y.st./source/pages/en/weblog/2015/03-March/28.xhtml

<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'PayPal and their semingly-automated responses',
	'body' => <<<END
</p>
	I received a response from PayPal, and it shows just how incompetent they are.
	I had to submit my request in the form of a formal complaint because of a combination of factors relating to their idiotic system.
	Because I don&apos;t hava an account, I have to choose a category of inquiry, and none of the available categories fit the issue.
	I explained all of this in my complaint, yet in their response, they said next time I should use the contact form that I explained why I couldn&apos;t use.
</p>
</p>
	Next, PayPal said that because the email address I gave them is not associated with an account, they were unable to locate my failed transaction.
	There are two issues with this.
	First of all, I told them that the transaction was not made with an account.
	Or rather, I told them that I had no account, which if they had any intelegence, would tell them that any transaction I make throughh them is not accosiated with an account.
	Yet they still tried to locate my account by my email address.
	Second, I&apos;ve had this same issue before in the past, even back when I had an account.
	When PayPal declines your card, they <strong>*fail to log that a transaction attempt was even made*</strong>.
	Not finding the transaction has nothing to do with not finding the account.
	Because the card was declined by PayPal, PayPal doesn&apos;t even keep record of it.
</p>
</p>
	Next, PayPal tells me that if I have further questions, I need to contact telephone support.
	I thought I had told them that I do not have a telephone, but looking back over my initial message to them, I did not.
	I suppose I will let this one slide because of that.
	However, redirecting people to telephone support is not a valid way to handle issues.
	Telephone support is agrovating and time consuming.
	Not to mention the fact that not everyone has a telephone and it should not be expected that everyone does.
</p>
</p>
	I tweeted almost verbatim most of the above (publicly) to @AskPayPal.
	We&apos;ll see if that gets me anywhere.
	I have also recontacted PayPal through the form they asked me too.
	I chose the category &quot;How do I spend money&quot; under &quot;Sending/Reciving money&quot;, which isn&apos;t quite the right category, but it seems to be the closest they offer.
</p>
</p>
	Waking up several times in the middle of the night, I manages to install the system with an encrypted /home directory before having to go to work in the morning.
	I&apos;m not too happy with the results though.
	I have to enter my password three times before the system fully comes up (once for the encrypted swap partition that the installer insisted on and is probably a good idea, and twice for the encrypted /home partition).
	That&apos;s fine, but it seems that if I make a typographical error when entering the password, the system throws a fit, fails to boot properly, then dumps me in a root console.
	The proper way to handle it would be to request the password again, but instead, it hands root access over to whoever doesn&apos;t have the password.
	That seems like a security issue wating to happen.
	Sure, they can&apos;t access my sensitive data right away, but with root access, they can install whatever they like on my machine.
	They could for example install a key logger or a way to remotely access my data next time I mount the file system.
	I&apos;m going to try something new when I get off work.
</p>
</p>
	For the time being, <a href="/a/canary.txt">I am still not under a gag order</a>.
</p>
END
);