Paypal Ordeal

So I checked my bank balance yesterday to pay a friend of mine for some camping expenses. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that I was down $880 for no reason, especially since there wasn't an ATM in a 25km radius around the camping site that we were at!

Within a few minutes, I called up CWB and had my Master Card canceled and basically stopped all financial transactions with immediate effect.  I let them know about what had happened and I must say, they were very supportive and assured me that I would get my money back. I wasn't happy with just the assurance as I had to find out the who, the what, the why, the when and the how, but the bank was not interested in these details at the moment. They were more interested in getting my money back to me. Fair enough.

Being the inquisitive character that I am, I backtracked every single transaction that had taken place in the last few hours. Turns out that someone had hacked into my Paypal account, which I did not know at that point of time, and used my information to buy a perfume and a "foreign purchase", with a total expenditure of $880! In my bank statement, this expense appeared as three different transactions from New York and the United Kingdom, but the amount added to $880!

So I figured that the transaction must have taken place via my Paypal. I logged on and saw the transaction immediately. I raised more than an eyebrow this time. I raised a storm. Fortunately for me, I received an email from an ebay seller saying:

"Hi you still haven’t sent address, and ive just found out it , it cant be sent via post , as its battery is built in."

Huh???? What? What was this guy talking about? I had not ordered anything, leave alone a device with a battery in it! So I replied to his email asking him what it was all about. Within a few minutes, I had a reply from her (turns out the seller was a sweet lady):

"The ipad that you bought from me off ebay, and wanted sent to Indonesia, you paid via paypal"

In the next few milliseconds, my thoughts were - "iPad! Woohoo! Wait! What iPad? WTF? YES! Gotcha you li'l sucker!"

I emailed the seller back saying that she shouldn't mail the iPad anywhere and explained the whole situation. She was onto it immediately and refunded my money within a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, I called up Paypal and they assured me that I won't lose my money as well. However, in the emails between me and the eBay seller, I knew exactly who bought the iPad, where it was bought from, when it was bought and where the dude wanted it to be shipped - Indonesia!

Neither the bank nor Paypal was interested in this information and said it could take weeks or months to find the culprit. I was giving them the information on a silver platter. And to be honest, it took me less than 3 hours to find out all of this information. Cool huh?

In hindsight, I also noticed that I had not received any confirmation from eBay informing me of this purchase, nor an email from Paypal with a receipt of this purchase. So in case you are wondering if you could be a possible victim, the answer is, YES. 

Check your finances every day. I have been in the habit for the last 3 years. It is one of the things I do within the first few minutes of waking up - Read the news back home, check emails, check bank account, check facebook (.... don't we all? :) )

So at the moment, I'm stuck without a debit card, which means I have to go to the bank to get some cash... if I have any left in my account, that is!

P.S. Nobody messes with AK or somebody gonna get-a hurt real bad :)

Kites and Bikes Festival 2011 - Brunswick Heads

There was a local event in Brunswick Heads called Kites and Bikes festival where a large number of people gather and fly kites and ride their bikes. It is a big deal for Brunswick Heads since it's such a sleepy town and rarely gets to witness any major activity.

Today was different though. There were lots of people on the street. There were stalls set up in the park. People dressed up for the occasion. Some of the kites were massive! Here are a few pics I took.

This Sunday Morning

I was up all night on Saturday and ended up going to the beach at 5 am, hoping to catch the sunrise. Sadly, it was overcast, but I managed to capture a few moments in low light that I thought are quite cool. Here's a few of them:

I always find the movement of water as an interesting subject. The sheer power of the sound of moving water is fascinating. I have tried to capture the fluid motion of water in these images. Click on them to open them up as bigger files instead of viewing just the thumbnails. Enjoy!

My New Pet

I've missing my dogs a lot lately. I have 4 dogs back home, 3 Golden Retrievers and 1 Cocker Spaniel. The Retrievers are a naughty bunch and the Spaniel's a bit quiet, mostly because she's older.

Now I've been toying with the idea of getting a dog for myself, but I cannot take the responsibility of having one around the house, because of my lifestyle, or the lack of it. Living alone doesn't allow me the liberty of having a pet around, considering that I'm barely home, except when I need to sleep or when I feel the need to cut myself off from everyone else. Still, I was keen to have a pet for myself.

Over the last few days, I have been terribly busy trying to finish my pending projects. Everytime I got home, I would notice a little spider trying to build a web and watch it go round and round. I thought it was fascinating, considering that the web he was building was so strong that even when I pulled it lightly, the thread wouldn't snap. So I decided to let him be.

As time passed, the web kept growing bigger and he ended up building a 3 dimensional web around him... it almost felt like he started with a tiny apartment and ended up building a mansion for himself. I hadn't noticed how big he had grown too. I thought long and hard to find a name that I could call him... and after days of thinking, I decided to call him... "Bob".

Bob in Moonlight

Bob on his Web - The Living Room

Bob - Popping a Pose in Moonlight

Bob Building his Web

Now Bob is one of the most active spiders I have seen. To begin with, he is almost as big as my hand and he looks mean, but he's quite cool. Craig, the resident gardener had pulled his web down once, and he got back into building it within a day. In less than 2 days, he had built a web that was even bigger than the first one and it looks beautiful, especially in the rain when there are a few drops of water showing the detail. I make it a point to feed Bob with a few dead insects that I find lying outside. His web is now directly outside my room so he ends up killing all the mosquitoes and flies that try and come in... a little bit of give and take I guess :)

Sunrise in Brunswick

I went to the beach this morning with my good friend Siegfried to watch the sunrise. I usually wake up early and thought it would be a good opportunity to hang out with Siegfried since he is an early riser as well. I took my camera along just in case the sunrise was too good to miss... it was! I don't think I captured the essence of the sunrise well in these pictures, but I guess you can see the beauty around Brunswick Heads, the town I live in. I realised I tilt the camera to the right very often, so I'm consciously going to avoid doing that next time! I feel a bit stupid for not sticking to the horizon... amateur mistake :)

Siegfried Walking

A Pelican

A Streetlight Along Brunswick River

The Moon Just Before Sunrise

Brunswick River

Brunswick River Again

Moments Before Sunrise

First View

Silhouette

Fishing While Watching The Sun Rise

The Sun - Out of Focus

The Sun Comes Out

The Colours In The Sky

The Bridge Over Brunswick River