What has possibly happened to my dad's email? (details inside)

I’m not really familiar with connecting your email to your smart TV. I didn’t even know you could do that. But it sounds like somebody hacked into his TV somehow. I don’t know that they would have been able to change his original email to a different email, but they could be logging in on his device with this new email, in the hopes of being able to see what emails he sends out or gets in, assuming he would contact friends, etc to let them know about this new email address. If you have a friend who is tech savvy, maybe they can help him get that email off the TV and get his original one put back on. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

If the email address changed, you need to really investigate. Log into the old e-mail to see if it is still active. If it isn’t active, try logging into the new e-mail and see what activity is on there. If it looks like someone took it over, contact organization that you might have had the e-mail address to see if there is any unusual activity.

Does he have an android phone?

@Blaxkwater_Park yes. His phone is Android.

His phone’s account may have been hijacked. There is a phishing scam that can cause that by clicking on a link in a text. May want to speak with your mobile phone provider

I would suspect a serious hack where someone is taking over multiple types of accounts and changing the email associated with them to a different email account, changing passwords, etc.

I don’t think there’s any way that an email account itself can change name, and have other devices/accounts automatically know the new name. It’s that someone got access to your dad’s password/account list, made a new email account, and then switched his accounts to the new email account that they made.

It seems a bit weird/foolish to change your “smart” TV account to that, though, as I don’t see what a hacker would gain from doing that – maybe the changes were done by a bot rather than a human.

I think @Zaku‘s idea is the most plausible because there is nothing other than the address that changed. I told him this morning to make a new email. We’ll see what happens.

Steps I would suggest:

1. Run a virus check on his computers and clean up any viruses.
2. Try to log in to Gmail using the OLD email address and his password, and confirm that that really does not work.

If step 2 works and he can actually log in to Gmail, that’s good news. Change its password a new unique hard password and only write it down on paper somewhere very safe, and only use that password for that Gmail account, ever. Then skip to step 7 below:

Assuming step 2 failed, continue with step 3 below:

3. Save any needed information that is only stored on his mobile devices, to another device.
4. Call the provider(s) for his mobile devices and tell them about his passwords being compromised, and ask if they can help. They will probably want him to do a system reset on all of his mobile devices. I’d probably do that anyway, if I thought there was a chance any of them had been taken over.
5. Make a new Gmail account with a new unique hard password that you use only for it. This will be your temporary new Gmail account to use to retake control of your accounts.
6. Contact Gmail and tell them the old and new addresses and that he did not change his password but can’t log in, and suspects someone took over his account and changed his password. Ask for their help recovering your Gmail account

7. Go through all the other types of account where you have seen the email changed, and contact all those companies and tell them you were hacked and that the email associated with your account is one you did not create, and must be a hacker’s account. Ask them to change your passwords on those accounts, and to change your email account to your Gmail account that has a new unique password. Make sure they have all your correct information such as phone number. Also ask for their help to investigate the recent activity on all of those accounts to see if they have done any other damage such as changing answers to security questions, adding other accounts, making purchases, etc., and undo all the damage.