October 14th 2016
By: Limor Hirsh
Stacey is a part time Real Estate broker in NYC. She has been married for over 4 years, and for the past year she felt something is wrong with her marriage, it seemed like her husband has lost interest in her. Her husband kept reassuring her though that everything is ok.
Earlier this year they decided to visit a marriage counselor in NYC. Once again, the husband repeated that he is perfectly happy and he is not seeing anyone or even thinking about anyone else as “he truly loves his wife”.
He suggested to the counselor that he suspects that maybe his wife is cheating or having thoughts of cheating, and she is simply projecting those thoughts on him.
At one point she did something she always told herself she wouldn’t do. She watched week after week to get a glimpse of the password he enters to unlock his phone. Finally one day she was able to make it out and write down the four digit code.
The next task seemed even more challenging, and that was finding a few minutes that her husband leaves his phone unattended.
One day she was able to quickly check his phone and review different messaging apps he has on it. However, she finds nothing, all he seems to text is her, and two male co-workers.
She slowly convinced herself that she is just being paranoid, and all the known signs that indicate a man might be seeing someone else, simply don’t apply to her. She did wonder though, how could it be that there are almost no messages on his phone when in fact he texts so frequently?
As mentioned earlier, Stacey works in the highly competitive real estate market in NYC. She tries to use every possible tool to find new clients without spending too much money.
Last year she started using a free site called Tris.com that alerts her when someone in NYC is searching to rent or buy a home. Tris claims that millions of people use their website, and anyone can set an alert for any keyword they wish and communicate with the people making those searches.
Recently Stacey noticed that Tris launched an extension that integrates right into the Chrome Browser, and as you search Google, the Tris extension shows you anyone else who made that search, and with one click you can set an alert, to be notified when others search that keyword.
She decided to add her husband’s name as a keyword alert, this way, if someone searches for her husbands name she will get an alert, plus see the person who made the search and even talk to them. It was helpful she says that her husband’s name is not all that common.
Less than three weeks later she gets an alert that someone searched her husband’s name. The person who made the search is a woman that has a complete profile on Tris including a photo and even their own chat room with their info promoting their hair salon business.
Stacey decides that instead of sending her a message via Tris, to call her and talk to her. She tells the woman who she is, and the woman swears she had no clue that she has been seeing a married man (Stacey’s husband) for almost two years. The woman tells Stacey: “I assume you went through his phone and got my number”, Stacey says “yes” and agrees to cease communicating with her husband.
Now it was time for Stacey to turn the tables. Her husband comes home and while it’s obvious he is in a terrible mood (the woman obviously called him), Stacey tries to act perfectly normal. After a while she can no longer keep her act up and starts crying. Stacey tells me that her soon to be ex-husband was more concerned as to how she got the information than with the fact that he cheated and betrayed her. She filed divorce papers not soon after the discovery.
While men and women might be able to wipe their phone clean of their chat history, they must realize that many new technologies exist that they cannot control much.
We tried reaching out to Tris for comment, but so far no reply.
