Today was a landmark day for me – I was the victim of some misused personal information! Hooray!

I am joking about the “hooray” part, of course. Data privacy is no laughing matter, and if the information that was exposed to me today had been more significant, I would be pretty angry right now. As it so happens, it was not, so I feel comfortable sharing it with you all in the hope that we can all learn a bit by others’ foibles.

So at around noon today, I received a phone call from a representative at a home improvement ratings & reviews service that I am a happy member of. Unlike most review services, this one is a pay system that works on a subscription model, so it is not that strange that they would be contacting me with account or service information. However, after a moment of basic customer satisfaction survey-type questions, the conversation moved into some uncomfortable territory.

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