I think my account is finally able to comment again! (i think...) I'm excited to be back into my lil video grind. If you wanna hang out on Discord and get other perks while supporting me, you can become a channel member :] th-cam.com/channels/xZQfGBeFsz6J_wfFKw-kvA.htmljoin
Fuckin yikes man. Lesson learned those scams are getting tricky. I bet your heart dropped several times through this. Glad you got your accounts back. 👌
ALSO over 5k of you unsubscribed during the couple hours "Tesla Live" was active - which is understandable since few people knew it was me. So it's possible you'll need to re-subscribe.
Shit. I unsubscribed someone recently because I opened TH-cam and saw I was subscribed to Elon Musk. Now I wonder who I just lost from my TH-cam feed 😬 I follow so many people and my memory is so shit I never realized until I saw this video. It wasn't you because I'm still subscribed to you.
I unsubscribed at first, cursing TH-cam for selling out to tesla, since there was a thing a month ago that Finnish users had been added as unwilling followers of Tesla on twitter. Thankfully that was before they hid all your video backlog so could see it's you and resubbed (sans notifications since they were enthusiastic livestreamers 😂)
Alex, it was thanks to your vids that I felt confident enough to get a ball python 3 years ago despite never having owned a reptile before. Snakes had always fascinated me and I loved them from afar, but frankly I was a little scared of them and was intimidated by how daunting it seemed to figure out the husbandry. You did a great job showcasing so many different species’ personalities in depth, I fell in love with how surprisingly gentle ball pythons could be, especially if the handler was calm (like you were) when handling them. Because of the straightforward and candid nature of your videos, I went into reptile ownership with my eyes wide open and knew how to avoid being a terrible snake owner. Stella has regular sheds, poops, and a regular appetite because of the information you shared - you showed exactly what the consequences of negligent reptile ownership were and were very honest about how much care they ACTUALLY need (vs. hearing from most other sources that ball pythons are “beginner” snakes that require little to no setup or care and are SOOO easy). So here’s a “thankssss” from Stella.
THANK YOU THANK YOU, for this video. There are very few that go into this so well. I never did find one as "complete" and well out together as yours. And I desperately needed to know the experiences from other YT's and support as well at the time. Will never feel safe again, and I will always be traumatized by it all really. I hate being in our tribe.
You should invest time into learning and fixing your online OPSEC, especially if you have a big channel on youtube. Its only going to get more and more important in the future as more scams pop up and more databases are leaked.
Glad you're back!! It was a long week, hopefully the comments get sorted soon. Also that breakdown is the calmest mental breakdown I've ever seen in my life 😂
@@GoHerping I downloaded OBS a while ago, is there any way I can scan my system to be sure I didn't download the wrong version? I can't remember or find the website I downloaded it from
This was such a scary and timely video. I literally just got a sponsorship request over email that was asking me to download some terms and conditions files that I wouldn't have thought twice about opening, but then I happened to be in the middle of watching your video and immediately put the brakes on the whole thing. There was a suspicious SCR file in the package and that was probably the virus. Thank you so much for your warning, and I'm praying that you get full functionality and all your comments back on your channel asap.
I remember being really weirded out by being notified about a Elon Musk stream from Tesla USA I didn't even follow in any way possible here. Now I know what happened lol. I'm so sorry you had to go through all this to get your channel back, even buying an emergency new laptop wtf. Well, at least they gave you a video idea and more content, right? The good in the bad. I'm actually watching you more now than when you were doing the reptile stuff, so I think you are doing a great job. Anyways, keep it up! You're doing great.
It is so easy to be tricked with open source software like this. This happens to very smart, tech savvy people. It sucks. I’m glad you got your channel back.
I've been teaching my kid. Never open the 1st thing, and if it saids add.... Exp.Minecraft. Don't open it. Learned the hard way with the add.... About 10yrs ago, when I got a virus. Now Im like, do I really need to download this.
I'm tech savvy and it's never happened to me because I verify every website. Only time I've ever had problems is when somebody else uses my computer without my knowledge. That's happened twice because people just don't give a fk about causing problems for others. Now nobody lives with me and I have everything locked including all my data.
This makes me terribly sad. You have been the person to help me the most with my snake and I been even watching the amazon stuff cause you just been in my life. I really hope this works out for you. I hate for this to get worst.
Where to start. First, I am part of your tribe. A "small" (according to YT) channel that was hacked and hijacked. I'll never forget running into the bank in my PJ'S, tears and snot running down my face with a catatonic husband. The fear. Ugh. And being up all hours of the night watching the live scam going on and wanting to reach right through the screen. Days of sleeplessness from working to fix things through YT, Google, and other services, changing hundreds of passwords, and backing things up. YT is my life. Personally and "professionally". To imagine 15 years of my life, and 7 years of my proffesional work there gone was just too much. I lost thousands of subs like you. The worst part? Is my channel NEVER recovered despite the fact I was able to get things fixed there and up and running after just one week. I was tossed out of the algorithm or something. I don't know if I'll ever get back to having videos getting tens of thousands, even millions of views on a single video again. YT wouldn't help, as you know, and honestly... because that kind of stuff is self automated, I'm not even sure if they could manually or not. Yah. A video now gets 2 or 3k views and you don't even want to know the pennies YT brings me now. It's been over a year. I'm trying to accept now, that it just probably won't happen. I'm crushed. Part of YT is being a slave to their algorithm... its just a fact.
@@GodsArtGallery111 You know me? What a small world. :) Thank you so much for this. One good thing about what happened is I never lost the wonderful people who regularly watch. You all are so generous.
