Getting Hacked & Scammed
On my dad’s birthday last year, my instagram was hacked and scammers got me. It was October 11 and I had just co-hosted a collective healing space the day before with my budding collective of healers, creators, and soul-centered and community conscious entrepreneurs.
After I got home, I worked til late editing and submitting a video for a cultural project honoring our ancestors through Araw Ng Patay or Day of the Dead (usually takes place the first week of November).
The fact that within this time frame, my mind was able to awaken the next morning in a deficit mindset about money, seeking a quick fix to my economic status, and falling for a trick online speaks volumes to me. I have a lot of work to do around my relationship with money, abundance, and work. I know I have been putting a great deal of effort in realms that many people have not even traveled, but it really gets to me. I’ve tried not to beat myself up about it.
A scammer/hacker team was pretending to be a friend of mine and claimed that she was able to flip her funds through cryptocurrency. I trusted this friend and sent a smaller amount of money than she did. They kept requesting more money and got a hold of my instagram account as I was speaking to them and they continued to try to blackmail me for more money.
It’s sad that I heard an African man and his crying baby threaten me for more money. It’s sad that they contacted hundreds or thousands of my 2000+ followers. And it is so awful that they actually got a few of my friends scammed between $200-900. These are people that I trust and trusted me. We are all in a vulnerable position and working so hard to survive during this pandemic. I work with mostly vulnerable populations and people making a difference, so it’s just wild to be back on my previous page. I actually don’t know how to engage and haven’t posted a video of my face in a while due to an allergy break out that happened on December 19 that has kept me ill and unable to do much relating to my music and education work.
Just a few days ago, I was able to retrieve my instagram account @soultreesounds after going through an entire process of changing my website, all my music submissions, and any other place where I marketed the name @soultreesounds. Unfortunately, there’s so much footage of me and information online with that account, but I’ve since shifted to @soultreesmusic to keep my account more focused on music and share less personal information while maintaining my business account @shhaa_lang. This has been a long-held goal, but these violations have made them take priority in my life and practices. It really feels like I’ve lost an even greater sense of trust, but I am healing that with caution and more wisdom now.
Gratefully, many of my community members stepped up and helped me survive the month of October through November. I cannot thank my community enough for rising up for and with me. So many of my friends were blocked by the @soultreesounds hackers and I know that they really defended me and tried their best to also report this situation.
For all of October, I vigilantly and diligently submitted requests for support to instagram and they virtually did nothing. I would occasionally try different methods to retrieve the account for the last few months and finally after nearly three months, I was able to get a password change request to my email that was last connected to the account.
This violation of privacy has come up in several ways again. While I was on kayak in December with family, these scammers tried to blackmail me with private photos they found on my account. They also were claiming they have my home address, neighborhood emails, my jobs, and my family’s address and that they would release it to the internet to ruin my life if I didn’t send $500 and I know that request will just keep growing as the plot thickens with them. I just blocked them from all my accounts and haven’t reached out since. If you do find the photos on the internet and you’re considering purchasing from these scammers, I hope you contribute to my cash app $soultreesmusic or paypal.me/SoultreeSHHAA instead.
I filed for credit protection last year when the incident occurred and I’ve had many therapy sessions since then to help me get my sense of safety and normalcy recovered. I know that behind this are just some messed up and lost people whether they are young boys or older creepy people who can’t find other means to make the money except to bully and take advantage of others.
I share this so I can heal and be honest. I pray that our world changes to create more helpful and healthful industries and that no one has to resort to any form of violence to have income and meet their needs and desires. I hate that these people have to be so aggressive, harsh, and harmful just to survive or enjoy whatever quality or lack of quality of life they have. I’ve wished horrible things on them here and there, but always take it back because deep down I know the root causes of violence goes so much deeper and that’s the root from which we have to heal. All these tests, are proving to me the strength and necessity of the healing and holistic work I do. I will be writing about this eventually in my music and what I’ll receive from that will be much greater than any of these attempts to weaken and take advantage of me and my virtual imagery. I have me and no one can take that.