Ramblings

Opt Out

2007-01-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Junk mail is something we have grown to accept. So what if it aids in deforestation and identity theft. Its a right that corporate America believes is as important as the freedom of speech. But after a lot of pressure from consumer groups the major credit agencies have agreed to offer people the option to opt out.

By opting out, you are telling the credit agencies to not sell your financial information to other interested parties such as the Nigerian financial scam artists. Now, finally, the three credit agencies (TransUnion, Experion, and Equifax) have said "if you beg we will not sell your data to thieves." Thank you. You can opt out by going here www.OptOutPrescreen.com.

So you think you are safe, right? Wrong!!!!! The credit agencies are not the only ones with your data and are not the only ones selling your data. Your own credit card company, your bank, your insurance company, your mortgage company has your data and is actively selling your information to anyone who pays. Thats how you get that junk mail offering you better rates on your mortgage and thats how one day you realize that someone has stolen your identity or wiped clean your account.

Now these banks and mortgage companies are not as evil as I make them out to be. No Sir, they are worse. For example I just got a letter from Washington Mutual telling me of all the options I have to opt out. But this is what really pissed me off:

Washington Mutual wants me to opt out by sending them a written request or by calling them during business hours. Hmmmm! Let's analyze this a little. Washinton Mutual has a web site that they say is state of the art. You can handle any kind of online transaction. You can manage your mortgage, make payments, make extra payments, etc. So how come I cannot log on and simply check a box that says Opt Out?

How come Washington Mutual? How come?

And dear consumer, Washington Mutual is not the only one. 100% of all financial intitutions that I deal with (I deal with at least 20) have requested written or phone based opt out. Not one, I repeat not one says log on to your account and opt out.

I guess they want to make it as difficult as possible for you, the consumer, from stopping them, the banks, from selling your information to thieves and crooks. Why do you think they (the banks) sell you those credit protection policies? Its so that when they sell your information to a thief, you can be protected.

Purchase Protection Plans

2006-11-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

Nowadays a purchase protection plan or an extended warranty is something that is offered by all manufacturers and stores. It appears the new strategy is not to build quality products but to build crap and then make the customer pay for the poor quality.

But how far are retailers willing to push this? Pretty far, let me tell you. The other day I purchased a telephone from Circuit City online but arranged for a store pickup. Since the phone was already paid for I go to the store, show my ID and pickup the phone.

Just as I was picking up the phone I could hear the loud sound coming from the home theater section of the store. Before I knew it my son abandoned me and was watching some movie demo. I pick up the telephone and head towards my son. Thats when I notice they were selling those padded envelopes. I picked up one as I have been wanting to mail this CD of family pictures to my folks.

I find myself back at the counter now having to pay for the envelope. A dollar something and then the guy asks me "would you like to purchase a protection plan?" In my shock I asked what kind of plans do you have? And then for 15 minutes he rattled of the details for 2 protection plans for products under $100. At the end I asked him, if I really needed one for an envelope and laughed.

Here is the worst part. As I laughed I could see by the look on his face, he had no clue as to why I was laughing. Sigh! Circuit City Sigh!

United Airlines - Sneaky

2006-10-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

I recently took a couple of flights on United Airlines. That the service was pathetic at best was understandable. I have flown United Airlines for years and have never felt that their service was worth talking about. Why do I fly them? Well I live in this bastion of capitalism and free market called the USA. Monopolistic corporations flourish here and so does support of military dictators. But remember, this is done to protect democracy and free markets. Go Figure!

The recent trips made on United were the result of a surprise vacation my wife had planned and as a result my frequent flyer information was not provided to the airline. Not a problem I said. When I get back I will log onto to my Mileage Plus account online and request the miles.

United Airlines, much to my surprise, has a feature whereby you can request miles as retro-credit, i.e., miles for flights you have already taken. So I clicked on the link for the online form.

Aha!!!!!!!! Not to my surprise the link is broken.

Great job United. Your efforts at Customer Service or lack thereof is exceptional. I am curious at what level of United's executives was this decision made to intentionally keep this feature non functional? I will keep reporting for how long this page does not work.

The Bastards at Dish Network - Once Again

2006-09-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

So I get yet another call from Echostar/Dish Network. I told them to please stop calling and that I am on the "Do not call list." I requested to speak to the supervisor who said this must be a technical glitch.

