Hotmail, Facism and You

My good friend in a freshman at Berkeley. She checks her email oftern, especially in light of recent TA strikes, which affect class schedules. Instead of useing Berkeley’s mail system, she uses her old hotmail account from high school. Today she went to to check her emailand was confronted with a sign that said that she had to get her parents permission to access her hotmail account…you see, she is seventeen. In order to get her mail, she has to get her mom (hundreds of miles away) to get a hotmail account and give them a credit card number. Meanwhile her mail is sitting there unchecked. How much does this suck! Arg!

and this is fascist how, precisely?

Wait a minute, did I miss something here? Since when do you have to pay for a hotmail account?

::sniff:: ::sniff::
I smell fraud. That doesn’t sound right to me. Could it be that she logged on and got rerouted to someone elses “hack attempt”? Hotmail is a free service. Sounds like a major scam.
Zette


“If I had to live your life, I’d be begging to have someone pop out both my eyes. Just in case I came across a mirror.” - android209 (in the Pit)
Zettecity
Voted “Most Empathetic”- can you believe that?

There is definitely something wrong here. I just set up my account a few months ago, and was never asked how old I was, let alone for a credit card number.


“It says, I choo-choo-choose you. And it’s got a picture of a train.”
– Ralph Wiggum

Yes, it is free.

But, like a lot of other…um…eh…sites out there on the net, they want a credit card # to prove that you are 18.

Of course this is all hearsay, Not that I would know anything about this.

And for the OP, please explain how the fuck a free service limiting its boundaries on what it offers relates to fascism. (This should be good.)

Uhh, not when I applied. Their is something fishy going on here IMHO.
Keith

I should rephrase my post.

It sounds fishy to me too, I was never asked for a CC# on Hotmail. My point was, that some sites do use this method as “verification” that the user is at least 18.

But I still wanna hear the OP explain the fascist angle.

I’m not sure about the facist angle, but I’m sure the rest has something to do with this:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/397718.asp?0a=226LAe4

I have several Hotmail accounts, and have not been asked for credit card #s for any of them. Further, just to be nosy, I signed up for yet another Hotmail account tonight, and there was no mention of credit cards. (Although, I don’t list my real age or my real anything on these things.)

This sounds like a scam of sorts.

The linked article that was posted here regarding AOL and underage users mentioned nothing about credit cards, by the way. The article specifically states that AOL will merely delete the profiles of users younger than 13.

Sounds like someone’s hijacked your friend’s Hotmail account, even sven.

I was just reminded that I have an e-mail account from excite.com (I’ve never actually used it).

The reason I was reminded is because they e-mailed me at my Hotmail account to say that it was being cancelled. Apparently, due to some new law, they are not allowing children under 13 to have e-mail addresses anymore.

How they got the idea I’m under 13 (especially since I would have gotten this account about two years ago) is unbeknownst to me. I’m 22.

Screw it. It’s not like I used it anyway.

okay…I was a bit harsh about by calling them facists. I lodge a sincere apology. I was angry at the time because my friend was very very upset. I also understand that it is a free service and they can do whatever they want. They claim that they only want the credit card number (and billing adress!) to verify age and I did try setting up a fake account for a person under eighteen. They let me make the account, but when I closed the browser and tried to log back into hotmail again, I got a nice little messege starting “Are your parents with you right now?” I just get so sick of all the crap that people under eighteen continually put up with. This same friend (an A student at Berkeley who has been living on her own for quite a while) was actually all but denied airline tickets because of her age. Dont get me started about how any youth appearing in punlic is “loitering” and skateboards and concerts and any activity that might give youth something to do other than smoke pot and get in trouble is constantly attacked, shut down or modified to attract white people from the suburbs at an increased price. This youth paranoia and this internet paranoia has gone too far. A policy for ten year olds might make sense. One for seventeen year olds does not. Arg! such ranting. I am glad that none of this really affects me, but I still hate to see it happen. Oh, deep deep apologies for jacking the title from “Clerks, Fast Food, and You”. I really didnt realize I was doing that. wait…why am I apologizeing in the pit? oh well…Hotmail is run by family firendly scumbags.

It’s a scam. Never, ever, ever give your credit card number to anyone or at any prompt unless (1) IE or Netscape show the little padlock symbol (it’s not a guarantee of security, but it at least shows an attempt at securing a site) and (2) you’re happy to give it. There is nothing on the internet you ought to feel obliged to give a credit card number for.

Definite scam.

I’ve had a Hotmail account for about 3 years without anything like this. Report it to Hotmail and to the webmaster at Berkeley (or wherever your friend was working from).


Crusoe Takes A Trip

It’s not necessarily a scam. There are lots of places, online and IRL, that require proof of age. A valid credit card is an easy way to check. And they’re allowed to. If you don’t want the service that’s requiring a card, you don’t have to accept it.

mattk, are you under 18?

I just signed up for a Hotmail account claiming to be 15.

From the Hotmail TOS:

I just logged off and back in again and there was no mention of verification. I’ll give it a day and see from there.

-andros-

My 13-year-old has her own hotmail account. (I check her e-mail periodically with her knowledge, of course.) She’s never gotten a message like that.

It’s a new thing. Yes, I know people have pointed that out in previous posts but people don’t seem to be getting it.


Those who are dancing look insane to those who cannot hear the music.


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Andros - no, 24 now.

I didn’t know about the TOS age statement, so apologies for missing that. As a rule of thumb, though, I still never, ever, ever give out my credit card number unless I’m buying something on a site that at least appears to be secure (the little padlock symbol and security certificate information).


Crusoe Takes A Trip

I logged into my test 15 y.o. kid account and had only the standard message from Hotmail awaiting me. “Sign up for our Evil Empire services” and all that.

No requests for parental verification.

I’ll give it a day or two more, just to see if it needs to filter down into a database somewhere, but looks at this point as though they still don’t give a rat’s ass what age one registers as.

'Cpurse this is only verifiable empirical testing. YMMV. Try it and see.

-andros-

I have hotmail also, and have never been questioned about my age before, although for a week or so there was some kind of security lock on my account. I have no idea how it got there, but all of a sudden one day it dissapreaded again…who knows?


When life throws me a curve ball, my first reaction is to throw
it back. And then I realize, “Hey, I caught it!”
~ Jack Handey