Author: Phil Villarreal

A couple Senators are Voltroning to introduce legislation that would let authorities track identities of prepaid cell phone owners. Anyone who’s seen The Wire knows criminals thrive off of pre-paids.

Engadget reports:

New York Senator Chuck Schumer has already taken aim at texting while driving, and it looks like he’s now set his sights on pre-paid cellphones, which he says can also be dangerous — when in the wrong hands, at least. To that end, he and Republican co-sponsor John Cornyn of Texas have introduced legislation that would give authorities the ability to identify the owners of pre-paid cellphones, which they say is long overdue “because for years, terrorists, drug kingpins and gang members have stayed one step ahead of the law by using prepaid phones that are hard to trace.”

If you use pre-paids, why do you go that route and what do you think of the legislation?

Senators push for tracking of pre-paid cellphones [Engadget]

Perusing this roundup of unintentionally hilarious old-school advertisements that might have made Don Draper and crew wince brings a few thoughts to mind:

* Ad wizards from mid-century America didn’t think too highly of women, regarding them as feeble house-cleaning robots who couldn’t drive very well.

* Douching to save one’s marriage was — if not a common course of action — at least commonly advised as such.

* People thought it was funny to fantasize in ads about threatening physical harm to the fairer sex.

Click on the link below and enjoy the stereotypes, some of which seem downright progressive compared to the nonsense peddled in Sex and the City 2.

25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads [The Best Article Every Day]

Budgets Are Sexy sifts through the mysterious black magic that goes into establishing your credit score and reveals 10 myths to note when you’re making financial decisions that may affect the score.

From the post:

Things You Expect that Don’t Happen:

* When I get married, we get a joint credit score: Not so. Each person has their own credit score ’til death do you part. However, when you open accounts jointly, that information will be reflected on each of your credit reports, for better or for worse.

* My job/income impacts my credit score: Sorry, but making six figures, winning the lottery, or inheriting a fortune will not give you a good credit score. Your net worth and income are not factored into your score.

* Paying off credit card debt will boost my credit score 50 points: Depending on how much credit card debt you had, you may see some increase. However, credit card utilization is an important component of your credit score and those with the highest credit scores have about 10% utilization.

Click on the link below for the rest of the myths. And note that acrificing eyes of newt in to the credit god Chargebakka does less good than you’d think.

Top 10 Credit Score Misconceptions [Budgets Are Sexy]

Suresh found a $1.99 fee labeled “In Office Charge” on a Comcast bill. Comcast said the charge is a placeholder indicator that catches a certain billing mistake.

Suresh writes:

I been a Comcast customer for a while now and was initially extended an offer for internet service for $42.95. I received my bill this month and there was an “In Office Charge” of $1.99 in addition to a rate increase for my internet service. When I called Comcast to question them about it, I was told that my internet service rate should have been $59.99 since I subscribed to only internet and not their other services (e.g., tv, phone). The rep told me they have put in place a new system to catch these mistakes and the system automatically has been charging the impacted customers $1.99 for an “In Office Charge”. After I pressed the rep, she said I would receive a credit for $1.99 next month. This is a pretty good scheme for Comcast to recoup losses from their mistakes; unless their customers are made aware.

It seems Suresh would prefer Comcast had kept charging the “In Office Fee” rather than the full-priced internet service price.

Ashley says she succumbed to a high-pressure upsell in car stereo equipment at Best Buy based on a free installation pitch, only to decide she wanted to return the stuff. When she completed the return she found out the installation wasn’t free, but discounted to accommodate a nonrefundable installation fee.

She writes:

Best Buy has cost me a LOT of time and money over a car stereo install. They LIED to me [in the Phoenix area] saying I was getting a free install, talked me into [nearly] 300 dollars worth of equipment when I made it clear I really only wanted to spend 200 hundred, and took FOREVER to install my stereo.