So here is my take, if these idiots do not know how to dial a telephone number why would I trust them with satellite service?

Anyway, a little research helped me find the names of these bozos who don't believe in following the law or are mentally challenged, i.e., do not know how to make a phone call.

Charles Ergen, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Steven Schaver, President of EchoStar International Corporation
Carl Vogel, Vice Chairman of the Board
David Moskowitz, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary, Director
David Rayner, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
James DeFranco, Executive Vice President, Director
Mark Jackson, President, EchoStar Technologies Corporation
O. Nolan Daines, Executive Vice President of Business Development

Anyone wish to post their phone numbers? :-)

The Bastards at Echostar AKA the Dish Network.

2006-09-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

So once again I get a marketing call from Global Dish Netwrok trying to sell me the Dish Network service for Satellite TV. This is depsite the fact that I am on the do not call list ever since the list was created. This is also not the first time. I have talked about a previous call from them.

It appears that Echostar the owner of the Dish Network believes they can disregard all laws. I wish Bin Laden would shove a pole up Echostar's CEO's ass. If I were to ever support terrorism it would be to drag the mother fuckers from Echostar into the gas chamber on live TV. oops! on live satellite TV worldwide.

The number from which I got this call is 987.654.3210. I intend to persue this issue. More later based on where I get. I will also start listing as much information I can on senior Echostar executives if I can get my hands on it.

How does one handle these (Money magazine) Idiots

2006-08-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

So you have seen my rants about Money magazine. If not you can read these:

http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/07/money-magazine-is-back-trying-to-steal.html
http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/06/money-magazine-back-to-doing-no-good.html
http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_meragussa_archive.html

The last time I posted on this issue I mentioned that I sent an email to Money Magazine. I then proceeded to post the response from the idiots at Money Magazine. See here http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/07/money-magazine-is-back-trying-to-steal.html.

In that response I was told I would be removed from their marketing list and that this would take 10 days. That response was on July 22, 2006. Today is Aug. 7, 2006, this basic math is probably beyond the capabilities of the morons working at Money Magazine, since just today I received yet another offer to renew my subscription.

Clearly this calls for another email to them. Let's see what these jackasses will say this time. I will post their reply if I get one. So I replied to their email with the following email (unnecessary text removed)

***************
I am writing to follow up on my complaint regarding EXCESSIVE junk mail from your organization. In your response you mentioned that this will stop in 10 days. Clearly Money is incapable of getting their math right.

Please let me know as to what steps I need to take to have your department stop sending me unnecessary renewal notices.

A log of this is being maintained at http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-does-one-handle-these-money.html

Thank you
***************

Will Money magazine provide proper customer service or send their blood thristy lawyers? We shall find out :-)

An Email to Comcast

2006-08-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

July 31, 2007. 1930 hrs

Upon realizing that I was not getting any email for a few weeks I sent an email to my email forwarding company bigfoot.

July 31, 2007. 2022 hrs

I get an email from bigfoot that they are testing.

July 31, 2007. 2039 hrs

I get an email from bigfoot stating that all email from bigfoot to comcast was being blocked by comcast. Bigfoot said it was looking into the matter. So I decided to write a letter to Comcast too. This is what I sent to them:

*********************
For almost 5 years or longer I have been using bigfoot.com as an email forwarding service. Everything has always worked. They have forwarded all emails to my comcast account at mailto:$%$#%#$#@comcast.net.

However, for the past few weeks I stopped receiving email. On complaining to bigfoot they informed me that COMCAST is bouncing all email from them.

Why? Why did you choose to make such a drastic move without even inform your customers. I have lost critical email as a result of this.

In case your reason was to prevent spam, I will like to inform you that bigfoot's spam filters are far superior to those at comcast.

I sincerely hope that next time you will be slightly more careful in your approach.
A copy of this email can be found at http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/08/email-to-comcast.html

I also hope that this matter will be resolved IMMEDIATELY.

Thank you.

*******************************

July 31, 2007. 2106 hrs

I get an email from bigfoot saying the problem has been resolved. I have yet to hear from Comcast.

