Last night I was out with good friends (really close friends.) One of them has not been working for a very long time. He isn’t unemployed, he has a job that lets him take a long time off and still get paid. He is now bored out of his mind. So we are talking and he says “Khadaji, you’ve really been buying a lot of coins off of ebay.” (I have, its true.)
This is very odd to me. He doesn’t know my user name (well, he does now) and, my goodness, why would he have this information? He says: I was really bored this week, so I started to look up the purchases that my friends have been making on eBay. It took me a while to figure out your user name, but heck, I have a lot of time.
Now, I’m not buying anything freaky so there’s nothing to be embarrass about and he is a good friend so he isn’t doing anything wierd with the information…
Bit of both I guess. Being an internet detective is fun, I often pick a username at random of somone playing the mud I play and try and find out “who they are”. I forget right after, but it entertains me. Almost odder to bring it up than to do it I think.
It doesn’t seem that wierd to me. The guy was bored and decided to play mind game with himself. I’d guess he was trying for a Sherloc Holmes moment by the sudden revelation, hoping to catch you in a ‘WHa… How do you?’ reaction, so he could reveal his deductive path, and you could ohh and ahh. At least that’s what I would do.
I suspect it’s a lot like googling the names of one’s friends. I do things like that sometimes, and I imagine if I liked a guy I’d especially do so (but I am a teen girl and not implying your friend likes you ;)). Probably nothing to worry about (probably), because I know many who do the same thing.
That does sound a little odd because it’s so time consuming. For me, I just check the names of everyone I know at the court site to see if anyone has been arrested for anything. Hey, it is public information!
I did that once. I did a search in eBay on an ID I new a friend used with other stuff. I saw that he bid on penis enlargement pills. :eek:
I never mentioned it to him though, and never will. I don’t think there’s anything weird about looking up someones ID. I just did it for fun, no harm done. It’s not like I’m stalking anyone. You people look into stuff too much. If someone did that to me, you’d just see that I buy a lot of car parts and pc shit. Who cares? I wouldn’t.
I don’t think its that odd. I would guess most heavy internet users do this from time to time; I certainly do. I think its a bit odd that he actually brought it up though. I just sort think “hmm, thats interesting” then forget about it.
yeah I think it is odd and it would freak me out a little. Even if he is a close friend, its still weird that, in a way, he invaded your privacy. If it does bother you and you are clsoe enough friends, let him know that it was kinda weird, and then I would take the advice of some of the other dopers and get a new user name
The only way he could find you is to know what type of stuff you collect. There is no sense changing your name because he could still track you by your bidding. You would need to get a different email address. Then the only way he could find you would be to ping you and that would trigger an email to you from ebay showing the enquiry.
The fact that he traced you knowing you collect coins would bother me unless he is a coin collector himself. The coins have value and it would be rude to track your financial dealings. My first thought was potential theft (get a safe).
I collect stuff that I share with my friends so they know what I buy (we have a gentlemans agreement not to bid against each other). It would not be out of the ordinary to acknowledge my bidding from those friends. From my non-collector friends, that would be very strange.
Actually, it was harder to track down than some of you might guess. The email address that I use for that is ONLY for ebay, and most people don’t know it. He had to really look.
I think it is odd, but I guess there was no harm done.
It’s odd that he spent the time to look you up, but on the other hand, you do strange things with time on your hands and a computer in front of you. I think that it’s much more bizarre that he brought it up afterwards. Who wants to tell their friends that they were snooping on them?
What’s oddest is that he actually hunted your user name down, which is a step beyond just typing a username in out of idle curiosity. Even that would be rude, IMHO; it’s like following you around a shopping mall just because he has time on his hands. I think you should help him take up a new hobby - perhaps the Straight Dope, it certainly can eat up your free time if you let it!
Unless your ebay email address gives a hint to your identity he wouldn’t be able to trace you from ebay alone. When you ping someone on ebay you get their email address.
I think the weirdest thing is that he actually admitted it. I’ve googled friends names in extreme moments of boredom and found old sites that they probably didn’t intend for me to see. I don’t think I’d mention it though. It’s like if you accidently caught your friend picking their nose you wouldn’t mention it later: “oh I saw you sneaking a nose pick earlier!”
What? Dear Lord! He knows about ACTUAL INFORMATION you posted on a PUBLIC FORUM on the internet? Call the FBI it’s time to bring in the big guns. Those behavioural science boys will track this INSANE NUTCASE down and shoot him full of holes.
