of the house and walk with a couple of friends, just to give me a break from weeding out my contacts list, sorting out the papers needed to complete my tax declaration, generally catching up with myself but even out on the walk, in the middle of nowhere, the heavens literally opened and we all got soaked.  I had on a cotton shirt so that was wringing, not to mention my trousers, my socks, my underwear, etc.  Still, I had a great time jumping over puddles and running along streams.  Now I feel guilty telling you that, knowing you have mobility problems.  BUT I do want you to know I am not really, really seriously MOANING.....well, I am, but only a bit![:)]

Perhaps Sue will come along and say "here is what you need to do.  Listen carefully and I'll get you up and running again!"

I am going to take a warm shower, just to feel what it's like having warm instead of cold water all over me and then I hope to listen to some of those music links you have given me on the other thread[:)]

[NormanH]

I wrote to a gmail account not to an orange.fr one...

[NormanH]

Would you check, as the message I replied to was all in French, but I thought you were practising ....and I would like to know if what the message said is really the case...

[woolybanana]

Check in your trash box as messages often get in there somehow.

[suein56]

mint wrote : I realise that telling me what to do might be a bit of a long spiel but please just set me on the right path?

It is possible that your VoIP is out of sync ..

The first thing to do .. if you haven't already done it .. is to

switch off the Livebox .. there is an on/off switch at the back .. then unplug the Livebox completely.

Leave the adaptor plug of the Livebox away from the socket for at least 45 seconds so any residual electric charge can discharge.

Then plug the Livebox back in the socket .. then switch it back on at the rear of the box .. then wait for the display on the Livebox screen to start appearing.

WAIT patiently for the box to finish rebooting itself. This could take a good few minutes.

When it announces that your phone number is functioning and the Internet is OK then, cautiously, you can try ringing your home phone from your mobile.

If no success first time round then reboot again ie repeat this whole process.

Report back .. if there is an improvement or not.

[NormanH]

It is certain that your email has been hacked since you have now sent me these two messages:

Je voudrais que tu me prêtes dans l'immédiat la somme de 950 EUR ou

dans la mesure de tes possibilités, car j'ai un souci avec ma carte. Le

plus gênant dans toute cette histoire, c'est de devoir te demander une

telle somme, il me faut absolument régler certaines dépenses qui ne

peuvent malheureusement pas attendre. 

Concernant l'argent, cela prendra juste le temps qu'il faudra pour résoudre le souci avec ma banque, soit 5 jours maximum.

Puis je compter sur toi ?

Knowing me as you do I think such a demand would be unlikely [:D]

[NormanH]

Would you mind confirming that you did NOT send me an email about a health issue? It has been worrying me..

[suein56]

NormanH wrote :

Would you mind confirming that you did NOT send me an email about a health issue? It has been worrying me..

Norman it seems to be a tad endemic with Orange email at the moment .. I would have quoted from the 'soucis de santé' one I got on Tuesday .. supposedly from our neighbours who are in La Réunion at the moment, but I've deleted it as a few minutes before the email's arrival I had a WhatsApp from them with a glorious photo of the walk they were on at that very second.

This hacking is becoming more and more serious chez Orange .. I advise anyone with Sosh/Orange to use a third party email ie gmail .. and not to use the Orange one you acquire automatically with the Livebox.

[nomoss]

Mint, have you checked the settings on your Gigaset?

Voice Mail > Ring Delay may have inadvertently been set to "Immediately" rather than to a suitable number of seconds.

[NormanH]

I advise anyone with Sosh/Orange to use a third party email ie gmail ..

and not to use the Orange one you acquire automatically

In the case of mint it seemed to come from her orange.fr address, but the return was a gmail one which used exactly her name but with @gmail replacing @orange.fr

So it looked as if it came from "[email protected]"...but my reply went to "[email protected]"  ....obviously replacing Norman with her name[:)]

[suein56]

Norman wrote : So it looked as if it came from "[email protected]"...but my reply went to "[email protected]" ... obviously replacing Norman with her name.

Spoofers are clever so and sos .. aren't they ?

[woolybanana]

Logic says that Norman is the spoofer, then?

[Gardengirl]

Nrnan, that’s exactly the set up of the email from Mint to me. I replied to her email address already on my system.