Aug 1, 2006, 0630 hrs

I get this email from Comcast.
*********************

Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXXX,
Thank you for your message concerning the Comcast High-Speed Internet service.
I apologize for the inconvenience and any problems you may have experienced because of this issue.
Could you tell me what is the error BigFoot is receiving when forwarding the messages to your Comcast account? If possible copy and paste the error on your reply to this message. We need this so we can properly escalate the issue.

For answers to frequently asked questions and updates on new features, please visit http://www.blogger.com/www.comcast.net and select Help.
Remember that Comcast will never ask for your password or billing information via e-mail.
Thank you for choosing Comcast.
Sincerely,
Jose
Comcast Customer Care Specialist
**********

Lets focus on the one line "Could you tell me what is the error BigFoot is receiving when forwarding the messages to your Comcast account?"

What the fuck? How am I to know what error bigfoot is getting? Isn't that Comcast's job, since they are the ones who blocked bigfoot in the first place. Why does Comcast find it so difficult to take the initiative to provide good customer support?

My message to Comcast, learn from bigfoot you idiots.

MONEY Magazine is back trying to steal money

2006-07-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in previous blogs, I have a subscription to MONEY Magazine and from the very month I signed up for a one year subscription they have been sending me mail saying its time to renew for another year. Trying to get me to pay for something I will not see for 12 months. Trying to make interest of MY money while trying to give me advise on how to make good financial decisions in their magazine.

Isn't there something just wrong about that? So I decided to send them a letter. Here is the text. I doubt they will have the kahunas to respond. Or if they do respond it will be some standard form letter. OR, their lawyers may come chasing after me ... LOL. Let's see. Will they try to steal the American public's money and then chase down any dissent with their lawyers, or will they try and explain their ways.

Let's see...

The email I sent.....

**************
Why does Money Magazine try its level best to continue to deceive its customers? From the day I bought my 1 year subscription, 02/2006 I have been receiving mail from your organization telling me that I should renew my subscription for the next year.

Really? Does that make good financial sense? Your last letter to me was received today and it says "I have just been informed by our circulation department that your MONEY subscription is now up for renewal."

Doesn't this statement try to send the message that my subscription is about to expire? Even though it expires in 01/2007. Do you really think it makes good financial sense for me to buy a subscription and pay for it a year in advance? Do you? Is that what MONEY would like to suggest to its readers? Can you try to run an honest business please? I will be logging my experience on this issue here: http://meragussa.blogspot.com/..

Thanks.

************************************
Very promtply (congratulations on the good service) I get a response. Here are parts of it.
***********************************

Dear blah blah : Thank you for contacting MONEY Customer Service.

We send early renewal notices for several reasons. First, because we select our issue mailing labels in advance, we want to give subscribers ample response time to ensure continuous service. Second, obtaining your renewal order early locks in your savings and protects you against possible rate increases.

We can adjusted your account so that renewal notices will not start until three months prior to your expiration date. Please let us know if the is your request. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any further questions, please let us know. We apologize for any inconvenience.

We removed your personal information from our promotional listings. If your information was already on our files, you may have been selected for a recent promotion. Please allow ten business days for this to become effective. After that, you will not receive future promotions. If you are just providing us with your contact information, you will not be added to the promotional listings..

We appreciate this opportunity to be of service.

Then there were link to various OPT OUT options.

*******************************************

So here is my analysis.

Thank you for the prompt response.
Starting early does not imply the month I buy an annual subscription. Sorry lousy answer.
Lock me in at a good rate? They offered me an annual subscription at $14, but at money.com you can signup for $10. What they meant was lock me in at a higher rate and screw me.

Oh well. At least they got me off their spam list. Damn idiots.

Experion the new Deceiver. Watch out consumers

2006-07-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows how dangerous these credit agencies are. You dont? Well here is a little brief. They have all your financial information. They collect this information so that they can provide feedback to anyone who is interested in knowing how stable your financial situation is, i.e., your credit rating. I can understand the need for such a business. Fair enough......

But Experion and its likes now sell all the information they have on you to others. Do you get anything for it? Nope, well maybe I stand corrected, you get JUNK MAIL. Your identity is at risk, because they can sell your information to people who have no good intentions. And no Experion and its likes do not check who they sell your information to. If you have been reading teh news you will see that the credit agencies like Experion have sold your information or lost it to people with mal intent.

So, if you wish to stop this onslaught of junk mail you can opt out of the prescreened mail by calling1.888.567.8688 or by going to www.OptOutPrescreen.com.

