I'm MOURNING THE LOSS of a VERY DEAR FRIEND I met ON THE INTERNET... Will You be NEXT???

I'm MOURNING THE LOSS of a VERY DEAR FRIEND I met ON THE INTERNET...

This is the 3rd time this year, I have lost a friend in such a senseless way, It could have been prevented, but who would have thought something like this could ever happen to them? If they would have only been more careful, and taken steps to PREVENT such a tragedy, they would still be here today.

I am sharing this to hopefully prevent this from happening to YOU! Yes, YOU could also fall victim to such a tragedy, and all your Internet friends will then be mourning the loss of YOU.

The first friend I lost, had given me his business card, and we had numerous conversations on the Internet through emails. He was my hair stylist. The card also had his Business phone number on it. I called, he doesn't work there any more and they weren't willing to point me in the direction to where he went. His business card had the email address on it: Sean@CompanyHeWorksFor.com which of course he can no longer get the email because he DOESN'T WORK AT THAT HAIR SALON. (Rest in Peace Sean, I, your devoted customer, have NO WAY to FIND YOU and make an appointment, and be your source of income.) Lesson Learned:

The second friend I lost was really tragic, she never saw it coming, it was quick and unexpected, but I fear it was very painful. I met her through a home & garden group I belonged to. We emailed back and forth, and one day I sent her an email and it was returned stating no such address. Oh my! Where did she go? How can I find her? She had her email address through her Local Cable company, Kim@LocalCableCompany.com they went under-out of business!

This had happened to her once before and she managed to survive, when they SOLD out to another company and she had to change her email address to kim@NewLocalCableCompany.com, but luckily she had enough notice to tell everyone her new email address. (Too bad she also had the EXPENSE of Re-Printing ALL her business cards, stationery, and changing all her email addresses on her online accounts.) (Rest in Peace sweet Kim, we will never be able to share jokes, ideas, and recipes again, I can't find you.)

Sometimes if you re-locate, (move) the cable company may not provide service in your new location so you will lose your email address and have to use your new cable providers address, or worse, pay 2 cable bills to keep your email active! Lesson Learned: 

The third friend I most recently lost is really upsetting to me. She was brand new to real estate, and I had just emailed her a referral. I knew she was struggling to make ends meet, and to pay bills and buy groceries. She was BRAND NEW and starving. I sent her an email with the referral info, but the customer said she never made contact with them so they hired another agent. Turns out she couldn't pay her Internet bill and they turned off her Internet service. She could not LOG IN because her bill was unpaid. Eventually the emails were returned to sender, with "Account No Longer Active" in the memo. Lesson Learned:

Right now, I have my emails all set up on AOL, from way back when you had to pay about $25.00 per month, I have to keep them, I don't want to reprint stationary and business cards, change all my online accounts, etc. AOL now offers FREE email addresses, but I can't have ALL of the ones I have with their FREE service, so I have to keep paying AOL. I'm eventually going to wean myself off of them, but it will take time.

What You Should Do:

Create an email account with one of the FREE email service providers, pick an established one, such as hotmail, gmail, live, etc. Several are listed, Click HERE. Create accounts with your top picks and try them out sending emails to yourself, so you can find which one you like working with the most.
OR Get your own domain name and website about YOU and have your email be: You@YourWebsite.com.

Make a list of EVERYWHERE you LOG-IN or have Internet accounts so you can change your email on them all. Update your contact info on all of them while you STILL HAVE your OLD eMail Address, because some of them require CONFIRMATION from the OLD email address to VERIFY you wish to change your address.

Send a Broadcast email from your OLD eMail Account to EVERYONE in your address book, notifying them to CHANGE YOUR eMAIL ADDRESS right away, as you don't wish to lose contact. Ask them to REPLY to the email, so you know they got the new address update.

Import your Contacts to your new email account if it has the Import feature, then send an ADDRESS CARD to all of your contacts if you also have that feature. If not, open old email account and new account in separate windows, and copy/paste your contacts.

FORWARD important MESSAGES and FILES you have in your OLD email to your NEW email. This is very IMPORTANT! Just click "forward", and send them to yourself

If there are any PHOTOS or VIDEOS in your OLD email files be sure to DOWNLOAD them and SAVE them on your computer.

KEEP BOTH eMail Addresses for a couple of months, so you can monitor your old address and get stragglers to switch over to your NEW address, you may wish to continue using both indefinitely, but make sure you have important stuff going through your NEW email, so no one has to ever MOURN LOSING YOU!