A few days ago I received in my regular Hotmail inbox a message that said" So and so has joined WAYN and left you a message. Click on the link below to see the message". Since the person was a former student I had been in email contact with and a very straight shooter, I clicked and looked at the message. We exchanged brief messages.
I then begin to get more messages of the same format. "So and So has joined WAYN. Click on the link to see the message". Since all were from friends, mostly former students and family some of whom I had not heard from in some time, I exchanged messages with a few of them.
Then iIbegin to get messages from people in my address book asking if I had indeed invited them to join WAYN, a social and travel site. I had invited no one. One of the inquires said the person had joined and logged onto the site, where upon her whole address book came up and she was asked to invite people to join.
I got another email inquiry from a friend I had recently been in contact with planning a High School reunion, asking if I had invited her to join WAYN. No. She mentioned she and her husband had just returned from an extended trip to Europe. I recalled that the friend whose address book came up after she logged onto WAYN had just returned from a visit to Africa, further the first of the former students I received one of these messages from had also just returned from Africa.
I got an inquiry from My son who had gotten and invitation. But only from that son and not my second son. First son had traveled to Denmark this past summer. Then I got a message from someone I didn't know saying she was planning a trip to Thailand and did I know anyone who had been there. Yes. My oldest son had traveled there the summer before this past one.
I don't know much about WAYN, except I invited no one to join and have never logged onto the site. My address book never appeared on a screen.
It seemed innocent since everyone I got a message about was in my address book except the one who appeared to be a WAYN administrator planning a trip to Thailand.in all cases except this one the person was in my addresses AND had traveled in the previous few months.
I suspect, but can't document or prove, someone from WAYN is hacking or hijacking address books and crossing them with travel data and making it out that one is inviting people to join when, in fact, I am not.
Beware WAYN!!
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