And that is exactly what I did. And voila I stopped getting getting all those pre approved credit card junk mail offers from CapitalOne and othe rcredit card companies.

But wait!!!!! just today I get junk mail from an insurance company. At least they had teh decency to say that if I wish to stop the junk mail I should contact Experion or call 1.888.567.8688 or by go to www.OptOutPrescreen.com to stop insurance policy offers.

WTF? I thought optout meant optout. What the hell is this? Well it turns out our friends at Experion have founf a way to screw us yet again. If you opted out ealier it was only for credit cards. Now they are selling your information to others, such as insurance agencies and perhaps Nigerian scam artists? So you have to call them back and opt out all over again.

Hmmm, then perhaps Experion will sell your information to Al Qaeda and after the sale ask if you wish to opt out. Think about it :-)

Fedex the New Idiot on the Block

2006-06-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Last week while looking at my credit card statement I noticed a charge from my Fedex account. I was certain I had not shipped anything so I log on to my personal Fedex account and much to my surprise I see a shipment from a Mr A to a Mr B. I clicked on the Dispute button and stated that I had no knowledge of this shipment. Today I log on to check the status of the dispute and there the duspute record is gone. So I create a new dispute and now I get a message that the dispute is credited. I log on to my credit card account and no money is credited.

So here are my questions for Fedex:

How did someone manage to send a package from my account? Is all they had to do is type my account number on the airbill? What if someone ships $1,000,000 worth of packages on my account number? Who is responsible for my credit problems then? What if hackers learn about this loophole?
Fedex requires that I provide them an email address when I create an account. If this is a required information, then why is it that Fedex failed to inorm me that a package was shipped?
Why did Fedex fail to communicate with me when I initiated a dispute?
Why does FedEx say the money is credited when my credit card says no such credit exists?

It appears that Fedex stands to gain by providing lousy service which benefits them when a mistake is made. Rather convenient isn't it.

A day later

So I just got of the phone with Fedex customer support. They could answer none of the questions above. The lady said I it may take anything up to 4 to 6 weeks for my credit card account to be credited. And no, there is no way to prevent automatic billing to an account.

So, basically anyone can send a package from some address to some address as long as they have my account number and I will automatically get billed. When I raise a dispute on the shipment I may have to wait as much as 6 weeks.

Now imagine someone doing an organized attack on an organization. All you need is the account number. Then through chat rooms spread that number and next moment you have millions of dollars racked up against the victim. And FedEx respponse is, "well if the account number is yours, you will get billed automatically."

Money Magazine back to doing no good

2006-06-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

In August 2005 I posted on my blog :http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_meragussa_archive.html as to how I felt magazine publishers were out to cheat and deceive their customers. I even wrote to wired and Money magazine but not to my surprise I got no response.

This February I renewed my subscription to Money magazine for a whole year. Last month I get a renewal notice offering me a great deal if I renew early. 3 months into my subsription they want me to renew? What are these idiots thinking of? Then I figured, lets analyze this deal.

Last year they did the same. They offered me great deals if I subscribed early, which I did not. The last minute offer they made me was actually the best. The current offer made to me by Money magazine for early subscription for 1 year will cost me $14.95 per year. Thats already more than what I am paying and expect to pay. And why sould I pay in advance?

Is Money magazine suggesting to its readers that the best financial move is to put money down with no returns? Can someone please explain this?

I am going to send Money magazine another email on this subject. I will post any response I get from them here.

Chase Credit Cards - Another Loser

2006-05-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

It seems corporate America just cannot stop outdoing each others stupidity. So I had this credit card that was once managed by CitiBank. One day I was notified that the card will now be managed by bankOne. Fair enough. Few months later the management of the card switched to Chase. That too was fine.

I have been using online statements for a while. Why waste all that paper and who the hell wants to deal with snail mail anyways.... well except for those idiots.. err, I mean Republicans. (by the way I am not a Democrat .. ). But I digress......

So all was fine with Chase until about four months. I get a notification from them saying they have a new web site. A new and improved web site....LOL What a fu*&ing joke. I log on to the new site everything seemed ok, I left.

About three months ago my computer reminded me that I must pay my credit card bills. I checked my email for my statement and found none. So I log on to my Chase site, download the statement, pay the bill. The story repeats itself for 3 more billing cycles. So I decide to call the Chase Card Support staff.