I exchanged it in Tucson and was all of the sudden the promotion that I was offered didn’t exist (what? this is a huge corporation, why aren’t sales the same all across the board). Tucson did the RIGHT thing and waived my install fee and gave me what I wanted, but I noticed that I purchased only $180 worth of equipment but was told it was an even exchange…and it was because they lied to me at [the Phoenix Best Buy] and said the install was free when they merely took the discount off the equipment.

When I called the general manager at [Phoenix] and asked him to please refund my 70 dollars he was really rude to me and refused to accommodate my request even though I still have thousands of dollars in electronics I need to purchase, so I got a little hotheaded and told him he would never get my business again, but I want to make sure that since I can’t get my 70 dollars back, Best Buy loses a LOT more than what they robbed from me.

What should Ashley do to get her money back?

People are up in arms that Australian customs officials have taken it upon themselves to go porn-hunting on travelers’ computers, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. If they find anything, they’ll confiscate the dirty stuff in order to prevent you from exporting it to the untainted island.

Sure, it’s invasive, unfair, perverted, etc., but enough about that. Where do you sign up for that job?

How fascinating it must be, to size a person up and guess what sort of demented debauchery they’re into, maybe make a few sidebets with your coworkers, then go hunting for the embarrassing answers.

Or maybe it’s just me. Anyway, if you head to Australia, move your hentei to a jump drive and leave it at home.

Travellers to be searched for porn [Sydney Morning Herald via Gizmodo]

I’m an admitted Blu-ray whore and adore the format for its glorious picture and sound, but there are nagging shortcomings of the newfangled HD format that prevent me from prosthelytizing its virtues to all who will listen.

Here are 7 ways that I’m still longing for DVDs when I’m watching Blu-rays:

Blu-rays are more expensive. Most new Blu-rays are north of $20, while DVDs are generally less than the figure. When you buy a lot of movies the extra charges add up. Which leads me to my next point…

You’ve already bought all these movies a million times. I’ve purchased The Princess Bride at least three times on incrementally better DVD releases, then did so again when the movie came out on Blu. And I paid more for the movie the fourth time than I did the first three. If you want to update your collection to HD, it will take a while, cost a lot and remind you of the pain you felt when you realized your VHS collection was worthless.

Blu-rays won’t play on most computers. Unless you spring for a new PC with a Blu-ray drive or buy a cumbersome dongle, you won’t get to catch up on Breaking Bad on your laptop while you’re using your TV to play Tecmo Bowl Kickoff late at night.

You can’t rip Blu-rays to your hard drive. Unless you’ve got access to some double-secret stealth programs, a ton of hard drive space and the hacking skills to allow your Blu-ray enabled PC to copy the movies, you’re out of luck. With a DVD, you just pop it in, open that mildly sketchy program your tech geek friend told you about, and you’ve got a back-up copy to stream or watch on your PC whenever you like. Ripping DVDs isn’t legal, but if you’re just keeping the copy for yourself, what’s the harm?

Blu-rays rarely pick up where you left off. When I’m watching a DVD on my Xbox 360 or PS3 and I turn off the film to come back to it later, the system always remembers how far into the film I was before I had to bail. With Blu-rays, this magic kicks in maybe 20 percent of the time. Sure, you can set manual bookmarks, then pull them up through a cumbersome process, but DVDs only require you to press “play.”

HD bells and whistles only benefit works of art. My favorite genre is the dumb comedy, which doesn’t get funnier in anamorphic 1080p in Dolby digital 5.1. I own Clerks on Blu-ray but it feels unnatural to watch it that way. I long for the grainy VHS copy of the movie taped off of cable that found its way into my freshman year dorm.

You can’t lend Blu-rays to non-geek friends. Unless the Blu-ray comes in an all-to-rare — although growing in popularity — Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, you’re not going to be able to let Blu-less friends borrow them. As someone who loves to discover obscure movies and then pressure coworkers to watch them, I often have to end my spirited raves with “yeah, you really should rent it” rather than “I’ll bring it in tomorrow and force you to watch it.”

If you too are a Blu-ray fanatic, what do you miss about DVD?

