Hacking? All emails gone!

The place to discuss anything to do with computers, software, hardware, no matter how basic or technical. We all use this stuff, but we don't always understand it!
User avatar
Nemo
Posts: 7062
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:15 am
Location: Norfolk

Hacking? All emails gone!

Post by Nemo »

I have a secondary email account for business that I don't use too much but it is active.

The account is set up on my iphone. The first I noticed was I opened up the inbox and all the emails had gone. I sent a test email to it and that worked.

I have now gone back to the provider, BT, and found that they have all gone from the server there. What's happened? Has my account been hacked as I haven't changed or done anything? I have changed the password just in case.
KathyG
Posts: 3274
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Le Faou, Brittany
Contact:

Post by KathyG »

Oh No! Hope you find them Nemo, what a nightmare! :shock:
Kathy
Waterfront location in Le Faou
"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am."
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

You could check how you've set up the iPhone. If the mail account was set up as POP3, then the messages would have been deleted from the server when you collected them. If you then accidentally deleted them from the iPhone somehow (restoring it or finger problems), they would be gone forever. Did you back up your iPhone?
lorca
Posts: 2358
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:34 pm
Location: The Axarquia, Spain

Post by lorca »

Good luck Nemo - horrible thing to happen, hope you can sort it!
If not now, when?
tavi
Posts: 2578
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:07 pm
Location: Algarve

Post by tavi »

a friend of mine's email was hacked....all her contacts received "stuck in thailand - send money" type emails from "her," and when she logged in she found the same as you - completely empty.


hope you get it sorted.....
User avatar
Nemo
Posts: 7062
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:15 am
Location: Norfolk

Post by Nemo »

Complete mystery apart from when I google it & find its happening to lots of BT customers. :roll: BT are blaming iPhones to customers who don't even have one!

I've had my iPhone since April so it's been fine until a week ago. Haven't changed anything anywhere that I'm aware of & had no reason to restore the phone. Fortunately all my emails go to Outlook with a periodical back up to a hard drive (not often enough though :oops: ) so I haven't lost anything that I'm aware of.

I can't remember how the iPhone acct was set up other than following the instructions! I don't seem to be able to check either? Anyway, it's definitely not been deleting emails prior to this episode.
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

If you use POP3 to collect email, it deletes it from the server. If you use IMAP, it doesn't. When you set up the account on the iPhone, you say whether it is a POP3 of IMAP account. You only easily know if it's been deleted from the server (BT) by looking at your mail from another device, since it is stored locally on the iPhone so you see it there anyway.
User avatar
Windy
Posts: 3219
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:21 am
Location: Windermere UK

Post by Windy »

If you use POP3 to collect email, it deletes it from the server
Not necessarily - depending on your email client it can be set to leave it, delete it after a period of time, delete if deleted from your device or never delete.

If you go into iPhone Settings => Mail Contacts Calendars and open your BT account you should see an Advanced button at the bottom.

If you click that there is a Delete From Server option

The Iphone allows you three choices Never , 7 days or When removed from Inbox

The setting you have there may help work out if the mails should have been removed or not.

It's hard to imagine that you could have accidentally deleted a load of email on the Iphone as you have to manually delete all the emails by checking each one individually (which is my main hate with IOS - I get 200 emails a day delivered to my phone and if I could find a way of deleting them in one go - say by them providing something as radical as a "select all" option - after reading the ones I haven't already seen I'd be a happy man!!!)

Bottom line is it sounds unlikely that you have deleted them by accident on the Iphone and thus deleted them from the BT server because of POP 3 settings.

On the other hand, once they are downloaded to your phone , someone deleting them from the server wouldn't delete them from your phone would it? (unless of course you have the account set up as an IMAP account, not a POP 3 account in which case deleting on one would delete on the other - that might be worth checking)

Have a look at the account settings on the iPhone and let us know what you find

And I'd change your password anyway.
User avatar
Moliere
Posts: 4753
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:45 pm
Location: Magalas, Languedoc

Post by Moliere »

Crikey, Windy, 200 a day? I'm lucky if I get 2 a day on my iPad (although I get another dozen or so on my desktop). I guess you already tap "Edit" in your inbox and then just check the ones you want to delete, but I can imagine with that number it could be a bit of a chore.

Well, it keeps you off the streets :lol:

Mols
Jumping is just dressage with speed-bumps.
User avatar
Windy
Posts: 3219
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:21 am
Location: Windermere UK

Post by Windy »

Yup - have personal email and business email from the lodges and the day job

Apple's failure to provide a "select all" to allow multiple deletion is quite bizarre for a company which bangs on about the end user experience so much.

Mind you MacMail on my Macbook is such a godawful mess of an application that I am hardly surprised. :roll:
User avatar
Nemo
Posts: 7062
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:15 am
Location: Norfolk

Post by Nemo »

Got to the bottom of this today after getting locked out of the account and problems with security details etc. 5 phone calls to BT, being sent from technical support to billing to tech, to order management to tech to super tech....... :? You get the picture....plus over 3 hours on the phone over four days. :evil:

Turns out Outlook on my new computer was set to delete emails after two weeks - but only on this particular account; two others were set correctly to not delete. :roll:

At least I got there eventually!
Post Reply