Que Pasa! - the Peter O'Connor column

I am not a person who “joins” things—like clubs, groups and especially those on-line things like Facebook, Linked-In, and (ugh!) something called Que Pasa.

Mostly I have been able to avoid those on-line groups.

I am on Facebook when, albeit with my permission, a family member set that up for me on the grounds that it would “keep me in touch” with friends and family—with whom I was already in touch anyway.

But I do not use Facebook, in that I almost never post anything there, I just read what my e-mail tells me is there. However, this story that I am about to tell—I posted this!

I joined Linked-in when a former work colleague suggested it would be a good idea. I open it when my e-mail tells me there is a message there, but I have never found any reason to contact anyone through Linked-In.

In favour of Facebook, I admit a couple of good, but long lost friends from the past have contacted me, and I responded to those, and renewed some old memories. So when another former colleague sent me an “invitation” last week, to join an on-line group called “Que Pasa”, I was in a little doubt.

But because of my good opinion of that person—we are not like personal friends or regularly in contact—I did respond. When the “registration” asked for my e-mail password, I balked for a while, but the registration had that “disclaimer” about how all this information would be confidential, I finally clicked “accept”.

Well! Who tell me do dat! (sic).

Almost immediately I began to receive a deluge of e-mails, a few “congratulating” me for joining them on Que Pasa, but most asking what is Que Pasa, and did I really send them an invitation to join?

The “congratulations” were all from persons previously associated with the colleague who sent the first invitation to me. The queries and polite refusals came from far and wide, including people with whom I had not corresponded in years.

All of these people had received “invitations”, purportedly from me, inviting them to also join Que Pasa. And I had sent nothing out to any of these dozens and dozens of people.

So who invited them to Que Pasa in my name, and how did that person get access to my address list?

It could only have been Que Pasa itself, who had just received my e-mail address and password (I know, I should have used another password, like Facebook allows, but it did say “your e-mail password!”).

I believe that Que Pasa “invaded” my address list, and sent out false invitations in my name to all of the names on that list. I cannot verify the fact that “all names” were raided and stolen, but judging by the random range of queries I received, I believe all might have been included.

This is a huge affront to me, and a terrible betrayal of the confidence people place in me when they share an address with me.

I will not give out people’s e-mail addresses “just so”. If requested, I usually check with the person involved to ask if I can share their e-mail address with so-and-so.

Simply put, I just do not trust cyberspace! For this reason, I have never made an on-line purchase, because I believe that if I put my credit card number in cyberspace, someone will access it and use it.

And this lack of trust was vindicated this week, when my name and my e-mail were used to harass and annoy all of the people with whom I have corresponded over the past few years.

So, what can I do about this invasion of my cyberspace? Well, other than telling each person inquiring that it was not me, I tried to issue a disclaimer by sending out a “Bcc disclaimer” to “all contacts” (thank you son Newcastle for trying to walk me through this from overseas!), but that did not work because it seems I have 1,900 contacts in my address list, and some of these are miss-spelled, so the lot was rejected.

I now need help to clean up my contacts list and remove those that are no longer relevant. (I hope that Que Pasa caught their tail with this too, but probably they are tech-savvy enough to get around such little problems. But never me again! I ain’t joining nothing! (sic).

And my advice to all of you: if you get an invitation from anyone telling you to join Que Pasa, do not open it, just send it to SPAM and then delete forever. That way you will avoid having all of your contacts writing in to ask “que pasa, amigo”.Peter's columns also appear in NEWSDAY