BoingBoing relays an entertaining name-calling tirade from Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier, who responds with a vengeance to a writer who told him he’d boycott his company Voltage Picture’s films because it’s suing people who illegally downloaded the film.

The email:

Hi Nicholas, please feel free to leave your house open every time you go out and please tell your family to do so, please invite people in the streets to come in and take things from you, not to make money out of it by reselling it but just to use it for themselves and help themselves. If you think it’s normal they take my work for free, I’m sure you will give away all your furniture and possessions and your family will do the same. I can also send you my bank account information since apparently you work for free and your family too so since you have so much money you should give it away… I actually like to pay my employees, my family, my bank for their work and like to get paid for my work. I’m glad you’re a moron who believes stealing is right. I hope your family and your kids end up in jail one day for stealing so maybe they can be taught the difference. Until then, keep being stupid, you’re doing that very well. And please do not download, rent, or pay for my movies, I actually like smart and more important HONEST people to watch my films.

Chartier is the producer who was banned from the Oscars ceremony for talking smack about Avatar.

Piracy is wrong, but so is wishing for the arrest of one’s children. At least Chartier didn’t go the Mike Tyson route and express interest in eating them.

Hurt Locker producer: criticizing our lawsuits makes you a moron and a thief [BoingBoing]

Facebook and Farmville and Mafia Wars-makers Zynga were bickering over in-game currency and the social network took a stand that hampered the game publisher’s ability to advertise through pseudo-updated on the site, causing the games to lose millions of players.

Kotaku reports all hope for a permanent, irritating games-crippling impasse has been scuttled, because Zynga has backed down and agreed to use Facebook Credits, giving the social network a juicy 30 percent cut of all money players throw away into nothingness for no reason whatsoever.

Enjoy the continued nagging from friends begging you to help them with their crops.

Facebook, Farmville Reach Truce on Virtual Currency [Kotaku]

It’s a big no-no for banks to take money out of customers’ accounts in $20,000 increments. State Farm Bank recognized this fact and says it has refunded all the mistakenly zapped money and will refund all overdraft fees.

From Phil at State Farm Bank:

Thanks for all the input and clever comments (many were quite good! – some, ouch!). However, we want you to know our customers’ accounts are now ALL corrected — and we apologize for any inconvenience this unintentional computer error may have caused some of our customers.

No question — State Farm Bank will pay any overdraft of other fees our customers may have experienced as a direct result of their accounts being unintentionally debited. And, again, we’re sorry for any hassles you may have experienced as one of our bank customers. We’ll be in touch soon to tell you how we plan to make it right.

Just so you know, the error was quickly discovered and actions taken immediately to reverse the debits. About 80% of the accounts were corrected within hours of us learning of the coding mistake. The remaining accounts had the debits removed as soon as was possible — in most cases the next day or two.

After the note, the State Farm PR rep concluded with “We’re already hard at work to see that this type of temporary glitch never happens again.” I was hoping he’d throw a “we’re taking it seriously” in there, but no dice.

Chris says he meant to pay $1,700 from a State Farm Bank account but instead was stuck with a $20,000 charge. The scary thing is he is just one of thousands to make an accidental $20K donation to a black hole of despair, according to WFTV in Orlando:

An internal memo from a State Farm employee revealed the company incorrectly debited more than $20,000 from some customers who have State Farm Visa cards attached to their bank accounts.

Nearly 13,000 customers are affected.

Chris hasn’t been able to find some effective Executive Email Carpet Bomb info, so if you know whom to hassle about this problem, please leave your advice in the comments.

Credit Card Holders Have $20K Deducted From Accounts [WFTV Orlando]

Jason wanted to stock up on allergy meds by buying two packages rather than one in order to take advantage of a low price. Walgreens denied him then proceeded to accuse him of shady activity.

He writes:

The pharmacist was obviously new to the store and was very inexperienced using their systems. I got my phone out and proceeded to waste a good 5-10 minutes while he kept struggling with the computer. Finally he gave up and called over the other pharmacist for help. She took my ID and after one swipe told me “Our system won’t let you buy this.”

