How much personal information do you give out online?

[Alan Zoff]

http://www.youtube.com/embed/F7pYHN9iC9I?rel=0

[idun]

 [:-))]As I have just said on another thread............ very little. Sheer madness to let the whole world know one's life like that.

[Quillan]

Nothing. I don't use any social networks for absolutely anything and I advice people never to use them. Recent hacks in to Twitter, Gmail, etc, etc show that 'the cloud' is not to be trusted. I don't even use my bank card in shops, I pay cash, why because there is a trail and the information is collected by the likes of Visa and then sold on. The only 'on-line' service I use is photobucket and the only photo's there are what I want people to see mainly on this forum. I have a Gmail and a Hotmail account but I never use them for personal stuff, I prefer to use Outlook and my ISP email account where the emails get deleted once they are uploaded in to Outlook so nothing is ever left on the server.

Data farming is very big business, I know I have been involved in it in a past life. It is truly amazing what they collect about individuals, their spending habits etc and what information some companies that have collected it will sell on. The biggest business is supermarkets and what they collect which is why you have cards for supermarkets. The benefits they give the end user is minuscule compared to the information they farm from your spending habits and then sell on and the price they sell it for.

These days companies no longer deal with references themselves, they use specialist companies to do it for them. The first place these companies look is social media. That photo you put up a few years back when you were drunk of you and your mates doing 'moony' can come back to haunt you.

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

Q, I use Outlook and download all my emails from Gmail, and they are automatically deleted from the server once downloaded to Outlook.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Mr Ceour de Lion II"]Q, I use Outlook and download all my emails from Gmail, and they are automatically deleted from the server once downloaded to Outlook.
[/quote]

I thought you had a Apple computer and didn't like MS products? Yes there is a connector for Gmail and Hotmail (which has been replaced by Outlook and will sort of disappear in the middle of this year along with MS Messenger). The connector has to be told to delete the emails on the server. The main point is however that both Gmail and Hotmail are regularly hacked. Of course some ISP's get hacked but not for the information on customers, Orange for instance was hacked in Oct 2012 but that was it's internal servers holding it's employees emails which Nullcrew, the people who did the hacking put online for all to read.

[dave21478]

Many years ago I fell foul of this in a big way. I was not particularly savvy about web use and my username on several forums was my real name.

Anyway....I bought a Landrover from some guy up north. He was an honest chap and clearly explained its faults, including some rust starting to come through in important areas and the mileometer that was jammed on 99,999 and had been since he bought the car several years previously - genuine mileage unknown. It was cheap and ran well so I bought it anyway and ran it for a year or so, perfectly happy with it, then decided to sell it on. I put up an honest ad on ebay describing its faults, and the auction was won by some chap about 2 hours drive away. He came to collect it, and was just going to pay and leave without even looking at it. It was at my insistance that he gave it a very half-assed check over, then he took it away. He left good feedback a few days later and that was that.

Several months later I got an email from him where he said he had an accident caused by the rear axle parting company from the car due to very rotten axle mounts. He had allegedly never driven the car since buying it and this accident happened on his first outing, I had sold him a death trap blah blah blah. would I kindly send him a cheque for £900 to cover his recovery and repair costs? I just ignored it....he was obviously trying it on. More and more emails arrived over the next few weeks, becoming more and more threatening until I finally replied with a single email explaining that it was his car and his problem. It was his responsibility to make sure the car was roadworthy and as described and the use it had since his purchase was impossible to prove due to the mileage counter not working etc.... Never heard from him again.

Then one day on a Landrover forum I used, a new user asked for opinions on a truck he was about to buy - I clicked the link and it was my old truck. The ebay username was different but the town was the same and the writing style was the same as all the emails I had received. I assume he was selling it through his wifes account. He described it as rust-free and never been welded and the mileometer had only recently jammed on 99,999. I messaged the new user and warned him about it, saying it had been rusty when I owned it so must have been welded or bodged since, and the mileage had been jammed for at least 6 years. The guy backed out of the sale. And then it started....

He had obviously told the seller why he was backing out of the sale, and the guy then signed up the Landrover forum, deluging me with threatening messages, posting all over the forum with allsorts of lies about me and generally being a twat. A little googling on his part must have revealed my username on several other forums where he did the same. He also found out several things about me. I had moved house since selling the truck and he found out the new address, so started sending threatening mail, ordering taxis for me at 2am, ordering takeaway food in my name etc etc. My address ended up being black-listed by cab companies and the food places due to the number of hoaxes they were getting. I called the cops at one point and talked to a very uninterested officer whos attitude was "yeah, so what?"

