Uh Oh

Well, the New Year didn't get off to a good start.  We ordered two gaming controllers for son K via Ebay only to receive notification a couple of days later from Ebay that our seller was fraudulent.  Unfortunately, we were unable to cancel our payment on Paypal but our credit card bank may almost certainly be able to reimburse us the US$29.98.  It seems they are very familiar with these cases.  Fortunately, it was not a very large amount.  We will have to wait for the transaction to be processed on our credit card then contact the credit card's fraud department with our case.  The lesson might be that if the price seems too good to be true, it is.

It occurred to me that as we get older we have to be even more vigilant of fraud as senior people become vulnerable targets.  Is it that we get more trusting, similar to when we were children?

An update:

After all that I am pleased to say that Paypal was able to cancel our transaction after we did some more calling around, it was still pending.  They say we should have the refund in about 3 days.

I immediately liked her

Last weekend, I had an uncle visit with his girlfriend. I hadn't seen him since his wife (my mother's cousin) died 5 years ago. He would be somewhere in his seventies now, I think. He seems a lot more forgetful. Anyway, they mentioned that a major bank had contacted him recently. It seems a bunch of seniors' investments have been compromised. My uncle was missing upwards of $25,000 in his investments and he had no idea. So the bank is investigating this serious matter. Seniors have to be so careful as they are targets for fraud and theft. The interesting thing is that he had known his current girlfriend for many years from the bowling league they belonged to. She has never married. When my uncle's wife died, they developed a connection and seemed very close this past weekend. I am happy they have found companionship at this late age especially as this uncle never had children. He finally had a will made and will be leaving his assets to his wife's family and his family although he doesn't get along with either side. His girlfriend will be his executor. Life is complicated. Oh I liked his girlfriend immediately when she told me I didn't seem old enough to have a 21 year old daughter, lol.