***uncomfortable pause while I give her an opportunity to provide good customer service and something other than the rudely delivered line she just gave me***

As this had never happened to me before I had no idea what she was referring to at first, and when I asked what specifically was saying I couldn’t buy it she said it was their computer which keeps tabs on how much each individual buys over time and essentially rate limits you to a certain amount. Their computer was telling her I had gone over the limit and could not buy any more. At no point during her end of this conversation did she ever offer any kind of website, phone number, or any other piece of information that I could use to check this out in greater detail. At no point did she ever treat me like anything other than a potential criminal who was wasting her time.

At this point she started giving me nothing other than one line statements that were designed to end the conversation. She was obviously more concerned with anything and everything other than my confusion/concerns. Essentially I felt like I was being treated like a criminal and all it took was one swipe of my driver’s license. I tried to explain to her that my purchasing habits do not vary in regards to this medication but all I got in return was a series of interruptions and hand dismissive hand waving. “We can’t help you.” “We can’t access the information that is denying your purchase.” “There is no one you can talk to who can tell you anything more.” I asked for an 800 number or something similar that I could call and inquire about these supposed purchase dates in order to match it up to my own receipts and was told there was none. I asked where this information was stored and she said it was in a Walgreens database that they cannot access directly.

This is the point where I decided my identity may have been stolen. I told the pharmacist that I understood she couldn’t do anything more for me, but that I was not ok with letting it drop there and I wanted to speak to someone above her. If nothing else I just wanted to get the ball rolling on finding out how this had happened. If I had somehow triggered this limit for the first time ever then so be it, but if someone is out there manufacturing meth using MY NAME I damn sure want to know about it and get it resolved.

Quick summary up to this point: A computer says I have bought too many allergy meds in a daily or 30 day period but I am given no recourse to dispute or even look at these dates/times/quantities, and I also have no way of knowing WHEN THE TIME PERIOD IN QUESTION WILL RESET, allowing me to buy my daily allergy meds again.

After waiting for a while one of the store managers finally arrives at the pharmacy. I proceed to explain the whole story to her, and she proceeds to waste my time with hypothetical scenarios. “Well… if you bought some at a different store, or if you bought some for somebody else…” I explained to her that my routine in regards to buying these meds is beyond predictable, and that none of her hypotheticals applied to me in any way. For whatever reason she felt the need to keep pounding into my head that there were all of these extraneous possibilities that could have led to this situation while ignoring the fact that all of them would have involved ME doing these things. Then she told me the information was stored in a State of Michigan database, completely contradicting what the pharmacist had told me.

Finally I’d had it. I told her “Look, at this point I just want to get a phone number so I can find out when these purchases supposedly happened so I can at least confirm that my identity has not been stolen, and all you and your employees seem to want to do is convince me of how this isn’t your problem and there is nothing you can do for me.”

She said she would get me a number and went into her office. After waiting for ten more minutes she came out, hands me a piece of paper with “1-800-WALGREENS” written on it, and said that this is what she came up after talking to her manager and calling another store.

Let me say that again so it sinks in completely: A Walgreens manager talked to another store’s manager and her boss, and it took them over ten minutes to come up with their company’s 800 number. I seriously considered telling her that Google would have been a better use of my time as far as getting this number but held my tongue.

Before I left the store I made my position clear:

“I am a loyal customer of yours who comes here several times per month in order to get a medication my doctor tells me I need to take daily. This is the first time in years this has ever happened, and all you and your staff seem interested in is explaining how you have no responsibility whatsoever in this matter. You flatly denied my request for any kind of information that help me straighten this out and I have no way of knowing when this time limit that I have supposedly violated will expire. Basically you are treating my like a criminal with no rights. I cannot look at or review the information that has led you to deny my purchase, you immediately denied me any and all assistance from your company (even for something so simple as a phone number), and I’ve been placed in a penalty box with an indefinite time limit.

