Paypal Generosity

I received an email on Friday from service@paypal.com.
'Oh, another scam' I thought, although I was a little surprised as it was in my inbox rather than the junk folder.

I have to admit that as the header said - 'Don't forget to claim your money from ...' - I just had to have a look before junking it.

Ooooooooh, the plot thickens.

Dear *******@hotmail.co.uk, You've still got funds! On 22nd Sep, 2009 you received 42.20GBP from richardnsl@live.co.uk. After you sign up for a Paypal account you will not only have access to the money sent by GEOFFREY SMITH, you can also use your account in the following ways blah blah blah.

Or you can just withdraw your money directly into your bank account.

Zing!! ££££££££££££ signs flashed before my eyes.

Well obviously I've got a Paypal account, who hasn't? But equally as obvious, it's not associated with my hotmail address - soon remedied. I logged onto Paypal and added the address that someone very generously paid money into, then confirmed it.... dum de dum, dee dee dee.

There it was, just sitting there, one click away from being mine - £42.20 minus £1.63 Paypal fees.

What did I do? Yes, you've guessed, I refunded it to Geoffrey Smith with a note explaining that he'd sent it to the wrong address.

So what am I moaning about?
Well, the very fact that even though Geoffrey Smith has got my email address and his money, he's never once written to thank me.

So Geoffrey Smith of Rayleigh, Essex [I have the rest of your postal address too] - email richardnsl@live.co.uk, prepare yourself for lots and lots of spammy junk mail as your email is bound to be harvested through my blog!

If anyone else pays me through Paypal by mistake, I will keep it. It's hardly my fault that an utter moron keeps using my address - and he hasn't thanked me either, other than to make 5 recent attempts at changing my hotmail password.

IF either of the two chumps get around to thanking me - the seller on eBay who obviously has trouble spelling and the ignorant Geoffrey Smith, then I may eventually remove the email address richardnsl@live.co.uk - odd email for a Geoffrey Smith.

I'm still not totally convinced that this isn't some sort of elaborate, long term scam so I removed the hotmail address from my Paypal account once I'd paid the money back, then I changed my password - so don't try messing with it.

The moral of this story: - Don't annoy little old ladies - especially the more grumpy, chunky middle aged ones with a keyboard and a blog ...

Spam, Spam, Spam

Why is it that each & every day I receive crappy emails from crappy people, selling - crap?

If I want to buy 'genuine' fake watches/bags/jewellery, I'll buy from EBay [China]
I don't want 'dayglo' white teeth.
I don't want to play bingo.
I don't want to be thinner, well that may be a fib but I'm not paying anyone for a box of placebo's & being told 'you may lose weight even faster if you follow a calorie controlled diet'.
I don't need a credit card.
I haven't got a poor credit rating.
I haven't been 'previously refused credit'.
I haven't had an accident. I personally know of someone who moronically got involved with one of these 'let's fleece the insurance company because you broke a finger nail' & 'we'll get you the compensation you don't deserve'. What a waste of time!
I don't want my face lifting, I like it where it is.
I NEED all my old jewellery.

'Life cover isn't for you, it's for your family' - I'm sorry, but if I can't have it, I'm not paying for it. It's almost as bad as the TV adverts with well known faces telling you to 'leave something for your loved ones when you're gone' - gone where? Shopping? I need my money when I go shopping.

'Massive Organ' in the subject line is wasted on me as I'm not musical.
Likewise -
'Satisfy her today' - being of a grumpy disposition, I'm not likely to want to satisfy anyone.
'Hung like a horse' - whatever did the poor horse do to get hung? - this subject line is sure to be ignored as I can't read about animal cruelty!
'Daily column' - I see all the news I want on the Internet so no, I won't read your daily column.
'Enlarge your device' - any bigger & my device, the MWg zinc ii won't fit in my pocket.
'The longer your tool is' - now this is tempting as the zinc ii stylus is very short, I might click on that one.
'Enlarging your male tool' - I've got my own set of screwdrivers, the grumpy old man has got some really big tools if I need anything hitting or wrenching, rather than screwing.
What's 'Pfizer'? I've got 88% off the price whatever it is so it can't be much good, now let me see - click - Oh, it's viagra, why didn't they say so? I didn't even realise you had to pay for it.

Even though I have received all the above mail with their crappy offers, there was no need for me to see them as they all arrived in my online junk folder, I just went through them for this post. Nothing spammy ever arrives onto my computer, laptop or zinc ii. This is because I use one of my google mail accounts whenever I sign up anywhere [dodgy or not] online, google has a very good junk filter without too much 'training' needed. I have several different sky.com addresses for family, shopping & important 'stuff'. As luck would have it, google processes sky.com mail so by the time I've downloaded it with Incredimail [yes, I know it's supposed to be spyware but I like it], it's already been de-spammed.

My hotmail address IS receiving some spam in the inbox, so their filters aren't quite so good as google's, only junking the obvious phishing scams, but to be fair, there are several idiots out there using my hotmail address as their own & signing me up for all manner of stupid things, mostly games & ahem, dating. I did get a free years' use of XoftSpy SE, thanks to one Colin Wright erroneously using my email address during registration, so I got his license.

So, to spammers everywhere, for all of your wonderful offers to enrich my life - thanks but no thanks ...