Now for the shocker. This is even better than the season finale of "Lost"... NOT!!!!! So the people at Chase tell me that when I switched from the old to the new web site there was a little check box somewhere on the screen which I needed to select in order to retain my old preferences.

WHAT? I need to magically be aware of some change that I need to make to retain a process that has worked for almost 6 years across 3 banks? Shouldn't it have been that all settings will automatically carry over unless I explicitly say NO? Who the hell is incharge of credit cards at Chase? Fire the fu$%er.

As though this is not bad enough, the idiots at Chase have no way to turn on the electronic statements. Their tech support just could not get it to work. Great job Chase. Perhaps your management needs to be outsourced to people who can actually work.

Is it just me or is the mistake they made in their favour? With people not receiving statements, I wonder how much Chase raked up in late fees? Was this a mistake or a master strategy by Chase management?

I just need to use up my points and then here is a card thats going in the trash. Bye Bye Chase.

Bank of America - Copy Cat Idiots

2006-05-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

So you have seen my rant on CapitalOne and their never ending junk mail. In fact I am keeping a running tally of each junk mail I receive from them. See http://meragussa.blogspot.com/2006/03/capital-one-rainforest-killer.html

Recently I started getting CapitalOne junk mail in this large heavy envelope. Upon opening the envelope I find another envelope. The second is what they used to mail out, with the credit card offers and all that crap. So what did CapitalOne think? That there is a higher likelyhood of me getting their piece of shit credit card because the offer is mailed in two envelopes? Or does CapitalOne management think that we ain't seen no global warming yet? Looks like the bozos at CapitalOne wish to prove that there are no bigger idiots than them.

I was about to coin the phrase "CapitalOne, whats in their head?". But alas I was stopped. The other day I get another one of these envelopes holding envelops.... As I open it and am all ready to scream profanity at CapitalOne, I find my self renderred speechless. The inner envelope belonged to Bank of America.

It seems Bank of America did not wish to be out done by CapitalOne. After all being one of the largest banks in the world implies that they must also be one of the largest idiots in the world. Silly me, I should have figured this out. Good job Bank of America.

Comcast back to cheat customers

2006-04-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Today I get a flyer (junk mail) from Comcast advertising a new and upgraded cable modem service. If I pay $10 more each month I can enjoy a 16 MBits per second. Wow! cool! great!, but hey!!!!!!!!!! they go on to say the $10 also gets me home networking for upto 5 computers. Now just what does this imply? I thought I can have as many computers inside my house networked in any manner as I wish them to be. How the hell does my home network concern Comcast?

Is Comcast implying that they determine or will charge customers according to the number of computers they have? Is this legal? Maybe its time for comptetion to enter the cable business.

Then I take a lok at the fine print and not to my surprise I see more information supporting teh fact that Comcast is trying to cheat its customers. The fine print states that the speeds are not guaranteed.... so lets get this straight... they want $10 more for what?????

Chinese Railways don't wish to be left behind

2006-04-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Previously I posted an article on how the spam industry and corruption in China had manage to infiltrate the Chinese Air Traffic Control computers. Well the Chinese railways are proud to say that they too have joined the elite Chinese Technology Corps of sending spam to the world.

I recently received an email which was directing me to
http://fastandeazy.com/. The site was located at IP: 61.234.140.198 which using APNIC whois revealed the following:

