[Coco] Re: Wikipedia in trouble

[Steve Ostrom]

Roger Taylor wrote:

> At 05:15 PM 12/29/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>
>
>> Steve Ostrom wrote:
>>
>>> I agree.  I've used PayPal flawlessly for two or three years now.  
>>> It has been a great tool, especially when transferring money to our 
>>> friends across the pond or when you don't want to wait 7-10 days for 
>>> your check to clear.  I think you'll find that at least 80% of the 
>>> people selling on eBay use that as their primary method of 
>>> collection.  I've found no negatives to using PayPal yet.  I think 
>>> Gene voiced some strong objections to PayPal and I'd be interested 
>>> in hearing the opinions of any others using it.
>>
>
> Gene's comment about PayPal was short, and not really strong.  Doesn't 
> make a difference.  PayPal is not going away.  They'll just keep on 
> merging until they are 100 times bigger than they are today.  The 
> PayPal/ebay merging was a blessing, but along with that comes more 
> potential victims for scam artists.  Keep in mind that a scam artist 
> doesn't need PayPal to be any more or less secure.  They don't even 
> need PayPal.  If they pose as another person and use stolen credit 
> cards, etc. nothing can stop them.  There was a very long article on 
> MSN that explained what some foreigners (in Russia) have been doing 
> using PayPal and ebay to bring mega dollars and products right to 
> their front door over there before somebody caught on.  While some 
> would say, "gullible Americans"... it's also Americans doing it to 
> foreigners, so think again.
>
> Since PayPal/ebay has so many users, it's a walk in the park for the 
> average scammer.  Any time you have this many people handing money and 
> products to each other all day long, every day, it becomes very easy 
> for this kind of stuff to occur.  Your local banks go through the same 
> crap.  It's not just PayPal, or just because PayPal is a growing 
> business.
>
>
> ----------
> Roger Taylor
>
>
Roger, I agree about the scammers.  They are all over the place and a 
person needs to be on guard all the time.  I received one of the PayPal 
scams about a year ago, asking me to click on a hyperlink and give them 
some confidential data.  I was wary right away, then I noticed that they 
identified themselves as www.PayPa1.com instead of www.PayPal.com.  I 
caught the substitution of the "one" for the "ell".  I decided to play 
along, risking a possible virus attack, just to see what would happen, 
although I did update my virus signatures before I tried it.  Clicking 
on the hyperlink brought me to a well-done PayPal-like site, but the 
address that I was redirected to was some weird address.  I backed out 
right away with no harm done.  We Windows users are especially 
vulnerable to this crap, but I won't consider a Mac and don't have the 
time to mess with Linux, even though it would be a lot of fun.

By the way, can I transfer PayPal funds to you for a copy of Portal?  
(<<snicker>> OK, I put this question here as a bit of levity, but will 
buy a copy from you as soon as you think it is stable.  I don't even 
have a problem with sending you the funds now, but I would want to wait 
a bit for the software, if that's OK.)

-- Steve --