Over the following couple of months these actions would come in waves....I even received the ultimate insult, an actual turd in a jiffy bag!

Things came to a head when I received an email from him with a photo attached. It was a picture of him standing on my doorstep holding a kitchen knife, with the caption "You werent in this time......"

I went back to the cops about this and eventually found someone who could be bothered to act. I dont know what happened, but I never heard from him again, neither did I ever hear back from the cops, so no idea what they did.

Anyway, the point of this rambling is to say....never put your full name on forums, make sure you dont post any details of your life and certainly not your address. Same goes for facebook and the like.

[mint]

What you've said has got be a bit worried.  I don't belong to Facebook or post anywhere other than here.

BUT, I buy books and all sorts of things from leboncoin and, whilst I can set up a new email address, I have inevitably to give my real address when I want things sent to me.  Also, if I send the sellers a cheque, my name and address are, of course, on the cheque.

Also, I usually give them my home phone number as I do not have a French mobile and my Tesco mobile is only used about once a year to keep the number current.

So, please give me an honest opinion, am I being injudicious in any way and can you give me a scenario, say, that will help me make up my mind how much risk I am prepared to take?

Thank you.

[NormanH]

I don't see how you can avoid giving your address if you want things sent. I suppose you might limit yourself to things you can collect, but even that has its dangers.

I believe Mohammed Merah found his first victim on leboncoin, because the person unwisely stated that he was a 'militaire', and so he was targeted.

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/la-premiere-victime-de-mohamed-merah-l-a-defie-jusqu-au-bout_1211090.html

[mint]

Blimey, that article reads like a "polar" and not like real-life.

Thanks for posting it.  I am just going to be a bit more careful as to whom I contact.  Even today, I await the delivery of 2 books I have bought on leboncoin.

So far, I have met and dealt with only charming and reasonable people.  It's like everything else, I suppose, you need to strike a balance. 

I don't see how the militaire could have been able to foresee what was going to happen to him.  I don't suppose that, for one minute, he believed that Merah would actually pull the trigger [:(]

[Pommier]

I don't think there's much to worry about, after all, your name, address and phone number are freely available in the phonebook! If you were buying guns or very valuable antiques then maybe not so safe, but if it's household items I wouldn't worry. With regards to your phone, why don't you buy a French SIM card from (for instance) B&You for €4,99 which has 15 minutes call time on it. You could then put that SIM card in your phone and give that number out to anyone you're not sure about.

[minnie]

Hi Sweets

I think that in buying bits and pieces you are at little risk - unless you're buying diamonds or high value items where you risk burglars. The main problem comes when you sell something and the buyer is not happy or a scam is involved.

[NickP]

My golly what a lot of alarmist nonsense, If Q doesn't use his bank card in shops then why bother to have one? Look if you speak to people on the bus or train when going to work I'm sure you don't give them all the personal details of your life. The same goes with social websites you only put on there what you want people to know. Having said that people on this and on other forums even using different pseudonyms tell the same stories and much more about themselves than is really good for their well being. Mind you most times it's about how stupid everybody else is, as it appears that everybody who posts on Anglo/French forums is perfect. I also wonder how many people on here have store cards, how many run B&B's or Gites, how many of you give to charity, don't you think that they pass on information? Life today is all about information but remember it's up to you how much; and who gets it.

[mint]

Hmmmm, yes, I don't think I can quite give up my by now deeply-ingrained leboncoin habit!  After all why would I pay 6 euros for a book secondhand from Amazon or other sites that sell second hand books when I only need to pay 1 euro or, at most, 2 euros on leboncoin?  Also the Amazon and Priceminister postage costs are often 2 or even 3 times higher than buying from a "particulier".

I am not smart, not street-savvy, not technology literate and I tend to be quite trusting of strangers.  That's why I asked for reassurance and thank you to all those who have indeed reassured me [:)]

But I do have a problem with charities and I now try and send a cheque without revealing my name or address.  This is on account of one reason only.  I can afford to give once or, at a push, twice a year to a charity and therefore I don't want them to spend their money, sending me begging letters every other month.  I know what I can afford to give and I like to give around Christmas time because that is when I manage to save some dosh.  Therefore, they are wasting so much money sending me stuff and so, no personal details for charities.

OTOH, I have no problems using credit cards online, in shops, in restaurants, hotels, etc.  Inconsistent?  Yes, I am a bit![:)]

And, NickP, you know what, even if I think someone is stupid, I rarely let on[I] 

 

 

 

[NickP]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

And, NickP, you know what, even if I think someone is stupid, I rarely let on[I] 

 

 

 

[/quote]

That's good SW17,  no one will know about me from you then.[:D]

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

[quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="Mr Ceour de Lion II"]Q, I use Outlook and download all my emails from Gmail, and they are automatically deleted from the server once downloaded to Outlook.