@@GoHerping You ever think of actually getting a job instead of e-begging? You zoomers love taking advantage of people just to avoid ever having to work for money..This is no different than being homeless holding a sign 😆🤡
OH MY GOD I WAS SO CONFUSED WHY I HAD NOTIFS FROM TESLA LIVE I THOUGHT IT WAS SOMETHING THAT LIKE TH-cam JUST FORCED INTO EVERYONES NOTIFICATIONS.. Very glad your back though, hopefully this doesnt happen again
I'm definitely gonna miss Elon Musk having the honor of streaming on your channel 🤣. But seriously, glad you were able to sort things out and get it under control (although Team TH-cam needs to get their act together when it comes to the recovery process). Getting your whole Google account taken over is scary stuff. The power they have once you do an oopsie...it speaks volumes of just how vulnerable our accounts are and why it's important to double check and never abandon your street smarts. Common sense is a wonderful thing that can help big time. Something that more people should be realizing.
One of my favorite youtubers was hacked through email or google and that is how he does 2FA. it shut his entire Pokemon shop down for almost a whole month.
I'm so sorry this happened to you, it must have be terrifying and things must have felt so uncertain. I'm glad you are moving everything offline, there are so many scams on the web it's hard to protect your info or your personal photos from being lost forever. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but maybe this is sign for you to have a backup plan (career/business) to fall back on in case youtube takes revenue away. I was in high school when the dot-com crash happened in 2000 and I think that is still possible again even now.
I’m so sorry that all of this had to happen. But, I’m so glad that you finally got your channel back, and that you didn’t get murdered! I feel so bad for you and everyone else that had to experience this. If I were you-and I don’t want to make you anxious- I would stay on your toes for a while. I highly doubt the hackers would try to hunt you down considering it wasn’t solely aimed at you, but they might like…give out your info? I’m not sure, but stay safe!
I usually don't care much about youtubers' upload schedule, I just watch videos when they appear but I actually clicked on your channel because I really wanted to see more gig videos and I was surprised you haven't uploaded for over a week. Now I finally know what happened and I'm SO glad you have your account back! I somehow missed all the tesla stuff
Dang dude, I am so sorry you had to deal with all that, that is scary, frustrating and mentally emotionally chaotic. And probably other emotions. I am so happy that you gotten your account back, you deserve so much love right now and I hope that everything get back to normal soon. ♥ Best wishes to you, p.s if I could I would def donate to you. ;3;
I'm so sorry this happened. Thank you for letting us know. This scam is terrifying and dangerously deceptive. Usually when you think of viruses, you think of an email filled with typos or installed with one of those bundle installers from 10 years ago. An identical website with a slightly different URL with a high SEO with a hacked version of a popular piece of software... that's next level. It's getting easier for the average internet user or tech savvy individual to fall victim to these things. :(
I'm SO sorry this happened to you. I really wish you the best :( That sounds like such a nightmare, I can only imagine how you must have felt. I feel bad about unsubbing as I'm pretty sure I was here since before you even hit 20k, I legit thought youtube subbotted me and I was like ew gross I didn't subscribe to Elon and unsubbed 😭 Love you Alex! ❤️
Aww man, that sucks. You definitely handled it well, an I'm glad you're back. Your channel had helped me a lot with reptiles, so I hope you get everything back and better :)
I wasn’t subscribed to you before this but I’m definitely subscribing now. I’m really sorry this happened to you but you seem like a really cool dude with cool content. I really hope that you get back everything you had and more
Yikes, this definitely makes me all the more wary of downloading literally anything online. Thanks for sharing your experience and I hope things can return to normal for you!
I feel for you friend! I own a cleaning company and in the last 4 months I have basically been scammed by a couple of past employees! They’re poaching my clients!! So I’ve lost several customers, at the worst, slowest time of year for my company
im so glad you’re back. i didn’t unsubscribe because i got in right when the stream started; before your final videos were deleted, so i stayed subscribed in the hopes that you would be back.
Glad you got your channel back. My unsolicited advice to prevent this from happening again, is to use a yubico key for your 2-factor authentication instead of your phone number. It's a physical device you have to poke to authentic, so it can't be removed or changed without access to your house.
or just use 2 separate devices for the 2fa. seems like he was only using 2fa with a 2nd email, which was also on his computer, so it was useless. if it was on his phone, it would take a lot more effort to get into that, if thats even possible.
They hack by stealing cookies, cookies are pieces of code that tell a website that it has been logged into a PC so it doesn't have to ask the owner to log in again. So if they steal the cookies, no amount of 2fa works.
THAT WAS YOUR CHANNEL!!!! I saw the Telsa Live and knew someone got hacked but before I was able to understand what was happening and who it was but before I could the stream and channel was taken down. Glad to see it was resolved and even happier for a video EXPLAINING IT!!!
Something happened to me similarly and it was literally last year. I got hacked on Discord sadly, I dropped my guard and things happened so quickly. I was scared and traumatized. I factory reset everything, I thought I had saved my game files except my sims 4 that was hidden elsewhere instead of my external drive. I was so broken that I may not ever heal. I feel your loss. I hope everything comes back to normal ❤
Man this would not be fun, glad you're doing okay now. Edit: The comment thing is actually kinda devastating, comment sections are such a time capsule into the video.
