Diane Solomon was on her way from her Santa Clarita home to a run/walk at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum earlier this month when her smartphone alerted her to an e-mail received on her work account - sent from her own personal e-mail address.
According to the e-mail, titled "MY PLIGHT!!!" Solomon was currently stranded in Europe after being robbed at gunpoint. She didn't have any money, her cell phone wasn't working, and she needed 1,500 pounds to be wired to the U.K. to get back to the States.
Within minutes, she began receiving concerned texts and e-mails from some of the 400 contacts in her Yahoo! e-mail account.
"I'm talking to you on Facebook right now," one neighbor wrote in a text.
Solomon didn't have a Facebook account. Whoever had hacked into her e-mail had used pictures in the account to make a Facebook page for her and was pleading for her friends to send money.
"It completely freaked me out," Solomon said. "For me, it's such a ********* because (the hacker) pretended to be me. I could have jeopardized so many people."
