Public Service Announcement.

About a year ago, I signed up with Paypal in order to donate some money to Mark Shea for his most excellent work - ministry, I believe some call it - in spreading moderate Catholicism on the internet. No good deed goes unpunished. This morning, I received my bank statement to find that my personal banking account, which had been used with the Paypal account, to find that I had been cleaned out, with nearly $10,000 taken out over a three week period.

For me, it's not a disaster. I have a separate business account. I caught the problem within the required time. The money drained out of the account should be reimbursed within a week or so.

On the other hand, if I didn't have the business account - such as when I was an employee - things could have been dicey during the interim. For me, now, this is simply a substantial inconvenience; for someone else it could be a disaster.

Now, I have no bad feelings about the folks at Paypal. But a warning is in order. Check your accounts. If you've done business through Paypal, and maybe other similar operations, you may want to check your account for unusual activity sooner rather than later. For me, in the future, I will probably do my internet donations through credit cards where my personal accounts have less transparency to internet criminals.