That sucks so bad. Dealing with any sort of support from companies just sucks and never goes smoothly. I can’t even imagine how stressed and scared I would feel if LITERALLY ALL of my info got stolen, especially the location of my current house!!! I’m so happy you got most of it figured out! Hopefully any other issues will be solved. I actually clicked on the Tesla live stream and was watching it for a min so confused because it said you were streaming but it was Tesla. After like 5 mins it went black saying the video violated TH-cams agreements or whatever. I hope this never happens to you again! What a nightmare!
One of my favorite youtubers was hacked through his email or google and that is how he does 2FA. it shut his entire Pokemon shop down (shopify) for almost a whole month. no discord either. it sucked. I feel for you bro and I hope that youtube/google or whoever fixes this, so it doesn't happen again. edit: apparently this has been happening to a lot of other people. I'm going to try digging into this a bit.
It's just another in a long line of scams. People create false sites, links, emails, etc...and get so many bites it's crazy. I strongly feel the one thing we don't have enough is education on this. There should be HUGE campaigns from government agencies and such that put out videos, presentations, documents on all this and offer free trainings to anyone.
Thrilled to see you were able to get your account back! I was pretty bummed for you, and not getting to see your videos. Hopefully TH-cam and Google get their security system improved
I was wondering which channel was stolen. My heart sank when I saw the tesla live thing. Thank you for the closure. I'll try to do something to support you when I can
A few years ago, I actually lost my original TH-cam account from when I was a kid to a hack-into-termination combo. I agree, YT support does suck. I kept having to start over bc the forms never worked for some reason. Since my channel was a total nobody with only like 32 subscribers, every time I tried to follow up, it would take forever to get a response, and the support person would ask me to start the process all over again. I'm still sad about it, but I've basically given up on getting it back. I'm relieved you were able to get things up and running again, and I hope you never have to deal with something like this again. Everyone always thinks they'll never get hacked, that they're not stupid enough to fall for things like this, until they do.
Omg I can’t imagine how stressful this situation was 😢 I was freaking out when my steam account was hacked… but having ALL YOUR INFO AND INCOME SOLEN… I really can’t imagine that😮
jeez!!!!!! i'm so sorry you got so screwed by those hackers. i got hacked *once* on steam by someone i considered a friend that i played a lot with and all I lost were cosmetics for tf2. it was a huge bummer and really freaked me out for a long time about internet safety, but i can't imagine having *all of my information from the last 10 years* in the hands of some hacker to use as they please. hope you're way better off now!!!!!
glad you got your channel back thx for spreading the news about the OBS malware and the sponsor emails. Its at the point where I go out of my way to not click the ads search results because of this and to wearier of the software that is being downloaded.
Man, that was a harrowing story. That f#$king sucks mate. So sorry. If it's any consolation, you've found a new subscriber in me and a new supporter moving forward! 🤗 I have no idea what your channel is about but who cares. 😆 You seem like a top bloke! 👍🏻 This video was randomly suggested in my feed. Perhaps TH-cam are feeling bad for their poor form!
I'm so sorry this happened to you. That sucks. I can sense the violated feeling in your voice and see it in your body language. Theft is flat-out awful, and it's terrible that it happens. For what it's worth, I love your channel, appreciate your content, and am glad that you have continued to make and upload videos even though you have had a number of ups and downs over the last couple years. I think you're a great person. I admire your desire to put good into the world and make things around you better.
I'll forever support you. I'm really sorry you got hacked. When my discord account got hacked I had an instant panic attack. I'm glad you're ok and I hope everything gets better soon.
Glad to see you’re not letting this stop you! You’ve helped so many people learn and saved animals! I support you and you growing as large as you can! This is so scary
Hearing your voice break over this really fuckin hurt. This shits happens to the best people and prey on people just not being constantly being on guard. I'm so sorry man. Seriously.
im glad your back!!! i was gonna watch your video and i realised your channel wasn’t there? i searched you up and found the channel you made to tell us it’s hacked happy your back!!!!!!
That was your channel?!?! I was so confused, I almost unsubscribed then I realized it must’ve been a hack because I wouldn’t subscribe to Tesla. Happy you got it back! And thanks for the heads up, they do look exactly alike.
Hackers have been in my TH-cam account for around 2 years now and TH-cam refuses to do anything about it even after I contacted them many times over live chat and twitter. Google definitely needs to do their job better. Hopefully your channel gets fully fixed. Also, if you just reinstalled windows, you should consider running multiple rootkit virus removers and tron script since some malware (aka rootkit) can survive a windows reinstall.
One of my favorite music producers also got hacked on TH-cam, and man, I really hate hackers. So much hard work, so much good content, and even sometimes the livelihoods of the account owners, all completely lost to a hacker’s greed. And it doesn’t even work that much because the hacked accounts get banned really quick! I guess it works just enough for them to keep doing it and lining their pockets with the suffering of others
Thanks making me more aware. Kitboga and scammer payback r awesome too. Your channel also helped me fall more in love with reptiles. Much love from Kentucky, Lesley and Medical Service Dog Jake❤.
I love watching these videos, only from this channel tho, non stop and then it's like waiting in line for the newest game console. The past 5 years have been rough but this channel cured my depression. My condolences on getting hacked, it really sucks.
Artofkicks just had this same exact thing happen to him. He’s still fighting to get his channel back. They got into his google and locked him out of everything. These fucking scammers are on a mission it seems and probably all working together. Glad you were able to get it back.
Poor guy, you don’t deserve what happened; no one does. I really hope everything goes okay in your future, and nothing like this happens to anyone in the creator space.
