I recent fell for it! A phishing scam! Dang it Lance! You know better! Mistakes can happen, and I live to tell the story. I wanted to share so that other guitarists that might need to know, will know!
I got an email from a random person (imposter!) about doing some youtube videos for a guitar pedal brand, Gokko Pedals. I’ve actually got one on their pedals! I thought it might be a fun thin to do and I love making content for brands and sharing stuff with people on my youtube channel. So after a few emails and agreements, I clicked on there weblink to sign up and become an affiliate. This is where I went wrong!! It immediately connected to my google and I started getting emails about securities being removed! OMG!!! I’m screwed. I totally freaked out and start shaking and was scared about what might occur.
I quickly went into defense mode and started changing passcodes to my important stuff! I changed my hotmail address passcode, and while doing so got locked out(CRAP!), because the backup email was my gmail that got compromised! So I lost access to that and I worked on getting it back. At the time of writing this I still don’t have it back and I’m trying to recover it from Microsoft.
The compromised gmail is attached to my youtube channel, and not long after the takeover, my youtube channel started livestreaming college football. I found youtube contact on X and they sent me to a fraud bot, where I could report the channel. I used a different gmail address to do this since I couldn’t use my original compromised gmail. The bot noticed the infraction and put a stop to it quickly. Within a few hours, my channel was deactivated as well as the gmail associated with it! PHEW! Luckily, I had a friend who got in touch me with and helped me through the whole process. Thank you Landon!! You blessed me with help and you certainly were a God Send! We figured out how to get my gmail back again and secured. Within 2 days I had gmail back, and a week, my youtube was reactivated and taken care of. I did some clean up, removing the emails in the backdoor that could have allowed the !@#$$ back in. So I should be secure now!
I now have a new gmail for my stuff that isn’t associate with youtube.
I can’t believe I did this, as I know better and typically my browser warns me on such sites!
So if you’ve come here and read my story, stay aware and be careful. Use a safe browsing tool, and if you’re unsure about something, ask AI. I know AI has it’s concerns, but it is certainly helpful when it comes to stuff like this. It will give you clear response on why stuff might be phishy.