Trouble at Twitter

I’ve been using Twitter for months now and I love the site. Having to say things in 140 characters or less is great practice for a writer. So too is getting to chat to people you would never get to meet on the non-cyber world.

Something happened to shatter my cosy image of Twitter. I got a message the other day.

It was from a direct message from someone I followed, saying that someone was posting nasty things about me on Twitter. There was a link in the DM that was sent straight to my email. I didn’t click it, because I knew something was wrong.

I am posting a copy of the message below (you'll need to click on it to make it bigger - trust me, this is safe) -

Note - I have blanked out the user names.

I looked on Twitter and couldn’t find any evidence of anyone bad mouthing me. Then I checked out the user who had ‘sent’ me the DM and it was clear from their posts that their account had been hacked.

I now believe the DM was an attempt to get me to click on a link that would put a virus on my computer.

Today, I got another one. This one read - “I can’t believe you posted this http://t.co/nX2Z7oC about me, i am so upset right now.”

Again, notice the inflammatory nature of the message. They want you to think something is up and click on that link without thinking.

How do you deal with this when accounts are being hacked and when on Twitter people post links all the time? I don’t honestly know. Having a good virus checker will help and using in regularly.

Protecting your password and changing it constantly, may also help.

From now on I will be very careful when it comes to Twitter and I hope you will too. Don’t let those spoilers waste it for you.  

The power of Twitter

If you’re one of these people who underestimated the power of sites like Twitter (like I did), here’s a tale that might make you change your mind.

I changed my existing BT Broadband package to another one. I’d got a better deal than what I’d been paying before (I was paying more than anyone else I knew for my package) and was pretty pleased about it.  Then I got a letter from BT saying that as I had cancelled my contract ‘early’ they were hitting me with a whopping £100 charge.

I was angry about this for a number of reasons –

1. As far as I was concerned, my contract was already up. BT had not told me any different when I changed my broadband package.
2. I had NOT been warned about any charged before I switched. Customers should always be made aware of charges BEFORE they change not after.
3. It wasn’t like I was changing from BT to another supplier.

I was so incensed about what had happened, I emailed BT and then tweeted about it.

Two hours later I got an email saying they had seen my tweet and the charge had been made in error and they would refund me.

I also tweeted about an Amazon order that had failed to arrive and was a week late. Initially, Amazon had told me that I needed to wait another week before I would qualify for a refund. After they responded to my tweet I got a refund within hours.

The thing I have learned from all this is when you feel you are treated unfairly by a company by all means gets angry about it. Scream, shout and then when your anger calms down, tweet about it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the results. I know I am.

P.S. If you want to follow me on Twitter my user name is @jenthom72