OMG what a terrible, frustrating story. I went through something similar a few years ago, from an evil browser extension. It wasn't until I started getting notifications from ebay, paypal, and amazon for things I didn't order (and were going to a variety of addresses that weren't mine) that I realized something had happened. I was able to recover all that, some fairly quickly. And I learned to use a password manager instead of letting my browser remember passwords. Lastpass has been very helpful. I can't imagine having my whole livelihood wrecked (albeit temporarily, one hopes) like happened in your case. I'm glad you're back.
@@chickadedede I know. But outside of keeping a hundred crazy long random passwords in a little notebook, it seems pretty secure. No problems since I started using it.
@@MostlyHarmless68 After the major hack and seeing a lot of the security community bashing their protocols, I ended up moving over to Bitwarden. There are a few other services as well.
I saw it happening in real time, I was like “Um- I never subscribed to tesla.” and then I came VERY close to clicking unsubscribe, my finger was hovering over the button, but before I did, I tried to type in the live chat. I got a notification saying “You must be subscribed to this channel for 15 years to type in the live chat, you have been subsribed for 3.” When it said I’d subscribed for 3 I realized that it was DEFINITELY someone’s hacked channel, I checked your page as quick as I could and your old videos were still up when I looked, then I realized it was you and didn’t unsubscribe lmao. Very glad you could get it back, and I hope the people who unsubscribed come back. I did make fun of the hack to my friends when it happened, though, sorry not sorry AHAHA
Oh I did see that live thing and was like why is this in my video newsfeed. But I get a lot of recommended stuff so just figured that’s all it was. I’m glad you got your channel back though 💙
So what's the valuable lesson of the day so people aren't hacked? The first Waffle House opened in 1955 at 2719 East College Avenue in Avondale Estates, Georgia. That restaurant was conceived and founded by Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner. Joe started in the restaurant business as a short-order cook in 1947 at the Toddle House in New Haven, Connecticut. Joe's concept was to combine the speed of fast food with table service with around-the-clock availability. Tom suggested naming the restaurant "Waffle House", as waffles were the most profitable item on the 16-item menu.
Wow. I had only subscribed a few months before this happened and then wondered where you disappeared off to. (I was probably one of the ones who unsubbed during the nonsense without realizing, oops) Glad you were able to recover eventually and that you popped back up in my algorithm!
If it helps, maybe TH-cam is apology-boosting you because you showed up on my recommended and I had never heard of you prior 😅. So sorry this all happened!! I'd be so traumatized 🙃
Glad you’re back. I got a Nord VPN sponsorship offer before Christmas, they sent a bunch of files which were apparently contracts and info, thankfully my antivirus program blocked it. But it seemed so legit 😭
I think my account is finally able to comment again! (i think...) I'm excited to be back into my lil video grind. If you wanna hang out on Discord and get other perks while supporting me, you can become a channel member :] th-cam.com/channels/xZQfGBeFsz6J_wfFKw-kvA.htmljoin
This is disgusting wtf
love you bro. fight the good fight!
I definitely would not have handled this as well as you did. Hopefully everything gets restored/ resolved soon.
If anything ever happens like this again just don’t lose hope! Huge congratulations to ya for staying strong!
Fuckin yikes man. Lesson learned those scams are getting tricky. I bet your heart dropped several times through this. Glad you got your accounts back. 👌
ALSO over 5k of you unsubscribed during the couple hours "Tesla Live" was active - which is understandable since few people knew it was me. So it's possible you'll need to re-subscribe.
I only realised I unsubscribed when your community post was in my recommended
@@WorstPlug why?
Shit. I unsubscribed someone recently because I opened TH-cam and saw I was subscribed to Elon Musk. Now I wonder who I just lost from my TH-cam feed 😬 I follow so many people and my memory is so shit I never realized until I saw this video. It wasn't you because I'm still subscribed to you.
I unsubscribed not realizing it was you but for some reason I'm still subscribed 🤷🏼♀️ oh well 😂
I unsubscribed at first, cursing TH-cam for selling out to tesla, since there was a thing a month ago that Finnish users had been added as unwilling followers of Tesla on twitter. Thankfully that was before they hid all your video backlog so could see it's you and resubbed (sans notifications since they were enthusiastic livestreamers 😂)
I know it's not much, but take this as a token of sympathy and a pat on the shoulder.
:D thanks!
How do you send money?
@@gabbyrenaud7209 At the top where it says Thanks
That's awesome!! Love seeing support like this!!!!
awwww boo hoo
Getting hacked is such a nightmare. We're all so glad you got your channel back! I hope the rest sorts itself out soon
:D thanks!
@@GoHerping You just say the same thing to the only 2 people trying to help LOL. Get off this shit already dawg youre lame.
Alex, it was thanks to your vids that I felt confident enough to get a ball python 3 years ago despite never having owned a reptile before. Snakes had always fascinated me and I loved them from afar, but frankly I was a little scared of them and was intimidated by how daunting it seemed to figure out the husbandry. You did a great job showcasing so many different species’ personalities in depth, I fell in love with how surprisingly gentle ball pythons could be, especially if the handler was calm (like you were) when handling them. Because of the straightforward and candid nature of your videos, I went into reptile ownership with my eyes wide open and knew how to avoid being a terrible snake owner. Stella has regular sheds, poops, and a regular appetite because of the information you shared - you showed exactly what the consequences of negligent reptile ownership were and were very honest about how much care they ACTUALLY need (vs. hearing from most other sources that ball pythons are “beginner” snakes that require little to no setup or care and are SOOO easy). So here’s a “thankssss” from Stella.
aye thanks! :]
Bro wrote an entire school essay
THANK YOU THANK YOU, for this video. There are very few that go into this so well. I never did find one as "complete" and well out together as yours. And I desperately needed to know the experiences from other YT's and support as well at the time.
