i just wanted to clarify that
A), i have been on the internets since the 80's, thus am aware of phishing scams, etc, and would never click on any links in an unsolicited email, and
B) the email from dA was legit - what they wanted was verification that me, myself and I (and not someone else) had actually requested the password change. if so, then i should go to dA and verify that, and, if was NOT me who had done that, to ignore their email. which i did.

i was just wondering if this is a common hacking ploy on dA specifically, or just across the world wide web.