A few months ago, my daughter and I spent three wonderful weeks touring southern Spain. We returned to her house in California on the 5th of the month, and I would be continuing on to Mexico a few days later. The 5th day of the month carries great significance for me. That is the day on which the newest issue of El Ojo Del Lago magazine is posted on their website, and I typically have an article in each month’s issue.
For several years now, I have been making a digital copy of my latest article and emailing it to my friends and family. I worried that if they didn’t receive one on the 5th of the month, they might assume the worst. I was either dead on the bathroom floor, or I had been taken hostage during my foreign vacation. My brother, who has accumulated a few more bucks than I ever will, always reminds me when I travel that he does not negotiate with hostage takers. He figures that by removing the monetary incentive, hostage takers would soon tire of my shenanigans and eagerly let me go, much like O. Henry’s story “The Ransom of Red Chief.”
So, on the evening of the 5th, I borrowed my daughter’s laptop and made a digital copy of my latest masterpiece. But when I tried to sign on to my AOL email account, I was greeted with an unexpected message. AOL didn’t recognize the computer from which I was trying to sign on. It didn’t matter that I had entered the correct user name and password; they wanted to ask me a security question they had on file. “What is your favorite restaurant?”
It seemed simple enough. But then I realized that if they had the answer to that question, I must have given it to them back when I first established my AOL account. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember when that was. It was at least two, maybe three decades ago. And I’ve moved five or six times over the years, so who knows where I was living when I first signed up? And who remembers their favorite restaurant from a half-dozen locations ago?
Fortunately, there was a button saying “click here if you need help. “ I hoped it would allow me to choose a different security question. But alas, it gave no other options – just a customer service phone number.
After muddling through an annoying 8-part phone menu, I managed to get a human being. I told her of my dilemma, and asked if there was an alternative security question I could answer. You know – like my mother’s maiden name, or my high school football team. It turns out, there were no other security questions. It was the restaurant or nothing.
I explained that I didn’t remember when I had signed up for AOL, so I wasn’t sure where I was living at the time. I asked if she could tell me when I originally signed up. She said she was not allowed to tell me that date until she has verified that I was actually me. Who did she think I was? A Russian cyber spy? Or that 400-pound guy that Donald Trump suggested might have hacked the Democratic National Committee emails in 2016?
What’s with these people? This was my email account, not my bank account. I’m not worried about Russian cyber spies. I have no secrets in my emails. Feel free to read them all. In fact, I recommend reading the ones dated the 5th of the month. You might get a few chuckles out of them.
Since I couldn’t answer the restaurant question, she offered to send me a text message with a 6-digit security code to the phone number they had on file. When she told me the number, it turned out to be my California house land line. I apparently didn’t have a cell phone back when I signed up for AOL. I explained to her that the land line would not be able to receive a text. I offered to give her my Mexican cell phone number, but “Sorry Charlie.” They only accept U.S. cell phone numbers.
She said there was one final option that might allow her to establish my identity. She asked me to tell her the name, date and subject of a recent email I had sent to someone, and the date of the reply they had sent back. Of course, I couldn’t do that without being able to look at my email page.
Clearly, I had struck out on all the security options. The lady said she was sorry and asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I asked if she had the phone number of that 400-pound hacker. No such luck. I declined taking the 5-minute customer satisfaction survey, and said goodbye.
So that was that. I could rest assured that my AOL account was very secure, even from me. I would just have to wait a few days until I was back in Mexico and able to use my own “AOL- recognized” laptop to send out my article. Hopefully, none of my friends would have been calling area hospitals. As for my brother, I sent him an email saying, “Don’t pay the ransom. I’ve escaped.”
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