Will never feel safe again, and I will always be traumatized by it all really. I hate being in our tribe.
Leona's Workshop also posted a video about her experience with this nightmare!
Super cool to see you here!!
You should invest time into learning and fixing your online OPSEC, especially if you have a big channel on youtube. Its only going to get more and more important in the future as more scams pop up and more databases are leaked.
Glad you're back!! It was a long week, hopefully the comments get sorted soon.
Also that breakdown is the calmest mental breakdown I've ever seen in my life 😂
i've never actually gotten to watch myself have a breakdown, so now I know it's a lot more internalized than it feels lol
@@GoHerping you kinda deserve to know how it feels after all the awful shit you’ve said 😊
@GoHerping dude I would have been angry/stress crying. You handled yourself so well.
Ditto. I would've blown a gasket!!
@@GoHerping I downloaded OBS a while ago, is there any way I can scan my system to be sure I didn't download the wrong version? I can't remember or find the website I downloaded it from
This was such a scary and timely video. I literally just got a sponsorship request over email that was asking me to download some terms and conditions files that I wouldn't have thought twice about opening, but then I happened to be in the middle of watching your video and immediately put the brakes on the whole thing. There was a suspicious SCR file in the package and that was probably the virus. Thank you so much for your warning, and I'm praying that you get full functionality and all your comments back on your channel asap.
I remember being really weirded out by being notified about a Elon Musk stream from Tesla USA I didn't even follow in any way possible here. Now I know what happened lol. I'm so sorry you had to go through all this to get your channel back, even buying an emergency new laptop wtf. Well, at least they gave you a video idea and more content, right? The good in the bad. I'm actually watching you more now than when you were doing the reptile stuff, so I think you are doing a great job. Anyways, keep it up! You're doing great.
I’ve followed you for years. I’m so sorry this has happened to you. Please don’t give up!
i appreciate that :D
Those sneaky devils 😲 Best of luck with the recovery process! 🙏
wooooahhh, dang! thank you - I really appreciate that :D
🐐
You’re an amazing person, bro
It is so easy to be tricked with open source software like this. This happens to very smart, tech savvy people. It sucks. I’m glad you got your channel back.
I've been teaching my kid. Never open the 1st thing, and if it saids add.... Exp.Minecraft. Don't open it. Learned the hard way with the add.... About 10yrs ago, when I got a virus. Now Im like, do I really need to download this.
TH-cam is owned by Google, who sold the ads to the scammer. They could report it to the authorities but won't.
I mean if you have half a brain its not easy lol
I'm tech savvy and it's never happened to me because I verify every website.
Only time I've ever had problems is when somebody else uses my computer without my knowledge.
That's happened twice because people just don't give a fk about causing problems for others.
Now nobody lives with me and I have everything locked including all my data.
@@the1observer I've been reporting the same advert scams for ages but nothing ever gets done.
My heart hurts for you having to have gone through this! And still going through it!
What doesn’t kill you…right?
❤️❤️hang in there Alex.
This makes me terribly sad. You have been the person to help me the most with my snake and I been even watching the amazon stuff cause you just been in my life.
I really hope this works out for you. I hate for this to get worst.
That’s why I always scroll past all the advertised links when I google any website
Same. Instant doubt.
Yeah its always best to go past the promoted links I've learned that as well because you can't trust them.
Where to start.
First, I am part of your tribe. A "small" (according to YT) channel that was hacked and hijacked.
I'll never forget running into the bank in my PJ'S, tears and snot running down my face with a catatonic husband. The fear. Ugh. And being up all hours of the night watching the live scam going on and wanting to reach right through the screen. Days of sleeplessness from working to fix things through YT, Google, and other services, changing hundreds of passwords, and backing things up. YT is my life. Personally and "professionally". To imagine 15 years of my life, and 7 years of my proffesional work there gone was just too much.
I lost thousands of subs like you. The worst part? Is my channel NEVER recovered despite the fact I was able to get things fixed there and up and running after just one week. I was tossed out of the algorithm or something. I don't know if I'll ever get back to having videos getting tens of thousands, even millions of views on a single video again. YT wouldn't help, as you know, and honestly... because that kind of stuff is self automated, I'm not even sure if they could manually or not. Yah. A video now gets 2 or 3k views and you don't even want to know the pennies YT brings me now. It's been over a year. I'm trying to accept now, that it just probably won't happen.
I'm crushed. Part of YT is being a slave to their algorithm... its just a fact.
Hi! Your videos always make me smile, Rebecca. Off topic, I know I apologize, I just want to say thank you for making me and many smile. ❤️
@@GodsArtGallery111 You know me? What a small world. :) Thank you so much for this. One good thing about what happened is I never lost the wonderful people who regularly watch. You all are so generous.
Your videos have been so fun and informative, and I am so sorry this happened to you. Hope this little bit helps :)
ayo, thank you! i appreciate :]
@@GoHerping You ever think of actually getting a job instead of e-begging? You zoomers love taking advantage of people just to avoid ever having to work for money..This is no different than being homeless holding a sign 😆🤡
So sorry this happened to you! I hope it all works out well :(
thank ya :)
Glad you’re back! Sorry about this terrible situation you were in. Wishing you well!
