Verizon email box emptied. Service rep blames it on a "foreign device"

September 25, 2014 10:03 AM

Several days ago, I had about 200 emails in the inbox of my Verizon account that had been accumulated over the past several years. All of a sudden nearly all vanished and remainder followed the next day. I called Verizon and they advised me that a foreign device had entered my email address. The inbox content had automatically transferred to the new device and could not be recovered. They suggested that I change my password, which I have since done. Does anyone have any idea as to what happened? Is it impossible to recover my accumulated emails? Should I be concerned and should any further precautions be taken.
posted by cyrreb to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

If something or someone connected via POP mail client it frequently defaults to downloading mail to the client and then deleting from the server. Though its likely Verizon has some backups of the mail server I doubt they access those for individuals, thats more for extreme cases.
posted by bitdamaged at 10:09 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does your Verizon email account have a "trash" folder where messages get moved before they are permanently deleted? I think most email systems have such a thing.
posted by alex1965 at 10:25 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Could you have set email up on a new cellphone or tablet or something? That would be my first guess - that another device has downloaded all the emails and then deleted them from the email server.
posted by zug at 10:43 AM on September 25, 2014

Did you recently try to set up email on a new device, like a new computer or phone? If so, that device should now be holding copies of all the messages that were deleted from the server. From Verizon's perspective "foreign device" likely just means "a computer or other mail client that we don't control."
posted by contraption at 12:30 PM on September 25, 2014