Enjablog

I have an account on Friendster. A lot of people do. It was cool, like, 5 years ago. And then it was orkut, then myspace, then facebook…

Anyway, I signed up ages ago and never really sign in or look at it anymore, but every once in a while, I’ll get emails reminding me of people’s birthdays or the very occasional friend request. No big deal. I also have about a dozen email addresses, so I don’t really pay attention to which email address I use for each account. For the most part, I have a personal gmail address, a professional/personal gmail address, a yahoo account that I use when I sign up for things and check occasionally, and a handful of email addresses that are completely overwhelmed with spam.

I started receiving Friendster emails on my yahoo account a few months ago and, since I already have a friendster account, didn’t think anything of it. But then they kept sending me emails telling me I had a new friend. But… I didn’t add any new friends. I never clicked on your emails. I don’t know these people. Finally, I went to log in and see what was going on. My standard passwords didn’t work.

Hm…

Well, they’re sending me emails, so I can have them send me my password. Interesting because it’s a stupid password. No way I picked this. Maybe it just automatically makes a password when you forget yours. I log in and find… this.

Some girl decided to use my email address for her friendster account. No, the email address isn’t verified. You get that verification screen when you log in as her. But they continue to send me email. (I blame Friendster for that and have contacted them. They have been useless thus far.) There’s no other contact info for her on there, so I can’t email her and tell her to go find someone else’s email address to spam. I did go in and change the notification options so it’ll never contact me again.

Simply because you have to type in your email address to log in each time, I know this isn’t a simple case of a typo. My email address is my full name and, surprisingly, her name is not my name too. She is doing this intentionally and I’m feeling mean today. So, what do I do?

1) Be nice — Leave a comment for her from herself or add her as a friend and let her know.
2) Ignore it. Now that they’re not sending me any email, there’s no harm being done.
3) Start changing her profile: who she’s looking for, things about her, etc.
4) Leave, um, nice comments for her friends.
5) Change her password. (and then change her profile and leave comments)
6) Other. Suggestions are very welcome.

P.S. Her password is the date she started using my email address.

It takes me about 20-30 minutes to get to work every day, depending on traffic and which route I use. This morning, around the 20-minute mark, I was a few lights away from my office and I got a phone call. At the next traffic light, I pulled out my phone to see what was up. One missed call from my condo. Interesting… I wonder what they want.

*blip* 1 voicemail message.

Ok, listen to the message. Blah blah blah… “Your car is parked in the lower lot facing the street and needs to be moved for the tree trimmers.” Hm, I don’t remember seeing a notice for that. But the more interesting part is that I was in my car. Maybe she called the wrong number? That wouldn’t be surprising from the people working in my building.

I call back. Say that I’m currently in my car and suggest that perhaps they called the wrong person. She looks up the info and it is indeed for my car. I confirm that it’s my car and she reiterates that it needs to be moved immediately. Gotcha.

Rest assured, my car has been moved.