08:45 – Well, here’s one for the books. I got an order yesterday for a biology kit. The first thing I look for in PayPal’s email is whether the shipping address is Confirmed. If so, I know I can ship the kit immediately. “Confirmed” means that PayPal has processed the credit card transaction with the card issuer and confirmed that the shipping address provided by the buyer is the same as the billing address on file with the credit card issuer. So, here’s the first part of that email. I’ve changed the name and other details, but I haven’t deleted anything.
Payment received from janedoe@yahoo.com
From: Jane Doe via PayPal <member@paypal.com>
To: “The Home Scientist, LLC”
Date: Mon Jul 8 14:15:06 2013Hello The Home Scientist, LLC,
You received a payment of 192.00 USD from (janedoe@yahoo.com).
To see all the transaction details, please log into your PayPal account. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.—————————————————————-
Buyer information:
Jane Doe
janedoe@yahoo.comInstructions from buyer:
None providedShip-to address: – Confirmed
Jane Doe
P.O. Box
Seattle, WA 99999
United States….
I immediately emailed the buyer, of course, to ask what her PO Box number was, but I still haven’t heard back from her. Then I thought I’d better check with PayPal, so I called tech support. When the guy asked what the problem was, I told him that they’d provided “P.O. Box” alone as a “Confirmed” ship-to address. When he saw what I was talking about, he started laughing and said, “Better not ship that one.” He eventually speculated that PayPal had run the transaction through the credit card issuer, who for some reason approved “P.O. Box” with no number as the actual billing address for that card. Like me, he figured that the woman who placed the order just got distracted and forgot to enter the actual box number, but given the amount involved he suggested that I refund that payment and tell the buyer to submit a new order with a proper address. So that’s what I did.
Chances are it validated because the zip code matched.
We’ve run into hassles several times here for stuff because the town does not deliver snail mail and so everybody has boxes at the little P.O. which is about a hundred yahds from our front door. So places that won’t deliver stuff to the boxes ship them to our street address but a number of online forms have been problematic and won’t recognize one or the other or the damn zip code here. And our house is only one of two on this short street and that apparently throws people for a loop, too. Jeez.
Meanwhile my background check continues….I was offered the job back in early May just ten days after losing my last gig and here it is nearly mid-July. Eight weeks and counting. That last job took roughly the same amount of time; you’d think they’d wanna not duplicate the effort and use that but I guess not. I’d had clearances there and my fingerprints have been on file for over forty years. Whatever; got plenty to do around the house.
Meanwhile my background check continues….I was offered the job back in early May just ten days after losing my last gig and here it is nearly mid-July. Eight weeks and counting.
Blame Snowden. Apparently the federal background check people are in total turmoil.
So it would appear; there have been “furloughs” with our local IRS offices and the Fed investigators doing background checks are scattered between Albany’s “Capital Region” and Vermont and are stretched very thin right now. A lot of the activity is evidently related to processing background checks for Homeland Insecurity positions along our northern border region and my new gig sort of falls into that area. So what would normally only take “four to six weeks” and that was supposed to have been expedited in my case is now in its eighth week. With more weeks to come, looks like. Whatever.
When last heard, Snowden was headed for Venezuela; yet another socialist klepto banana republic dictatorship of sorts and if he or anyone else thinks the long reach of American operatives does not extend there, they have another think coming. If he won’t come “quietly” via extradition procedures for a big media show trial here, they’ll whack him down there. Object lesson needed.
they’ll whack him down there
Absolutely. Snowden will die of an unfortunate accident.
Absolutely. Snowden will die of an unfortunate accident.
The Russians would do him with a little bit of polonium 210 injected while he is out walking around. USA, who knows what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
Drone operator zeroing on his ass right now, probably.
I would assume that someone in the IT shop at PayPal is even now writing a script to see how many times that same error is found in their database. And, of course, any of your readers who happen to work at any major retailer.
OFD,
Adblock Plus is asking about quantserve.com in connection with this site. Do you allow it?
With this site? That’s a digital ad company, and I certainly have no arrangement with them. If they’re doing something on this site, it must be something underhanded that WordPress is doing without my knowledge or permission.
Whenever I install AdBlock Plus, I clear the checkbox that allows any ad activity, even by “trusted” companies.
Yeah, at this site. I don’t allow it (but haven’t blocked them) but this site still works. Facebook won’t work unless I permit some other sites.
No ads or notice of any quantserve.com for me. I wonder if it’s Facebook linked?
That sounds likely. Facebook is by definition untrusted. I wouldn’t put anything past them.
Whenever I install AdBlock Plus, I clear the checkbox that allows any ad activity, even by “trusted” companies.
Google and others pays Adblock to pass their ads:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2280451/Google-Paying-to-Have-Ads-Whitelisted-on-AdBlock-Plus
Yeah, but clearing the checkbox disables all adds, including those from companies who’ve paid Ad Block Plus.