From the daily archives: Tuesday, March 7, 2006

ID theft — Nice try

by Ashish on March 7, 2006 · 12 Comments · in General

I was bidding on a Apple I-Mac computer eBay a few days ago, and I lost the bid. Today I got an email offering me a second chance to buy the product. I was like ok this does not sound bad. I talked to one of my coworkers and he said that the second chance thing is real. The email asked for a shipping address and then the transaction would start. So I emailed my shipping (work) address to the email. After some time I got a letter from an “eBay Staff Member” assuring me that the “emails I had gotten were real, and that the seller was in Germany and he had $ 6824.00 with eBay as security deposit.. so I had nothing to worry about since my $ 1050 will be insured.” All sounded good except there was a lot of weak grammar in that email. Didn’t sound like an email from a company like eBay. Also the original auction wanted payment through paypal, and this email was asking for payment through western union. So I did a google search on the “reply to” email address (aw-confirm@ebay.com) and immediately got an article about how that email address was a “spoof” or a fake, and that it was a scam. After a little search on eBay I found this email address “spoof@ebay.com” that’s an address one can use to report fake emails to eBay. So I sent this email and after a little while they emailed back saying that the emails that I got were not sent by E-bay and that they will report to proper authorities.

Identity theft ..sounds so weird.. almost like peter pan when his shadow gets stolen.. nevertheless it’s a real problem today.

 

Earthquake again with epicenter in Kutch

by Paras on March 7, 2006 · 3 Comments · in General

Earthquake felt in Gujarat:
An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale jolted several parts of Gujarat late on Tuesday night.
People rushed out of their homes in panic but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage.
The tremor, with epicentre in the Kutch region of the state, struck at 11:51 p.m., the Met office in Delhi said.
The quake, lasting for nearly a minute, was felt in Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Surat and parts of Saurashtra and many parts of Ahmedabad where several multi-storyed buildings shook under its impact.
For more detailed reading Gujarat Earthquake
Paras.