My Tangled Web

By Thomasnovels

I have had a webpage and domain name … well, since I published my first novel. They were very easy to buy. Just give them your bank card number and it was done. Then I found out I had to design the webpage. Wait. What? Me? I have to confess, I panic over computer stuff that I’m only pretending to understand how to do. (I also panic over car stuff that I don’t understand. Big black hairy spider in the bathroom? I’m your girl. Strange light on the dashboard of the car? Forget it. I will need a tow truck and a nerve pill.)

I asked my-then-current man to help me. I mean he spent all his time on the Internet and was an engineer, so who better. (We were in a hotel room on one of our photo taking trips because we couldn’t go to his house because … fill in the blank.) He told me it was better if I learned how to do it because then I would know how to do it incase he wasn’t around (big shocker there) to help. Being mad motivated me to learn faster (and wasted the need for a hotel room and surprise, he is no longer around). It took me awhile to figure out how to build site and how to maintain it. I was very proud of my page. I even had the .com plastered across the rear window of my car. It was my home page when I logged in. Oh look, MY webpage. That’s ME right there with all MY names, all the books I wrote and published, reviews of MY work and pictures of ME from book signings. I put it on everything from Facebook to business cards. Can’t make up your mind about buying a book? Here have one of my handy dandy cards with MY webpage on it. Can’t find the car in the parking lot because I drive the same sedan as every other single middle aged … look for the website on the window.

Recently, my web host contacted me. This is a company I never hear from until it’s time to pay the bill. That’s okay. I leave them alone, they leave me alone. I open the email to find … oh shit … “We need to inform you that we have received a complaint from AOLTM about the number of spam you are sending out. If this problem is not corrected, AOLTM will blacklist our service. Please take care of this.” I’m paraphrasing but that’s close. And guess what? I PANICED. What? Spam? I don’t send spam. I don’t send emails. People contact me not the other way around. I emailed them back and told them all of this. Then … waiting for them to answer while panicking. Not the best situation.
They emailed me back with a list of things (computer things … rats) to do to take care of the problem. 1. Send emails to people you’re sure want to receive them. (What?) Do not use mailing lists. (I don’t.) 2. Go through and change any password you have. (You have got to be kidding. Do you have any idea of how many … I did it anyway.) 3. Turn on the spam accoster. (Cute name but where the hell is it located?) 4. Do not use mail fowarders. (I never have.) 5. Run antivirus and malware. (I do that every week.)

Okay, I’m computer illiterate but I did all of these things but before I could finish and email them back, they contacted me telling me … “We need to inform you that we received a complaint from …” Crap. I took my email address and contact page off the website. I took the website off all my other Internet places. I took down an AOLTM account I’ve had since I owned my first computer. I tried to remember everybody I had a password with. Wow. I informed my web host I had done all of these things and they … suspended my account. I received seven emails about spam complaints through my account page because the web host didn’t change MY email address to the new one and the old one was shut down because of the spam complaints.

I sent a really nasty email telling them I had done everything they had requested and their response was to shut down MY account? This was MY business, MY career, MY contact to the world they were messing with. They reactivated my account and gave me my very own geek to help me. And he really was helping. We discovered the spam was not coming from my IP address. (Yes, I found it on my very own.) My webpage had been hacked (no shit). While we were emailing each other and I was following his plain-easy-to-understand instructions, I got another email telling me … they had cancelled … not suspended … but cancelled my account and would sending me a refund. Meanwhile, the geek asked me to log into the webpage to check something or other. Ah … I can’t log into MY webpage. The other person (and I’m guessing they are located in the same building as you) just … turned off MY webpage. At that point my geek gave up.

So I was left dealing with the billing and accounts department. I asked them to take my refund and I would add to it to start a new webpage. (Which means changing it in all the places I have it including … crap … MY car.) The other person emailed me to say they couldn’t start a new website for me (hello? you are my web host) until I closed this account (and money) then go and start a whole new account (with different money). I could however take my domain name to another web hosting company. (Yeah, that’ll work when the hackers and spammers follow me to another company.)

But the reason they were contacting me was because they couldn’t deposit my refund back to my card. Excuse ME? You took it out of that card, so put it back. Very nicely, they asked if I have a PayPal account. Of course I do. I’m running a business here and you just killed, murdered and slaughtered my webpage. And how am I supposed to remember the new password to PayPal. I give up. Thomasnovels.com is off line until I see my refund which … surprisingly is taking a very long time to arrive.