Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The perils of not logging out

One of which could be that your 3 year old child successfully bids for an earth-moving machine worth $20,000.
Three-year-old Pipi Quinlan bought a $NZ20,000 ($A15,600) Kobelco digger on auction website TradeMe, prompting immediate damage control by her mum when her purchase was revealed.

... The technically savvy kid had woken early and, with the rest of her family sound asleep, decided to play with the computer.

With a few clicks of the mouse she entered Internet Explorer and the Trade Me site her mother had already logged on to.

After a few more timely clicks, she had won the most recent auction listed on the site's homepage.

It was for a Kobelco digger, and she had it for $NZ20,000 - money she didn't have in her piggy bank.

Here is the whole story. I could so imagine this happening to us although it is usually the case that most web-sites that allow purchases do require some sort of confirmation. That said, this is one reason I haven't turned on the Amazon '1-Click' option.

It looks like it could have been worse had the child bought this or this.