Topaz Lanfier

I'm posting on behalf of a friend who's had a bit of an unsettling experience. 18 months ago she started a new (second) life. She broke contact with everyone from the first. New avi, different groups…just a complete new start. And she shared no RL details with the first set of friends. The first account still exists, but she never uses it, and she wiped her profile clean. Yesterday she got an IM from one of her former friends, who knew she was the same person as the first account. (Nothing malicious, her ex-friend was just making contact.) The person wasn't on the same sim, and my friend was not chatting in local anyway. We've been racking our brains, but we're at a loss to know how this is possible. Does anyone have any ideas how this could happen? I know the obvious answer is to ask the ex-friend, but she really doesn't want to revisit that life.