Earlier today, I received an email from Lazada Philippines telling me that my order of a hair straightener, rat trap, and rat glue was being processed. Hmm. Very strange, I thought to myself – considering that I had no need for any of those items and the fact that I don’t shop on Lazada Philippines. The email was legit, so I knew it wasn’t some sort of phishing attempt. But it was sent to an email address that I don’t use for Lazada.
Curious, I decided to log in to the account (using the forgot password option). Funnily, the email address wasn’t even verified to begin with. I had to verify it in order to reset the password. Fine, I thought – I verified my email address and reset the password.
After logging in, I noticed there was another order that I wasn’t informed about via email: a ladies bag. I checked out the profile attached to the account – there was a name, address and phone number of a lady living in the Philippines. I guess she has a rat problem and likes to keep her hair straight.
Anyway, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: cancel the orders she made. Unfortunately two of the four orders were already shipped out so I could only cancel the other two (rat glue and handbag).
Why do people use email addresses that don’t belong to them? On a side note, Lazada – why do you let people make purchases without verifying their email addresses? I’m not going to do anything else with the Lazada account and all the personal information I have but someone else with malicious intent would probably have a field day with all this stuff. Hopefully that lady learns a lesson about using other people’s email addresses to order stuff online.
Imagine if it was some live-saving medication that I cancelled (assuming I was unaware of how important the order of medication was), and the recipient died because they didn’t get it. Would I be considered a murderer? Or would the judge say, “all this could have been avoided if the recipient had used their own email address. It’s not that hard to get an email address. Also, it is free. There is no excuse not to have an email address of your own.”
Lady – here’s to hoping rats continue plaguing you until you realize your order of rat glue has been cancelled. And that you don’t have a bag for going out to celebrate the new year. Please use your own email address next time.