What do YOU think is going on?
The following is based on actual events as related to me by one of the parties in the story. If my facts are incorrect then please contact me and I will publish a correction or edit this entry accordingly. All names have been changed to protect both the innocent and the shameless.
Early February, Missy, who has accounts with eBay and Paypal, helps her friend, Betty, set up accounts at both these websites.
About a week later, Missy receives in the mail some trading cards which she didn’t order. She talks to Betty who explains that Missy accidentally put her own address on Betty’s paypal account. Missy apologizes for the error, learns that Betty has corrected the address with paypal and hands over the cards. Betty warns her that she should expect about three more such packages in the next few days.
Another week goes by. Missy does, in fact, get another pack of trading cards, but NOT a movie she’s been waiting on for a couple of weeks. She goes to eBay and paypal looking into the situation and, at paypal, discovers that the trading cards she handed to Betty, the set she just received, plus two more sets were all paid for through HER paypal account, to the tune of about $40. A little investigation at ebay reveals that the cards were, in fact, purchased through Missy’s ebay account and the information has been deleted from her “my ebay” page. It is, however, impossible (as far as I know) to COMPLETELY erase the record of a purchase from ebay’s records and, if one knows where and how to search, it can be revealed.
Missy realizes that if these items were purchased with her account then ebay would have sent notices to her email address. Since she never got these notices, she goes to her web-based email account and looks in the trash folder. What, to her wondering eyes, should appear on the screen but several bid confirmation notices and item won notices from ebay plus some payment confirmation notices from Paypal!
A few days later, Missy’s mother takes a call from the school counselor. The counselor says that Missy should be watched closely because she was threatening suicide at school. Missy also gets a phone call from a friend that evening who says that he heard about this from Betty. Missy immediately calls Betty and, in an attempt to track down the source of the rumor, asks Betty where she heard this. Betty says she heard it from Diana. The next day, at school, Missy asks Diana who told her that Missy was suicidal. Strangely enough, Diana hasn’t heard the rumor at all .
Two hours later, Betty jumps all over Missy for lying whem she denied having said anything about suicide She then throws off a comment o the order of, “You need mental help and I’m not going to be your friend until you get it. I’m also going to make sure no one else will be your friend, either.”
A) It seems to me that if you’re going to jump down someone’s throat for lying, then the best time to do this is NOT right after you’ve been caught lying to that person - especially if the person you’re jumping on did not, in fact, lie.
B) If you’re concerned about someone considering suicide, then threatening to leave them without a friend in the world is not, in my not-so-humble opinion, the smartest way to express that concern.
C) Whoever stole the passwords for Missy’s email, paypal, and ebay accounts (Frankly, my money’s on Betty), should realize that every computer connected to the Internet has a unique address, called an IP address, that your browser gleefully hands to every website you visit and that places like ebay and paypal can contact the Internet Service Provider who registered those addresses to find out who was using that address at a specific date / time. If someone knows to delete email but doesn’t know enough to empty trash folder after doing it, then my guess is that they don’t know how to hide their IP address either.
Technorati Tags: ebay, paypal, security, soap+opera, lies
