I love snail mail and getting surprise packages is a treat. My pen
pal, Anna, sent me a lovely letter, tea goodies and an Australian
import. So cute!
It’s been a very stressful and tiring week. TGIF!
You know what’s funny? Bankers themselves don’t know what an
online/e-commerce merchant account is. It’s really dumb to hear, “Well
can you explain to me what it does? Because I don’t think we have
that.” Are you kidding me?
In the apartment-front, so our very posh (hahaha–I keed, I keeeed)
apartment management have very strict guidelines for would-be tenants.
Since I’m staying there for over two weeks, they also require me to
apply as well as sign the lease. They’ll be doing a background security
check, residence history check, credit check and all that fun stuff. A
month ago, my boyfriend sent his application to them and got approved,
so that’s done. Today my boyfriend gave them my application. [It took a
while because they don’t want applications electronically sent, so
everything was done via snail mail.] Aside from that, they asked me to
send them proof of income, namely my 2006 personal tax return, business
tax return, and certificate of registration for my company. For these,
I was allowed to scan and send via e-mail. Problem is, the apartment
manager did not correct me over the phone when I repeated the email
address to her for clarification.
Can you tell where I’m going with this?
Instead of sending all my personal, financial and business information
to @yadda-yadda-apts.com, I sent it to @yadda-yadda-atts.com. Here’s
the kicker: the email with attachment wasn’t bounced back.
Yes, all my confidential financial information was sent to some cybersquatting site.
And the company that owns the domain where I accidentally sent my info
to has been sued and is being sued by numerous large companies such as
Exxon Mobil Corp., for squatting.
I almost cried this afternoon, because aside from dealing with idiots
the whole day, I was slapped with the horrific fact that someone out
there has all my personal information, including my SIN number (that’s
“Social” for you Americans).
This is the last thing I need. I actually had to draft and send a
formal legalese letter to the registrant of the domain,
non-threateningly threatening to sue if some untoward circumstance
arises due to their receipt of my information. UGH!
Lessons learned:
1. There’s a reason why people still rely on fax machines for important
documents: It’s far easier to cybersquat than faxsquat. I don’t think
the latter even exists. I should remember that of all the times I’ve
sent and received signed contracts and credit card information where I
previously worked, the worse that happened was a fax number being wrong
or unsuccessfully transmitted pages because of connection problems.
2. Send a test e-mail first before sending personal information. That
or ask the receiving party to send you an e-mail to make sure you have
the correct e-mail address.
3. Seriously, learn from my experience.
I’m just trying to de-stress now after a horrible week and immensely
enjoying the ‘ttude of my new furry pal. What should I name him?
