On Being Hacked On eBay

May 16, 2008

On the 24th of April we were hanging out at the old homestead, doing nada.  I was probably trying to make my way back to the end of the internet again.  The telephone rings.  I didn’t recognize the number so I answered it.  Normally I don’t do that.  However I live on my instincts and this time something told me to see who it was. 

Some lady asked me if it was MDH’s residence.  I said yes it was.  She asked if he was selling anything on eBay.  I said not that I knew of but that he had a way of surprising me sometimes so I had better let her ask him about that.  I took him the telephone and went back to my e-travels.

Not long after that he comes into the room looking more bewildered than he has since Possum projectile vomited when she was two.  (THAT was a HOOT!)  He tells me I need to check our eBay account.  Sure enough, someone has listed some hoity toity crap on our account for sale!  The lady on the phone bid on it and won.  I’m not sure what happened on her end to raise her hackels, but she somehow got a hinky feeling and decided to check it out.

What to do?  Well, on the home page of eBay is a link that says “Live Chat” or something to that effect.  I clicked on that link. 

And here begins the saga of the eBay bogus seller fees.  For some reason they decided that I was responsible for the fees that the bogus seller incurred.  I decided I was not.  I decided that if it was necessary, I would close out my eBay account and just do my business on Craigs list if I had to.

Well, it just so happened that every time I had time to try to resolve this issue, it would be bad weather here.  And unfortunately my internet connection is through satellite.  *sigh*  I talked to three different people in ten minutes in one conversation one day because my connection kept going down. 

The last guy I talked to that day kept telling me that I had to pay the fees I incurred when I listed the items for sale.  I kept telling him that in the first conversation I had, which I had printed out, we had already established that my account had been subject to unauthorized activity.  Therefore I was not responsible for the fees.  I was getting dizzy going around in circles with this guy.  Thank God the connection went down again before I succumbed to apoplexy! 

So, tomorrow, the 17th, is the day the fees were to be charged to my bank account.  I decided to give them one last chance to rectify the situation before I called my bank to tell them not to pay the charges.  I click the Live Chat link on the eBay home page.  I got connected to the right person the first time.  She asked me what the problem was, referred back to the previous conversations I had had with all the other people there, read the messages and alerts that eBay had sent me in regards to the unauthorized use of my account, and fixed the problem in less than five minutes.

I was blissed out!  I gave that little darling about a thousand atta girls, wished her a raise, a wonderful life, a jump in Karma and just about every other good thing I could think of! 

All I could think of was how glad I was that I had been pleasant to all of those other people I had talked to before her!  Because it could have turned out so different if I had blessed out her best friend in the chat center the last time I was on!

I guess patience really IS a virtue.

 

But you know what?  I’ve been thinking about it today.  I know my side of this equation inside out.  They don’t know ME from Adam’s house cat.  I could be anybody.  I could be just trying to get out of paying fees that I really did incur.  I’m sure people do it all the time.    And it wasn’t their fault that the weather intervened the first few times I tried to get this done.  On their end, it must have looked like I was backing out of the conversation every time things got sticky. 

So, in the end, when I had a chance to stay on the conversation, it took eBay a full five minutes to fix a problem for me that could have been a disaster.  And they did it with good grace and were very pleasant about the whole matter.  Not bad for a place that you absolutely cannot contact on the telephone.

Now, if I could just figure out how on earth that lady got my phone number to call me in the first place I think I could lay this whole thing to rest.

 

Things I’ve learned: 

1. Change your passwords often.

2. Be pleasant to the people you want something from.

3. Change your passwords often.

4. Try to see the situation from the other point of view as well as your own.

5. Change your passwords often.

6. Don’t give up.

7. Change your passwords often.

It sure made my day when she said it was all taken care of and my account had been credited.  I just love it when something like that happens.  It just starts my day out right!

4 Comments | Abuse, Help, True Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by thought4food

Maria Lauterbach, Cesar Laurean, Christina Laurean

January 20, 2008

Living in North Carolina gives me a front row seat to the circus on this one.  Amid the incessant round of repeat information today I suddenly had a thought.  I think Christina Laurean is lying about when Cesar Laurean told her about what happened to Maria Lauterbach in their house. 