OH MY GOD I WAS SO CONFUSED WHY I HAD NOTIFS FROM TESLA LIVE I THOUGHT IT WAS SOMETHING THAT LIKE TH-cam JUST FORCED INTO EVERYONES NOTIFICATIONS.. Very glad your back though, hopefully this doesnt happen again
I'm definitely gonna miss Elon Musk having the honor of streaming on your channel 🤣. But seriously, glad you were able to sort things out and get it under control (although Team TH-cam needs to get their act together when it comes to the recovery process). Getting your whole Google account taken over is scary stuff. The power they have once you do an oopsie...it speaks volumes of just how vulnerable our accounts are and why it's important to double check and never abandon your street smarts. Common sense is a wonderful thing that can help big time. Something that more people should be realizing.
One of my favorite youtubers was hacked through email or google and that is how he does 2FA. it shut his entire Pokemon shop down for almost a whole month.
This just happened to me and TH-cam support was super frustrating to work with. I'm sorry this happened to you.
I'm so sorry this happened to you, it must have be terrifying and things must have felt so uncertain. I'm glad you are moving everything offline, there are so many scams on the web it's hard to protect your info or your personal photos from being lost forever. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but maybe this is sign for you to have a backup plan (career/business) to fall back on in case youtube takes revenue away. I was in high school when the dot-com crash happened in 2000 and I think that is still possible again even now.
I’m so sorry that all of this had to happen. But, I’m so glad that you finally got your channel back, and that you didn’t get murdered! I feel so bad for you and everyone else that had to experience this. If I were you-and I don’t want to make you anxious- I would stay on your toes for a while. I highly doubt the hackers would try to hunt you down considering it wasn’t solely aimed at you, but they might like…give out your info? I’m not sure, but stay safe!
My husband and I was so sad not seeing videos from you! I’m so glad you’re getting everything back.
Glad you got your channel back. This is not much but I hope it helps!
ayee i appreciate that :]
Wow I can't even imagine. You seem so put together right now. I feel like you need a hug.
thanks haha
I usually don't care much about youtubers' upload schedule, I just watch videos when they appear but I actually clicked on your channel because I really wanted to see more gig videos and I was surprised you haven't uploaded for over a week. Now I finally know what happened and I'm SO glad you have your account back! I somehow missed all the tesla stuff
Dang dude, I am so sorry you had to deal with all that, that is scary, frustrating and mentally emotionally chaotic. And probably other emotions. I am so happy that you gotten your account back, you deserve so much love right now and I hope that everything get back to normal soon. ♥ Best wishes to you, p.s if I could I would def donate to you. ;3;
I'm so sorry this happened. Thank you for letting us know. This scam is terrifying and dangerously deceptive. Usually when you think of viruses, you think of an email filled with typos or installed with one of those bundle installers from 10 years ago. An identical website with a slightly different URL with a high SEO with a hacked version of a popular piece of software... that's next level. It's getting easier for the average internet user or tech savvy individual to fall victim to these things. :(
I'm SO sorry this happened to you. I really wish you the best :( That sounds like such a nightmare, I can only imagine how you must have felt.
I feel bad about unsubbing as I'm pretty sure I was here since before you even hit 20k, I legit thought youtube subbotted me and I was like ew gross I didn't subscribe to Elon and unsubbed 😭
Love you Alex! ❤️
That’s absolutely horrible. These people don’t care how they disrupt people’s lives or livelihoods. Glad things are looking better.
they're coldblooded. i wonder what they're like in person day-to-day
Aww man, that sucks. You definitely handled it well, an I'm glad you're back. Your channel had helped me a lot with reptiles, so I hope you get everything back and better :)
I wasn’t subscribed to you before this but I’m definitely subscribing now. I’m really sorry this happened to you but you seem like a really cool dude with cool content. I really hope that you get back everything you had and more
oh my god i was so confused why youtube was pushing “tesla live” for me. it all makes sense now. sorry this happened to you
Yikes, this definitely makes me all the more wary of downloading literally anything online. Thanks for sharing your experience and I hope things can return to normal for you!
Glad you are back💕 I’m so sorry all of this happened, sending so much love Alex! We are here for you!
thanks!
This seems to be happening with alot of youtubers lately. Cheers for getting it back.
I feel for you friend! I own a cleaning company and in the last 4 months I have basically been scammed by a couple of past employees! They’re poaching my clients!! So I’ve lost several customers, at the worst, slowest time of year for my company
im so glad you’re back. i didn’t unsubscribe because i got in right when the stream started; before your final videos were deleted, so i stayed subscribed in the hopes that you would be back.
Glad you got your channel back. My unsolicited advice to prevent this from happening again, is to use a yubico key for your 2-factor authentication instead of your phone number. It's a physical device you have to poke to authentic, so it can't be removed or changed without access to your house.
Whoa
or just use 2 separate devices for the 2fa. seems like he was only using 2fa with a 2nd email, which was also on his computer, so it was useless. if it was on his phone, it would take a lot more effort to get into that, if thats even possible.
They hack by stealing cookies, cookies are pieces of code that tell a website that it has been logged into a PC so it doesn't have to ask the owner to log in again. So if they steal the cookies, no amount of 2fa works.
I'm really sorry this happened to you, but I'm glad to see you're back and posting. ❤️
THAT WAS YOUR CHANNEL!!!! I saw the Telsa Live and knew someone got hacked but before I was able to understand what was happening and who it was but before I could the stream and channel was taken down. Glad to see it was resolved and even happier for a video EXPLAINING IT!!!
yeayup
Something happened to me similarly and it was literally last year. I got hacked on Discord sadly, I dropped my guard and things happened so quickly. I was scared and traumatized. I factory reset everything, I thought I had saved my game files except my sims 4 that was hidden elsewhere instead of my external drive. I was so broken that I may not ever heal. I feel your loss. I hope everything comes back to normal ❤
That was yours?! I was sooo confused when that live stream popped up lol. Really sorry about this happening that's really scary :(
Unbelievable. I'm so sorry dude. I haaaaaaaate people. I hope you got control of things again and are safe.
