I'm just ranting today from psycho burnout. I turned on CNN and saw police with guns marching students one by out of a high school somewhere, hands over their heads like they were criminals under arrest -- all in response to a report of someone on campus with a gun. No proof, no shots fired, just some report. How does this affect the kids? Being marched outside with hands on top of head. This really affected me.
Then I heard on the radio about the first school system in my state to have school cameras piped directly to the police station. The ClearChannel station immediately lauded it as a success because as soon as the system was turned on they saw someone crossing the school lawn with a toner cartridge or something under his coat, thus causing police to be dispatched to the scene to catch the petty thief.
Then the same radio station conducted a poll on the street, "How would like to have one card that you could use to pay for tolls, the subway, car parks, all your transportation needs?" Of course, the response given from the citizenry was overwhelmingly positive.
Then I suffered a four-day internet outage, two days longer that the general outage that my provider said affected my area. After being cut off during a phone session with one technician, I finally got a house call. They ended up replacing my modem with one of theirs, so they can charge me another $50/year. And the technician made off with the power adapter for my old modem. I had just signed up for a bundling deal at a special price and they overcharged me $100 on my bill, and another $40 the next month. Still unresolved.
Then I took my wife to the cell phone store to extend her pre-paid plan by a year. The store didn't have any $100 cards and the clerk said call this number to use their automated system and pay with a credit card. Nearing the end of the transaction, they said, "to expedite this transaction, please enter the last four digits of your social security number," which they should not have, though the credit card company probably does. We declined, then the system refused to take no for an answer. So we entered it. Apparently, this "thinking twice" caused us to be bumped out of the system to some third-party security center who halted the transaction and proceeded with, literally, a cross-examination. "I will ask you a series of multiple-choice questions, and your answers are time-sensitive, so answer immediately. In which of the following counties have you ever owned property: Benton, Arkansas -- Garfield, Colorado," etc. They wanted prior addresses and all kinds of intrusive stuff or we wouldn't be allowed to buy phone minutes. When I asked what prompted us to be bumped out of the phone company's system to this mysterious "security center," I got no straight answer. Just because we didn't need to "expedite the transaction?" Come on. How long does a credit-card transaction normally take, anyway? About 10 seconds? Sick.
Yuck, headache. And all this is just nothing, nothing at all, compared to what seems to be brewing.
Then I heard on the radio about the first school system in my state to have school cameras piped directly to the police station. The ClearChannel station immediately lauded it as a success because as soon as the system was turned on they saw someone crossing the school lawn with a toner cartridge or something under his coat, thus causing police to be dispatched to the scene to catch the petty thief.
Then the same radio station conducted a poll on the street, "How would like to have one card that you could use to pay for tolls, the subway, car parks, all your transportation needs?" Of course, the response given from the citizenry was overwhelmingly positive.
Then I suffered a four-day internet outage, two days longer that the general outage that my provider said affected my area. After being cut off during a phone session with one technician, I finally got a house call. They ended up replacing my modem with one of theirs, so they can charge me another $50/year. And the technician made off with the power adapter for my old modem. I had just signed up for a bundling deal at a special price and they overcharged me $100 on my bill, and another $40 the next month. Still unresolved.
Then I took my wife to the cell phone store to extend her pre-paid plan by a year. The store didn't have any $100 cards and the clerk said call this number to use their automated system and pay with a credit card. Nearing the end of the transaction, they said, "to expedite this transaction, please enter the last four digits of your social security number," which they should not have, though the credit card company probably does. We declined, then the system refused to take no for an answer. So we entered it. Apparently, this "thinking twice" caused us to be bumped out of the system to some third-party security center who halted the transaction and proceeded with, literally, a cross-examination. "I will ask you a series of multiple-choice questions, and your answers are time-sensitive, so answer immediately. In which of the following counties have you ever owned property: Benton, Arkansas -- Garfield, Colorado," etc. They wanted prior addresses and all kinds of intrusive stuff or we wouldn't be allowed to buy phone minutes. When I asked what prompted us to be bumped out of the phone company's system to this mysterious "security center," I got no straight answer. Just because we didn't need to "expedite the transaction?" Come on. How long does a credit-card transaction normally take, anyway? About 10 seconds? Sick.
Yuck, headache. And all this is just nothing, nothing at all, compared to what seems to be brewing.