She claims that it was during a drive to see lawyers about the rape.  I don’t think that’s true at all.  I think he told Christina the story about Maria cutting her own throat with a knife on the same day he beat her to death in his home.  I believe that Christina came home from where ever she had been and walked into a slaughter house.  The explanation that Maria cut her own throat with a knife was the only thing he could think of at the time that would explain the blood all over the ceiling and walls of the house without implicating himself in her death. 

It makes no sense that he could beat Maria Lauterbach to death, wash down the scene, grab a friend, go to Lowe’s, buy a bunch of stuff, then paint the walls and ceilings of several rooms in his house, all while his wife is at a party. 

And that is IF he told her that story at all.  You have to keep in mind that Maria Lauterbach had accused Christina’s husband and the father of her 17 month old child of rape.  There is some question as to whether or not the child Maria was carrying was Cesar’s.  It’s entirely possible that Christina didn’t need an explanation about what happened.  She might have been there when it happened.  That might be why she took an entire 24 hours to go to authorities with her information after Cesar left town. 

Maria Lauterbach’s rape accusation had put Christina’s life and the life of her child in jeopardy.  It’s possible that Christina went to her husband’s Christmas party without him in order to make his excuses and give him time to do what he had to do with Maria’s body and the house.  She could have been covering for him.  She had no reason to like Maria Lauterbach.  In her mind, Maria could very well have been the enemy.  If that was the case, she could very well have aided her husband knowingly in every part of what he did.  He obviously had help from at least one person if not several people along the way. 

He wasn’t alone in Lowe’s, he wasn’t alone at the ATM machine.  He probably wasn’t alone at the Microtel near the airport.  Who is the person he was with at Lowe’s?  Who was he with at the ATM?  Why haven’t we heard anything about these people or what they have to say?

Another thought that gives me a hinky feeling about this whole thing is this:  In the note he wrote to his wife, Cesar Laurean puts himself at the train station with Maria Lauterbach when she bought her ticket to El Paso, TX.  As far as I know, HE is the ONLY source of this particular bit of information.  The question is WHY did he put himself there with her?  Did he see someone he knew there?  Did he think he was seen BY someone who knew him?  Did he think there were cameras there?  Did he take Maria Lauterbach FROM the train station? 

He put himself AT the train station with Maria for some reason.  So far I’ve heard no explanation for why he did it, but he had to have had a very good reason for putting himself WITH her at the last place she was KNOWN to be alive on the day she disappeared.  I’m still waiting to hear about this one too.  Could it be that he kidnapped her from the train station?  Could he have taken her to the train station and somehow forced her to buy the ticket to El Paso? 

And for that matter, no one actually SAW her leave her residence.  All they have is a note supposedly from her.  He could have kidnapped her from her home.  He could have forced her to write the note she left.  He could have taken her to the train station and had her buy the ticket then taken her to his home.  It’s not as far fetched as it sounds.  You have to remember this is the man who beat her to death in his house then took her out in his back yard, burned her body up and then buried her there.  Then calmly proceeded to paint over the blood stains in the house his child would soon be walking around in.

I think when this one’s finally over it’s going to be a stomach turner.  What do you think?

44 Comments | Abuse, Blog, Crazy, Crime, Random, Thoughts, True Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by thought4food

I Miss The Old Days

January 12, 2008

I miss the old days.  I mean back before everyone became numb-skulls. 

Back when you dealt with bullies by having someone bigger and/or meaner than them just beat their asses for them.  A nice big dose of whoop ass is a really good cure for the vast majority of that kind of crap.  The certain knowledge that what goes around comes around has stopped a good many mean ass kids in their tracks.

*SIGH*  Unfortunately, time marches on and those days are gone.  Now we have to be ever so careful how we handle these things.  We have to treat torturer and victim alike with kid gloves.  It’s my own personal opinion that that is a crock of shit.  I back this up with the recent rash of school shootings. 

I believe that if the victims of school yard bullies had just been able to beat the holy living shit out of the people who were victimizing them, the shootings would never have happened.  There are several reasons for this:  There is no shame is having your ass whipped in a fair fight, there is a definite release of pent up aggression when you’re allowed to fight, and you aren’t continually feeling victimized by both the person who is victimizing you as well as everyone who watches what he/she is doing and does nothing to stop it. 