Great that all is well with her, apart from having to sort everything out following being hacked.

Sue, that’s a good warning to anyone with orange, or maybe any other company if hacking seems to becoming a problem with them.

[mint]

Norman and everyone else who has been told that I am desperately ill in hospital and need money pdq, please let me reassure you that I am quite well apart from a lingering cough after a bout of something wintry, I am in my own house and, if I were to touch you for a loan, I would have gone for a lot more than the derisory sum mentioned![:)]

Thank you with all my heart to everybody for your concern and contact.  Whilst it was shocking to think that someone was telling all and sundry that I was ill (perhaps that was a bit near the bone?) I have nevertheless been comforted to think that so many people do worry about me and some have even telephoned to offer the money!

Sue, I have done that re-booting 3 or 4 times with no satisfactory result.

Nomoss, I haven't had a chance to try that ring delay procedure you have suggested as I have been out most of the day but I shall be doing as you suggest. 

[mint]

Mystery solved!  The hacker/s took over our phone so that we couldn't receive any calls.  But now all sorted.  Rang up and the person released the hacker's grip!!!

Unfortunately, a French friend has already lost 300 euros so please don't anyone pay any money out if the request is from me!  For once BE tightfisted; I don't mind, truly[:P]

[NormanH]

They wanted 950€ from me.

While I hold you in high esteem and had even written offering to help if I could they were pushing their look a bit too far there[6]

On the other hand the details that were given about your health were uncomfortably feasible.

The fact that the emails were in French simply convinced me  that you had finally gone doolally...[:D] [:P] [:D]

[nomoss]

[quote user="mint"]

Mystery solved!  The hacker/s took over our phone so that we couldn't receive any calls.  But now all sorted.  Rang up and the person released the hacker's grip!!![/quote]

Who did you ring up, please?

[suein56]

mint wrote : Mystery solved! The hacker/s took over our phone so that we couldn't receive any calls. But now all sorted. Rang up and the person released the hacker's grip!!!

Have you 'porter plainte' at the gendarmerie .. when this happened to a French friend recently she did just that and the offender was (eventually) caught.

Edit: mind you she was in Paris for a few days when this happened so that is where she reported the problem .. they might be more used to tracking down such hackers in the capital.

[mint]

I have now stopped joking and laughing about this[:(]  Was keeping up my morale and trying to brush it off.  But now that someone has actually lost money, I am worrying about who else might have lost money and are keeping quiet about it.

My mental state, already none too robust, has taken a dive.  My sleep problems, recently easing, are now rampant.  I am anxious and wondering which amongst my friends might be vulnerable and who I should be writing to next.

At my most paranoic, I keep seeing the figure 13.3 months, which I have been reliably told is the "mean" life expectancy of people with my illness.  And, believe me, "mean" is a whole lot meaner than "average".

I have heard about people being burgled who feel violated and depressed.  In some ways, this is worse than a burglary (but I must add I have never been burgled so can't really know).  It hurts that friends and family have been targeted.  It gives me the heebie jeebies to know that someone (though probably a team of someones) has sifted through my emails and extracted intimate and sensitive information.

It appears that all the messages sent were different; some giving reams of information and some just one-liners.  It's this that has made me suspect an organisation that hints at more than a single individual.

For nomoss, I was told by the chap who sorts our computer, tv and telephony problems to ring the Orange English Helpline.  This I duly did and, sure enough, the phone was answered almost immediately and a kindly lady asked some questions, reassured me she was dealing with it straightaway and she was as good as her word.

I have thought about my password and other stuff like that but none of my thoughts have been productive or even useful.  My mot de passe was complicated, with all the usual supposedly strong deterrents like capital letters, numbers, keyboard signs that mean zilch in isolation of context.

In the next few days, I am going to keep an old-fashioned address book with names and contact details and I am going to be careful not to lose it! 

[NormanH]

I can fully understand how you feel.

That sense of a violation of privacy must be horrible.

I hope my comments (which were intended to be light-hearted and cheer you up) didn't offend.

[mint]

Norman, you couldn't offend me, EVER![:)]

[woolybanana]

Nimt, you must be supremely tolerant?

[mint]

YES, Wools, I put up with you, don't I?[:D]