[/quote]

I thought you had a Apple computer and didn't like MS products? Yes there is a connector for Gmail and Hotmail (which has been replaced by Outlook and will sort of disappear in the middle of this year along with MS Messenger). The connector has to be told to delete the emails on the server. The main point is however that both Gmail and Hotmail are regularly hacked. Of course some ISP's get hacked but not for the information on customers, Orange for instance was hacked in Oct 2012 but that was it's internal servers holding it's employees emails which Nullcrew, the people who did the hacking put online for all to read.

[/quote]

No, I only use Apple at college. I'd been running Vista for the past 3 years, but now am running Win 8, and I like it a lot. I loved XP, and think this is probably Microsoft's best work since then. But after having experience with my families ipads, ipods and iphones, it's put me right off Apple now.

I use an old bag copy of Outlook, and it's about the only major microsoft software I use apart from the OS. I do all my wordprocessing on Adobe InDesign.

[mint]

[quote user="NickP"][quote user="sweet 17"]

And, NickP, you know what, even if I think someone is stupid, I rarely let on[I]

OK, Nick, if you keep schtump, so will I, agreed?[:)] 

 

 

 

[/quote]

That's good SW17,  no one will know about me from you then.[:D]

[/quote]

[mint]

[quote user="NickP"][quote user="sweet 17"]

And, NickP, you know what, even if I think someone is stupid, I rarely let on[I]

[/quote]

That's good SW17,  no one will know about me from you then.[:D]

[/quote]

OK then, Nick, if you don't tell about me, I won't about you.  We'll both keep schtump, right?[;-)]

[John Brown]

It is a valid question to ask and because there are bad people out there we need to understand how our personal details are used / sold

A few years ago I once mis-spelt my real surname with one letter incorrect by accident, on a form on-line

Since, I've had dozens of letters,and emails with this mistake being repeated

This proves how often details are sold and passed on

John

[Théière]

I recently bought a couple of tickets for the france show at Earls Court from a well known company (Archant). The tickets at discount had to be bought on line (presumably so they can harvest all the info to [6])  Unlike phoning up and buying tickets I had to answer a lot of questions first and give a password etc. being a grumpy old online user fed up with all that people are saying above I made my password "Pi55 off with all the questions"  when I needed to go back to the site to order an extra ticket as the system hadn't worked properly the first time I couldn't remember the password I used as I shredded the paper.  A phone call to Archant revealed everyone in their office new my "Pi55 of with all the questions password" as they thought it humorous. The question is, having tried other passwords do they also know those now?  With the Data Protection Act in place should that information have been available to all the staff?  My Brother who works on security projects behind a lot of the systems used by large Corps and Government thinks not.

[mint]

This has been a very timely warning for me.  Wouldn't you know, came back from gym this evening and just idly clicking through for unseen emails and there were two from our insurance agents Generali, urging us to use our clients espace.

Having heard your stories here and the advice you have given me, I'm not going to contact them or pay bills on line or anything like that.  They can send me factures through the post as usual and I pay by cheque also as usual.

 

[just john]

After reading this thread, the words paranoia, antagonism and karma spring to mind, I do take maximum advantage of today's technology, hopefully the pirates will have fatter fish to fry than me, so far . . . [:-))]

 

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="just john "]

After reading this thread, the words paranoia, antagonism and karma spring to mind, I do take maximum advantage of today's technology, hopefully the pirates will have fatter fish to fry than me, so far . . . [:-))]

[/quote]

Absolutely. I use Amazon and buy via Ebay using PayPal, I take my B&B deposits through PayPal, there are some things that you either use or go without. Where I don't like using my card is in shops etc unless I am buying something rather big like a TV or new kitchen. The biggest scam is supermarket cards like Tesco for instance (only because everyone knows Tesco). They collect a large amount of data about what you buy etc. It helps with advertising which is why the special offer email you get may not be the same as another person for instance. Visa monitors what stores you use your card in and then sell that data on to companies who can target you via the post or email. This is the biggest reason I try to leave the smallest foot print that I can. With the supermarket cards in France with the exception of Dia I never use a store card. It is a scam just to get information from you. Think about how much I spend in the Carrefour supermarket each summer only to get a €10 voucher after three months, its my spending habits they are after and then sell on.

[Alex H]

[quote user="just john "]

paranoia, antagonism  

[/quote]

Just these two work for me [:)]