I knew it was hacked the moment I saw it streaming nonsense, I am so sorry this happened to you. I'm glad you are back!
Man this would not be fun, glad you're doing okay now.
Edit: The comment thing is actually kinda devastating, comment sections are such a time capsule into the video.
I'm so glad that you're spreading awareness. People can be the worst. We need to get Mark Rober on this.
That sucks so bad. Dealing with any sort of support from companies just sucks and never goes smoothly. I can’t even imagine how stressed and scared I would feel if LITERALLY ALL of my info got stolen, especially the location of my current house!!! I’m so happy you got most of it figured out! Hopefully any other issues will be solved. I actually clicked on the Tesla live stream and was watching it for a min so confused because it said you were streaming but it was Tesla. After like 5 mins it went black saying the video violated TH-cams agreements or whatever. I hope this never happens to you again! What a nightmare!
One of my favorite youtubers was hacked through his email or google and that is how he does 2FA.
it shut his entire Pokemon shop down (shopify) for almost a whole month. no discord either. it sucked.
I feel for you bro and I hope that youtube/google or whoever fixes this, so it doesn't happen again.
edit: apparently this has been happening to a lot of other people. I'm going to try digging into this a bit.
It's just another in a long line of scams. People create false sites, links, emails, etc...and get so many bites it's crazy. I strongly feel the one thing we don't have enough is education on this. There should be HUGE campaigns from government agencies and such that put out videos, presentations, documents on all this and offer free trainings to anyone.
Thrilled to see you were able to get your account back! I was pretty bummed for you, and not getting to see your videos. Hopefully TH-cam and Google get their security system improved
I was wondering which channel was stolen. My heart sank when I saw the tesla live thing.
Thank you for the closure. I'll try to do something to support you when I can
Holy crap this is horrifying. Thank you for sharing your story so we can learn from this.
YT support does suck!!! So glad your channel is back! So easy to be hacked these days, it’s really bad.
A few years ago, I actually lost my original TH-cam account from when I was a kid to a hack-into-termination combo. I agree, YT support does suck. I kept having to start over bc the forms never worked for some reason. Since my channel was a total nobody with only like 32 subscribers, every time I tried to follow up, it would take forever to get a response, and the support person would ask me to start the process all over again. I'm still sad about it, but I've basically given up on getting it back.
I'm relieved you were able to get things up and running again, and I hope you never have to deal with something like this again.
Everyone always thinks they'll never get hacked, that they're not stupid enough to fall for things like this, until they do.
Omg I can’t imagine how stressful this situation was 😢 I was freaking out when my steam account was hacked… but having ALL YOUR INFO AND INCOME SOLEN… I really can’t imagine that😮
at least i still have pubg!
jeez!!!!!! i'm so sorry you got so screwed by those hackers. i got hacked *once* on steam by someone i considered a friend that i played a lot with and all I lost were cosmetics for tf2. it was a huge bummer and really freaked me out for a long time about internet safety, but i can't imagine having *all of my information from the last 10 years* in the hands of some hacker to use as they please.
hope you're way better off now!!!!!
This is legit a nightmare, glad your channel is back
glad you got your channel back thx for spreading the news about the OBS malware and the sponsor emails. Its at the point where I go out of my way to not click the ads search results because of this and to wearier of the software that is being downloaded.
The real friends were the scammers we met along the way.
what a pain. glad you regained your channel
Glad you stayed calm with this, also I've been enjoying your vlogs it's so interesting that you recorded and calculated your fuel and cost per day
Man, that was a harrowing story. That f#$king sucks mate. So sorry. If it's any consolation, you've found a new subscriber in me and a new supporter moving forward! 🤗
I have no idea what your channel is about but who cares. 😆
You seem like a top bloke! 👍🏻
This video was randomly suggested in my feed. Perhaps TH-cam are feeling bad for their poor form!
I was wondering why I was getting a notification for Tesla Live! So glad you're doing alright now.
Same, I was confused.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. That sucks. I can sense the violated feeling in your voice and see it in your body language. Theft is flat-out awful, and it's terrible that it happens.
For what it's worth, I love your channel, appreciate your content, and am glad that you have continued to make and upload videos even though you have had a number of ups and downs over the last couple years. I think you're a great person. I admire your desire to put good into the world and make things around you better.
So glad you got your channel back. Sounds stressful!
I'll forever support you. I'm really sorry you got hacked. When my discord account got hacked I had an instant panic attack. I'm glad you're ok and I hope everything gets better soon.
So sorry this happened to you! I hope things get back to normal for you soon.
That's terrible. I hope everything goes well for you. From one snake owner to the next!
The same thing happened to my channel! I'm really glad you got your channel back. you think that youtube would do something more about these scams.
Glad you’re back! Hopefully your video and experience will help bring awareness to this issue. 🐸
Glad to see you’re not letting this stop you! You’ve helped so many people learn and saved animals! I support you and you growing as large as you can! This is so scary
Hearing your voice break over this really fuckin hurt. This shits happens to the best people and prey on people just not being constantly being on guard.
I'm so sorry man. Seriously.