Most customers in this situation would be angry about the fact that they are being denied their medication, but I have told you several times now that I am concerned about identity theft and you do not care, and neither does your pharmacist who tried to help me. I am completely willing to the pay the premium for the regular form of Claritin-D just so I don’t have to come back to your store ever again.”

Jason says he’s through with Walgreens. Have you ever been treated this way?

Don’t let your child run off with your cell phone. Not unless you want to risk the chance of the whippersnapper racking up $18,000 in charges and having to tangle with the service provider for the length of a presidential term in order to get it overturned.

Boston.com has a story about a man who went through such hell and has finally gotten his way, convincing the company to stop bugging him for the money. The man’s son, who was in his early 20s, tethered daddy’s phone to his laptop and made the data charges explode.

Which brings us to another piece of advice: Don’t tether your phone to a computer unless you’re sure you’ve got unlimited data.

Verizon forgives balance of $18,000 cellphone bill)”> [Boston.com]
(Thanks, David!)

Gamers kvetch about the walk of shame that ends with flopping a stack of used games onto the counter of GameStop or some other used game business for pennies on the dollar. Selling your stuff online via eBay or Amazon is another option, but that requires tenaciousness and responsibility.

Venture Beat profiles Glyde, a service that promises to streamline gamer-to-gamer sales. Glyde also lets you sell books, movies and CDs.

From the story:

With Glyde, you can start selling a video game almost immediately. You register once. Then you log in and click on selling. You start typing in the name of the game you want to sell. The autotext takes over and you can click yes if it guesses correctly. Then it suggests a price to you that is based on the average market value for that used game. You can set your price slightly lower than market if you want it to move fast. If the market value of a game drops below the price you’ve posted, Glyde sends you a notification so you can make an adjustment.

Then you’re done. You get an email if the game sells. Then Glyde mails you a package with the postage paid and address of the buyer. You stick the game in the envelope and drop it in the U.S. mail. When the buyer verifies that he or she got the game, Glyde will release the funds to you. It takes a 10 percent fee and a $1.25 fee for postage. On average, buyers can save 90 percent on prices for used games; sellers can get more than twice as much as they usually get by taking it into a store to swap it for store credit…

Please share your experiences if you’ve used Glyde or a similar service.

Glyde hopes to take used game market with easy web interface [VentureBeat]

Some of the nation’s largest food producers have promised to take 1.5 trillion calories out of products within the next five years, the Associated Press reports.

The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation is spearheading the effort, and is something First Lady Michelle Obama, an anti-obesity crusader.

“This is precisely the kind of private sector commitment we need,” Obama told the AP.

The story says General Mills Inc., ConAgra Foods Inc., Kraft Foods Inc., Kellogg Co., Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Hershey Co. are members of the effort to alter recipes, lower calories, cut portion sizes.

In other words, get ready for yuckier food, America. And unless smaller portion sizes likely correlate to lower prices, expect to pay more for less.

Food makers to trim 1.5 trillion calories [AP via MSNBC]

Joseph says Time Warner Cable can’t get his service working again because it’s too difficult to access his house. He needs cooperation from a neighbor but can’t get it.

He writes:

Long story short I’ve had numerous issues with my cable for the last 3 years, and it has just keeps getting worse. Repairmen are here constantly, we’re on our 4th cable box. Most recently my box just turns off and on in a continuous cycle, the repair men that came to fix this issue told me that they had what they called a “Access Issue” and they need to go into my neighbors back yard, another house 3 doors down from my own to fix the problems.

I’ve spoken with my neighbor and he won’t let them in apparently he’s had issues with them before, and is just flat out refusing to let them in end of story. Time Warner has said they can’t do anything until they get into the yard but since that isn’t going to happen what can I do?

It’s really bugging me and I hate to cancel the cable as I work in media and kind of need it.

What should Jeff do?

In an attempt to stop a scam in which third parties make unauthorized charges to credit cards thinking they were signing up for a loyalty rewards program, Visa is putting up a roadblock meant to keep information safer, CNet reports:

Retailers will no longer be able to allow third parties to charge a customer’s card without the card owner re-entering credit card information, Visa said Tuesday. This is Visa’s response to one of the biggest scandals to rock online retailing in years.

