I spotted an advert on the Tube this morning for PayPal. It was actually really clever - something about “are you sharing too much when you shop online?” with a mocked-up payment form asking for an e-mail address, credit card number, number of lovers, and ‘last time I cried.’ Supposedly, using PayPal is infinitely easier and safer than using a credit card online.

While the safer part of that claim may well be true, it can’t just be me that finds using PayPal a right pain in the arse, can it?

When I set up my PayPal account, I wanted to link it to my bank. In order to do so, I had to give PayPal my details and then wait for two small deposits to be made into my account. Once the deposits had cleared, I had to log back in and tell PayPal how much they were for - quite an interesting method of checking you are who you say you are (or at least that you have access to the bank account you claim to own) plus it meant I was up about 30p, but it took a hell of a long time. Then there was some hassle with making sure that I really lived where I said I did, involving automated phone calls to a landline and then entering a pin code. But after a couple of weeks and a lot of faff, I figured I’d never have to worry about it again: I could use PayPal to shop online and the money would come out of my bank and everything would be hunkydory.

Except now apparently my bank has started declining PayPal payments. I got an e-mail today that read as follows:

Dear Sarah Dobbs,

The mandate from your bank account was returned by your bank on 30 Oct. 2007 for the reason below:

The bank is disputing the Direct Debit Instruction (DDI).

Yours sincerely,
PayPal

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

Ummmm. Okay. I logged in and found that apparently PayPal has used my credit card number to access my money and the transaction appears to have been carried out anyway … except now I’m kind of not sure … and I’m dreading having to play the phone tag game again.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last I’ll hear of this and that it’ll all work out after all. But I doubt it, somehow.

Anonymous bloggers have to be careful. Really, really careful. In order to ensure that they maintain their anonymity, they need to change names, places, and circumstances; they need to keep their e-mail address a secret, or set up an alternative one; they need to make sure they don’t tell anyone who they are… it’s all quite a faff. And, if they become famous off the back of their blogs, people will start putting a lot more work into finding out who they are.

Examples of bloggers whose real identities have been ferreted out one way or another are numerous. There’s Dooce, Petite Anglaise, Girl with a One Track Mind, Fake Steve Jobs, Jessica Carr … and, this week, possibly Violent Acres. Whether her real identity has actually been uncovered or not isn’t entirely clear, but that hasn’t stopped various blogs writing gleeful, spite-filled rants about her, and plotting to visit her house to take pictures of her. Most of the bloggers whose identities were found out lost their jobs, and who knows what havok their ‘coming out’ caused to their personal lives…

But isn’t there an upside?

I mean, look at the number of newspaper and television interviews the Girl with a One Track Mind has done since her identity was revealed. She’s a fairly regular contributor to The Guardian, now, and all the extra publicity surrounding her unmasking can’t have hurt her book sales. Several other bloggers who’ve lost their jobs and been involved in all sorts of controversy after their Internet anonymity was ripped away have come away with book deals - and most of them have adverts on their blogs in order to generate revenue, so, again, the extra publicity can’t have hurt…

The only big name anonymous blogger still out there now is Belle Du Jour. She’s got several books out and, currently, a fairly contentious series based on her books starring Billie Piper. If someone found out who she was, would that help her ratings, or harm them?

Then, I suppose, there’s always the issue of whether any amount of money is worth the hassle of becoming unexpectedly infamous. But losing one’s much cherished anonymity online (as well as being practically inevitable these days) might not be all bad.

sarahofthedead’s Photobook (Oct 15th)

Well, I said I’d take my camera on holiday…

Just showing you the pictures would undoubtedly be quite dull. So I made a slideshow, and messed around with effects, and all sorts of fun stuff. You’ll be glad to know that I resisted the urge to add music, so you won’t have to put up with my tastes in that respect (I had The Calendar Hung Itself by Bright Eyes in my head the whole time I was away, and it was starting to drive me mildly insane…)

(Courtesy of Flektor. Good, innit?)

I’m off on holiday next week, and I’m planning to be completely cut off from technology. I’m not taking my mobile phone - it won’t work over there anyway - and I’ll leave behind my MP3 player and laptop, too. I will take a camera, but that’s it.

Promise.

Even though the guide book I picked up yesterday details where every cyber cafe in the city is. Even though it gave me details of how much it costs, and everything. That’s just temptation I don’t need. I’m going to spend three days exploring a new city, eating new and strange foreign foods, and hopefully swimming in a geothermal spa. Checking my Facebook profile doesn’t need to be involved in that.

So, if you see me online next week, slap me.