Bro when I got the email that my membership was refunded and I checked your channel it was deleted, glad you are back😂
:D
Oh God I heard about this fake obs. I'm sorry to see it got you! Have they removed that fake obs from being advertised yet?
im glad your back!!! i was gonna watch your video and i realised your channel wasn’t there? i searched you up and found the channel you made to tell us it’s hacked happy your back!!!!!!
That was your channel?!?! I was so confused, I almost unsubscribed then I realized it must’ve been a hack because I wouldn’t subscribe to Tesla. Happy you got it back!
And thanks for the heads up, they do look exactly alike.
Hackers have been in my TH-cam account for around 2 years now and TH-cam refuses to do anything about it even after I contacted them many times over live chat and twitter. Google definitely needs to do their job better. Hopefully your channel gets fully fixed.
Also, if you just reinstalled windows, you should consider running multiple rootkit virus removers and tron script since some malware (aka rootkit) can survive a windows reinstall.
Don't worry Alex, your Google timeline was never in your hands to begin with.
One of my favorite music producers also got hacked on TH-cam, and man, I really hate hackers. So much hard work, so much good content, and even sometimes the livelihoods of the account owners, all completely lost to a hacker’s greed. And it doesn’t even work that much because the hacked accounts get banned really quick! I guess it works just enough for them to keep doing it and lining their pockets with the suffering of others
Thanks making me more aware.
Kitboga and scammer payback r awesome too.
Your channel also helped me fall more in love with reptiles. Much love from Kentucky, Lesley and Medical Service Dog Jake❤.
I love watching these videos, only from this channel tho, non stop and then it's like waiting in line for the newest game console. The past 5 years have been rough but this channel cured my depression. My condolences on getting hacked, it really sucks.
Artofkicks just had this same exact thing happen to him. He’s still fighting to get his channel back. They got into his google and locked him out of everything. These fucking scammers are on a mission it seems and probably all working together. Glad you were able to get it back.
Poor guy, you don’t deserve what happened; no one does. I really hope everything goes okay in your future, and nothing like this happens to anyone in the creator space.
How bad must it have felt to have this happen whilst driving a tesla.
Are u the hacker @shekelsnatcher 😭
OMG what a terrible, frustrating story. I went through something similar a few years ago, from an evil browser extension. It wasn't until I started getting notifications from ebay, paypal, and amazon for things I didn't order (and were going to a variety of addresses that weren't mine) that I realized something had happened. I was able to recover all that, some fairly quickly. And I learned to use a password manager instead of letting my browser remember passwords. Lastpass has been very helpful. I can't imagine having my whole livelihood wrecked (albeit temporarily, one hopes) like happened in your case. I'm glad you're back.
uh bad news about Lastpass...
@@chickadedede I know. But outside of keeping a hundred crazy long random passwords in a little notebook, it seems pretty secure. No problems since I started using it.
@@MostlyHarmless68 After the major hack and seeing a lot of the security community bashing their protocols, I ended up moving over to Bitwarden. There are a few other services as well.
@@chickadedede thanks, I'll check it out
There's gotta be like an insurance you can get for TH-cam channels in case crazy stuff like this happens 🥴 that sucks so bad
This is horrendous, you’re one of my favorite TH-camrs :’(
I saw it happening in real time, I was like “Um- I never subscribed to tesla.” and then I came VERY close to clicking unsubscribe, my finger was hovering over the button, but before I did, I tried to type in the live chat. I got a notification saying “You must be subscribed to this channel for 15 years to type in the live chat, you have been subsribed for 3.” When it said I’d subscribed for 3 I realized that it was DEFINITELY someone’s hacked channel, I checked your page as quick as I could and your old videos were still up when I looked, then I realized it was you and didn’t unsubscribe lmao. Very glad you could get it back, and I hope the people who unsubscribed come back.
I did make fun of the hack to my friends when it happened, though, sorry not sorry AHAHA
i had no idea you could even limit comments to such a long subscription length. just another example of the hackers being friendly! loll
@@GoHerping I KNOW RIGHT, I was shocked at that to be honest 😭
I’m so sorry that this happened to you! I’m really sad that I didn’t get notified for this video. I hope everything is going better now!
That’s crazy. Glad you got your channel back
Oh I did see that live thing and was like why is this in my video newsfeed. But I get a lot of recommended stuff so just figured that’s all it was. I’m glad you got your channel back though 💙
So what's the valuable lesson of the day so people aren't hacked? The first Waffle House opened in 1955 at 2719 East College Avenue in Avondale Estates, Georgia. That restaurant was conceived and founded by Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner. Joe started in the restaurant business as a short-order cook in 1947 at the Toddle House in New Haven, Connecticut. Joe's concept was to combine the speed of fast food with table service with around-the-clock availability. Tom suggested naming the restaurant "Waffle House", as waffles were the most profitable item on the 16-item menu.
Wow. I had only subscribed a few months before this happened and then wondered where you disappeared off to. (I was probably one of the ones who unsubbed during the nonsense without realizing, oops) Glad you were able to recover eventually and that you popped back up in my algorithm!
If it helps, maybe TH-cam is apology-boosting you because you showed up on my recommended and I had never heard of you prior 😅. So sorry this all happened!! I'd be so traumatized 🙃
lol the worse of a day i had, the better the video performs
Crazy, Ive finally got behind the scenes view from your discord lol glad its back i was lost not watching videos
Congrats on getting your channel back 👏
Well if you randomly disappear, at least we’ll know where you went?
lmao glad to see you back
tru
Glad you’re back. I got a Nord VPN sponsorship offer before Christmas, they sent a bunch of files which were apparently contracts and info, thankfully my antivirus program blocked it. But it seemed so legit 😭