dad's dog & fraud

I mentioned that it wasn't just work that had been making my time just recently a bit rubbish.

One of the other things was unfortunately that my Dad's dog has died.  He was a Labrador and apparently average life expectancy is around 10 years old.  My dad's dog was about 13 or 14 I think, so it has been on the cards and therefore wasn't totally unexpected.

However, that's not to say it wasn't a shock.

Being a typical Labrador he was motivated by his stomach and when he went ill the first few symptoms were "loose stools" and he wouldn't eat his food.  As such, my Dad took him to the vet promptly and they worked out that he was suffering from kidney failure.

Obviously you'll be aware kidney failure is pretty serious.  When people get it they have to do dialysis (filtering the blood, which is the kidney's main function) and need a transplant fairly promptly as they don't tend to last too long.

For a dog that would be an extreme length to go to.  They tried a few drugs in the hopes it might restart his kidneys but they eventually decided to put him down.

It's a shame - he was a nice dog (although to be totally fair he could have done with a few obedience classes).  My Dad has obviously therefore been a bit down and of course I'm so far away I can't be there in person.  I am going down to visit him for my holiday in a couple of weeks, though.

The other thing of note was that I suffered some internet fraud.

Well, I say that, I have a very strong suspicion they fucked up.

I have a PayPal account (you unfortunately can't get away from having one if you use e-bay) and what happened was that I received an e-mail saying that I'd made a payment to one of these online money things.

I hadn't, obviously, but the money had come out of my bank account (PayPal links to your bank & a credit card, in case you're not familiar).  It was £42, so not a giant sum, but significant, particularly given my current financial situation.

I immediately flagged it and they solved the case in my favour.

However, what makes me think it was a cock-up is that it was a single sizeable payment (they often do lots of little payments with fraud), but also it was how it was how my account was described on the e-mail.

Initially I'd thought it was just a phishing thing, but as I say, I checked my accounts and it had come out of my account.  But here's the thing - the account name given on the e-mail was not mine, but it was a sub-string of my account.  So if my account was "RandomName123@gmail.com" then the account it said was "Name123@gmail.com".

So as I say, this leads me to think they fucked up and a genuine transaction for somebody accidentally came out of my account.

The most annoying thing, though, was how long it took them to process the actual refund.  So I spotted about 6 hours after it happened (it was a weekend) and flagged it to all concerned.  Within 24 hours it had been decided in my favour and I was informed it would be refunded.  Within 48 hours I had received an e-mail telling me it had been refunded.  However it was 2 weeks before the money actually made it back into my account.

I've said it before, but PayPal is a fucking racket.