As things go now, if you try to deal with a bully in that time honored fashion, you will be arrested, taken to jail, be booked, go to trial, and have a record.  This is all because someone else took it upon themselves to mentally, emotionally, and probably physically abuse you!  Something is drastically wrong with this picture.  This kind of abuse is an assault.  Just because it isn’t necessarily a physical assault makes no difference.  Physical wounds heal far faster than mental or emotional ones.

I think we should go back to the old days and old ways.  As a friend of mine used to say at the bar when people started scrapping:  If you don’t start no shit, there won’t be no shit.

3 Comments | Abuse, Blogroll, Child Abuse, Crazy, Kids, School, Thoughts | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by thought4food

Court Ordered Child Abuse

October 4, 2007

I watched the news today and saw a story about a foster child being sent into court ordered risk of child abuse.  I have first hand experience with exactly this issue.  It is both astonishing and sickening how many people will blindly send a defenceless child into danger simply because the letter of the law says to do so.  It sounds eerily similar to the Nazi’s claiming that they were only following orders. 

In the case of the foster child, he is 2 years old and has lived with the foster parents virtually his entire life.  His parents have lost all parental rights and the foster parents want to adopt him.  The birth father, a convicted pedophile who is a Mexican national, stated in court that when released from prison he intends to return to Mexico to live with his mother.  His birth mother never showed up for the hearing. 

However, before the foster parents can adopt him the state must try to find a blood relative who is willing to take him.  After a 2 year search, the mother of the pedophile finally agreeed to take the child.  Yes, this is the same woman that the pedophile father will be living with when he gets out of prison.  In another country.  Where the United States, the birth country of this 2 year old child, will have no jurisdiction.  And the state is actually defending their position of sending this AMERICAN child there and not letting him be adopted here by the only family he has ever known. 

He will be taken away from the only parents he has ever known and sent to a country he has never seen to live with people he doesn’t know, who speak a language he doesn’t understand.  And why are they even thinking about doing this?  Because the stated goal of Social Services Departments in this country is to keep families together.  NOT……I repeat NOT the welfare of children.  Look it up.

If this isn’t a case of court ordered child abuse I’ll kiss your ass on the courthouse square at high noon.

Did you know that if you have a child crossing a county line for visitation and they are abused, if you do not see the abuse yourself, and there is no physical proof of abuse, you cannot report it in your county?  Because YOUR county doesn’t have jurisdiction in any other county.  Think about that for a second.  This means that you have to literally stand outside the windows on the sidewalk peeking in and witness the abuse yourself in order to report your child being abused in another county.  Scary isn’t it?

Can you imagine what it would be like for a child to be sent into another country?  No offense to Mexico, I happen to love that country.  The fact that it’s another country just makes it exponentially more likely that he’ll be lost.   

We wonder why people are so much more violent than they were in the past.  It isn’t the availability of guns.  It isn’t violence in movies and on TV.  (although it might have something to do with the JackAss movies and Bam, but that’s another blog)  It isn’t even drugs.  For the most part those things are all symptoms and tools.  Until children are big enough to DO the things that catch our attention, we allow the most atrocious things to happen to them and we hide behind the letter of the law like that makes it alright.

It took My Dearest Husband and I years of anguish and pain, along with the help of an incredibly wonderful counselor who was willing to actually DO something, to finally get our daughter out of a sentence of court ordered child abuse.  And now we are seeing all the unfortunate effects of the time she spent in that hell.  She will never be who she could have been if there had been more people like her counselor.  She will never be the happy, light hearted little munchkin she was the first time I saw her.  With alot of hard work, she CAN be a fantastic, wonderful, caring, happy woman.  Unfortunately, she will have to fight a fight she had no business having to fight.  She should have been protected.  She wasn’t.  She was tossed under the wheels of the bus by the Social Services system who believes that the law is more important than the well being of children and that blood is more meaningful than love to a child.

What the hell are we thinking?

3 Comments | Abuse, America, Blog, Blogging, Blogroll, Child Abuse, Children, Court, Crazy, Daily Life, Family, Guilty, Help, Home, Kids, Law, Legal, life, Random, Reminiscences, Rights, Seeing Red, Teenagers, Thoughts, Trial, True Story, Uncategorized, Whining | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by thought4food