Last year, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation launched an investigation after learning that thousands of consumers had complained about receiving mysterious credit card charges.

It’s never a good idea to give your credit card number out for anything other than a purchase from a business you trust.

Visa targets online marketing ‘scam’ [CNet]
(Thanks, tz!)

Newspaper mad scientist Rupert Murdoch is apparently jumping on the James Cameron bandwagon, because now his British tabloid The Sun is going to go 3D, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports.

According to the post, the paper’s 3D edition will require readers to don those eye-crossing glasses to view ads and editorial in 3D. We’ll see how long this takes to get to Murdoch’s New York Post and Wall Street Journal.

What do you think? Pathetic gimmick or… pathetic gimmick?

News Corp Newspaper To Publish In 3D [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Nam said the Red Cross is as obsessive as Edward Cullen when it comes to making sure he keeps up his donation schedule. He says the organization is bordering on harassment as it urges him to come in and open up his veins.

I just wanted to share my recent experiences with the American Red Cross. Let’s preface this by saying I respect the mission and goals of the organization and I don’t have any problem with the organization’s purpose.

That said, I have been getting calls from the American Red Cross everyday at least twice (sometimes 3 times!) a day for the past month and a half. Every time they ask me to come in and donate blood. I have been sick on and off and missed my last scheduled donation session. However, I am constantly getting calls from their volunteers to come in and donate blood. It almost feels like I am being harassed because I have a something that belongs to them.

I believe I was more than nice simply telling their volunteers that I have been sick and I will have to decline to donate each time they call. Around 3 days ago I received yet another call and I told the volunteer I have been really ill from a stomach virus and I finally asked to be taken off the call list and I would call when I was ready to come in for my next donation. She kindly agreed and I thought that was going to be the end of the incessant calls. The next day I received yet another call from another volunteer of the Red Cross. I told her I was called the previous day and asked to be taken off the list and I would make an appointment to donate when I felt up for it. She kindly apologized and said they had been making a lot of repeat calls because of a problem with the system. I said, “no problem, honest problem” and that was the end of that conversation and what I thought would be the end of the calls. The next morning (8:30 AM on a SATURDAY) I get yet another call from another volunteer of the American Red Cross.

I was a bit annoyed, but still tried to be polite since I figure it’s not her fault their system is telling her to call me. I again asked to be taken off the list because I was getting incessant calls multiple times a day. She continues to “encourage” me that I need to donate because there is a severe shortage of blood in the area. Valid problem, but will a pint of my blood really be missed until I get better? I firmly declined to make an appointment and stated I would really like it if they “stopped calling me at all waking hours of the day”. I admit there was a significant amount of annoyance behind that statement and this is where the conversation goes south.

The volunteer snaps back, ” [the Red Cross] doesn’t call at all hours”. My response, “yes you may not call every hour, but 2-3 times is a bit excessive”. She follows with a statement dripping with sarcasm. At this point I am so appalled that all I can muster is a, “just please stop calling”, and hang up on her. Today is Sunday and I am 99% positive I received another call from the Red Cross today because their calls always show up as “unknown number” on my cell.

While I appreciate the Red Cross trying to get much needed blood donations I find it a bit ridiculous that I am practically harassed to donate blood and the attitude I got from a volunteer makes me NEVER want to go back to the Red Cross. My fiance has already been pissed off by a few of the Red Cross volunteers and vowed to only donate blood at the blood bank run by the local hospital. I am probably going to do the same at this point. At what point is it considered excessive and is their any recourse for me if I am constantly called by them even after asking many times to be taken off their call list? I realize they are not telemarketers and are not subject to the “Do not call” list regulations, but how do I make it stop? I understand they are trying to do a good thing, but is it really wise to annoy their current pool or regular blood donors?

Any ideas on how to get Red Cross off Nam’s tail? Maybe a garlic necklace?