[solved] AM I A VICTIM OF VOTE STEALING? - perhaps your account has been also abused and you don't even know it ...

INTRODUCTION

He pointed out that I upvoted content created by Hive account@dlease writen in Italian language. And on top of that I used my 17k SP FULL voting power (which I really never do). And it seems that this abuse of my account by Hive account@dlease has been happening for quite some time already.

I remember signing weeks ago to their site https://dlease.io/ and I had given my trust to this project by linking it with my account via SteemConnect (which I consider safe). During that process however, I wasn't informed that my account will be used to "upvote" their content and I never accepted unauthorized usage of received access to my account (posting key).

FULLY ALARMED

I was alarmed right away and one of my first steps was to check steemworld.org/@user (or steemd.com/@user) and have a look at my latest activity. On top of unautorized upvotes for Hive account@dlease, I also realized that Hive account@steemsports are receiving my upvotes on similar basis. With full voting power, without my approval.

In this case I do not even recognize seeing that account in my entire life and I cannot figure out how they got into possessing my posting key.

It made me realize that the scale of this problem could be potentially bigger than I could expect at that time. So, it's time to build some awareness to avoid such an abuse of our accounts!

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

My intentions are not to "spit" or offend the team behind dlease or steemsports as I do believe that they are putting much effort into their work. I'm only sharing my own concern and impression that my STEEMit accout (which is my property) has been used against my will. I hope to clarify this problem and build awareness so others would pay more attention to this issue.

I can only hope that this publication will not upset anyone and will serve others, as I strongly believe that most of us never even considered that our upvotes can be "stolen".

SHARE YOUR OPINION

I really would like to know what other people think about this situation. I'm sure many of you dear readers have been exposed to similar abuse of your own Steemit accounts. Perhaps many of you don't even know about it (as I did not til Hive account@devann contacted me in the first place).

I obviously removed my account from dlease.io and my trust towards this tool is forever gone. I can only wonder if this will be enough to stop them from gaining access to my account or will they continue. Unfortunately only time will tell.

Please share with me if you ever had similar experience. The best way we can fight with these unwanted situations like the one describe above is by building awareness and warning other users. So I would really appreciate each comment (and resteem, which would help reach and bring awareness to more unsuspecting people).

Hive account@reggaemuffin explained in comment section the reasons why Hive account@dlease has been upvoted from my account, for which I'm very grateful. Taking into consideration excellent communication and mature response, I would still consider Hive account@dlease as a trustworthy project. I would also like to underline that main goal I wanted to achieve is simple: to build awareness and encourage people to monitor their account activity.

Yours,
Piotr