Re: OT: Completely OT: PAYPAL does it suck?

Sally -

> > [1] "SPAM" in capital letters is a trademark of Hormel, referring to
> > canned meat. "spam" in lower-case letters is a colloquial term for
> > unsolicited email. See also http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm .
>
> I didn't use the word SPAM.  I talked about the "Nigerian Scam."  A "scam"
> as I'm sure you know is a ruse, which is what the Nigerian invites one to
> engage them in illegal activity amount to.  It's probably better referred to
> as a "con."   I know the difference between SPAM and spam, but in this
> context what difference does it make when the context clarifies? Even if I
> had used that word?
I think he was just being a geek in doing needless disambigation --
not referring to what you had written. ;-)

> Meanwhile:
>
> As I told a kind member of the group in a private letter: what I found out
> is that the REAL PayPal doesn't have a transaction record of the money I
> paid them on 11/13.  Apparently, the book I ordered (a rare one) was
> attached to some other kind of paypal, probably a fake one.  How does one
> detect these when ordering?
>
> When I went to order the book last week, some kind of PayPal reared its
> head, I paid the
> exchange rate, the book came with an amount due, and PP charged my account
> 22.55.  So they now have my credit card number. }:-((   When I logged into
> my account activity at the REAL PAYPAL (after changing my password), there
> was NO RECORD of any transaction.  To add to my suspicions, I remember that
> I had given that first PayPal account what turned out to be the WRONG
> password, but they proceeded anyway.  I had thought at the time that that
> was my password, but it didn't work on the real PayPal.
If I can rephrase:

You ordered a rare book on amazon. You did in fact receive that book,
along with something labeled 'bill'. When you went to pay them, it
asked you to pay via paypal.

Version 1:
If you have a paypal account, as you said you do, then being asked to
pay something only involves entering your username and password and
confirming the invoice. If you have cookies enabled, it'll already
display your username and you just have to enter your password.

Version 2;
... unless the PP account info - which it will already have and
display to you - is out of date, in which case you'd need to update it
before paying.

Version 3:
Or if it's a fraudulent site, they can collect your username &
password and pass you on to the real PayPal transparently, or be more
ambitious and somehow ask you to "confirm" or "update" your bank
account information too.


It sounds like you have a record of the transaction in your *bank*
account, but not in your PayPal account. If so, that is indeed highly
suspicious (especially if the "paid to whom" field doesn't say
something like "PAYPAL*23131" IIRC), and merits telling your bank so
they can change your account number to block and further fraud.

If there *is* a record in your PayPal account, then it should be all
legit, and it's just an issue of the seller having printed a "bill"
when it should have been a "receipt", which is FWIW very common in my
experience and not a problem.

Regardless, if you were sent something, that's proof IMO that the
seller received the money, because nobody these days would send
something without first receiving the cash.

> I didn't object to being called not "geeky" enough.  It was the written
> remark, when I was already upset, that I don't know the difference between a
> fraudulent and real account.
*shakes head* That I have no doubt you can do.

I was *only* remarking on the geekskill of reading full mail headers.
Given that you haven't mentioned anything from them (would be very
useful btw if you still have the original email from which you clicked
a link - click 'show original' in gmail to see it), my guess is you
didn't, like 99.9% of other people, and thus you tell the difference
purely on the basis of the content of the email. That works fine in
most cases.

I am sorry for any offense I may have caused by that; I assure you it
was not meant and I have no disrespect for your intellectual ability
(as I've told you before in other matters).

 - Sai