Friday, August 13, 2004
"Where's my stuff?"
I've got a couple of things for sale on Amazon's Marketplace at the moment, and I received an email from someone asking me where their order was, claiming they had ordered it a week or so ago. Anyone familiar with Marketplace will know that Amazon mediate the buying & selling, so any order should have been forwarded to me from Amazon direct. I knew this, and I found I hadn't received an order, so I checked into it with Amazon, and they say they didn't get an order. There are of course 2 possibilities, firstly that someone was trying to scam me, and hadn't placed an order at all, or that Amazon's system for some reason failed to register an order. I asked the buyer if he'd received anything from them, but he hasn't replied.
What struck about this situation is that my very first instant reaction was to feel apologetic and want to get this item to the buyer - I thought I must have missed the email and that I should endeavour to get it dispatched. Despite being 'new' on Amazon, I have managed sales before for someone else, and so I know how it works. Someone who was genuinely 'new' might not, and might have asked for an address, and then gone to the post office... Whether this was a scam or not, it got me thinking about how we respond to certain queries in inappropriate ways, like answering the question "Do you know what your PIN is?" with "yes, it's 1234". Hackers would have a lot to say about this - in fact they have a term for the variety of techniques used to persuade or trick people into giving out passwords, security privileges etc - they call it social engineering. So maybe someone just tried to socially engineer me, or maybe Amazon screwed up. I'd go with either, but I plan on practicing being cautious first, and helpful later.
I've got a couple of things for sale on Amazon's Marketplace at the moment, and I received an email from someone asking me where their order was, claiming they had ordered it a week or so ago. Anyone familiar with Marketplace will know that Amazon mediate the buying & selling, so any order should have been forwarded to me from Amazon direct. I knew this, and I found I hadn't received an order, so I checked into it with Amazon, and they say they didn't get an order. There are of course 2 possibilities, firstly that someone was trying to scam me, and hadn't placed an order at all, or that Amazon's system for some reason failed to register an order. I asked the buyer if he'd received anything from them, but he hasn't replied.
What struck about this situation is that my very first instant reaction was to feel apologetic and want to get this item to the buyer - I thought I must have missed the email and that I should endeavour to get it dispatched. Despite being 'new' on Amazon, I have managed sales before for someone else, and so I know how it works. Someone who was genuinely 'new' might not, and might have asked for an address, and then gone to the post office... Whether this was a scam or not, it got me thinking about how we respond to certain queries in inappropriate ways, like answering the question "Do you know what your PIN is?" with "yes, it's 1234". Hackers would have a lot to say about this - in fact they have a term for the variety of techniques used to persuade or trick people into giving out passwords, security privileges etc - they call it social engineering. So maybe someone just tried to socially engineer me, or maybe Amazon screwed up. I'd go with either, but I plan on practicing being cautious first, and helpful later.
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(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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