% [whois.apnic.net node-1]
% Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html
inetnum: 61.232.0.0 - 61.237.255.255
netname: CRTC
country: CN
descr: CHINA RAILWAY TELECOMMUNICATIONS CENTER
admin-c: LQ112-AP
tech-c: LM273-AP
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed: ipas@cnnic.net.cn 20030121
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: APNIC
person: LV QIANG
nic-hdl: LQ112-AP
e-mail: crnet_mgr@chinatietong.com
address: 22F Yuetan Mansion,Xicheng District,Beijing,P.R.China
phone: +86-10-51892106
fax-no: +86-10-51890674
country: CN
changed: ipas@cnnic.net.cn 20050823
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: APNIC
person: liu min
nic-hdl: LM273-AP
e-mail: crnet_tec@chinatietong.com
address: 22F Yuetan Mansion,Xicheng District,Beijing,P.R.China
phone: +86-10-51848796
fax-no: +86-10-51842426
country: CN
changed: ipas@cnnic.net.cn 20041208
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: APNIC
inetnum: 61.232.0.0 - 61.237.255.255
netname: CRTC
country: CN
descr: CHINA RAILWAY TELECOMMUNICATIONS CENTER
admin-c: LQ112-CN
tech-c: LM273-CN
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed: ipas@cnnic.net.cn 20030121
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: CNNIC
person: LV QIANG
nic-hdl: LQ112-CN
e-mail: wangpei@chinatietong.com
address: 22F Yuetan Mansion,Xicheng District,Beijing,P.R.China
phone: +86-10-51890499
fax-no: +86-10-51890674
country: CN
changed: shenzhi@cnnic.cn 20050623
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: CNNIC
person: liu min
nic-hdl: LM273-CN
e-mail: crnet_tec@chinatietong.com
address: 22F Yuetan Mansion,Xicheng District,Beijing,P.R.China
phone: +86-10-51848796
fax-no: +86-10-51842426
country: CN
changed: ipas@cnnic.net.cn 20041208
mnt-by: MAINT-CNNIC-AP
source: CNNIC

This once again makes me wonder as to how come the Chinese wish to dictate what Internet content enters their borders but not the shit they send out.

Capital One, The Rainforest Killer

2006-03-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

Well let me start by saying I have no proof that Capital One is responsible for the destruction of rainforests in the Amazon, but it sure does feel like it. Why? you may ask. Well I get at minimum 2 but as much as 4 or 5 pieces of junk mail each week to sign up for their credit cards. Do these idiots at Capital One actually think I will sign up if they flood me with junk mail. At least the junk email I get for penile enlargment and viagra has some value (not that I need either). What the fuck does Capital One give me? Yo!!! Capital One marketing idiots... any answer? I didn't think so. Thats cause they are the ones that need the penile enlargement.... LOL

I checked my credit report from all three agencies and not to my surprise, the most frequent source of queries on my credit is Capital One. Well I know if I get a poor credit score I have Capital One to file a law suit against. May I should hack around and get personal information on Capital One's management and post it here for the world to see and perhaps call them and send them mail. Now wouldn't that be fun....... Or even better, post pictures of Capital One management with their little weenies responding to the penile enlargement emails.... LOL

Unfortunately or fortunately for the Capital One bastards, I am too busy to chase them. But if I get the time, beware!!!! Your personal life will be posted here. As a great American character Rambo once said "you drew first blood"....

LOL, I think this is getting rather too dramatic. Have a good night all, time for me to go back to the rut of life, shredding the shit Capital One sends me.

OK so now I am writing a few weeks later and am going nuts with CapitalOne and their junk mail. I have signed up for the OptOut option provided by various credit agencies. Yet I get this junk from these fuckers at CapitalOne.

So I decided I will make an entry each time I get junk mail from CapitalOne starting today. I will ignore the past. Lets see how much mail do I get from them. Each date listed below starting today is a day when I get junk mail from CapitalOne.

2006/04/16
2006/04/28
2006/05/08 Looks like they send junk mail one every week
2006/05/09 Two in as many days
2006/06/08

Don't ever fly to China - The latest on Chinese spam

2006-02-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

In my quest to figure out how and where and why all the spam I get is from China, I ended up with something quite scary. I got a new spam email, actually two of them, pointing me to the same web site for refinancing my mortgage. A lookup on that website pointed me to the following IP number: 211.155.31.249

Here is the fun part... Normally a search on APNIC ends up pointing to some Chinese ISP through which spammers operate. But this time the story is different. The APNIC search shows that 211.155.31.249 / =<<.refi456yourhome.com">http://>=<<.refi456yourhome.com is hosted at Baiyun Airport Guangzhou China. An airport? and the description for this listing is: Airtraffic Control Bureau. WTF? Chinese airport traffic controllers are now hosting web sites that are looking to help me refinance my mortgage? And they get my business by sending spam? LOL.... this is hilarious. Chairman Mao in his grave or whatever must be one happy man. China is finally making it big and sticking it to the capitalist world.

Having said that, I suggest you rethink flying to China ;-)

Also, as a followup. Of all my gmail addresses the only one that gets spam is the one I use solely for reporting spam to the Chinese network administrators. This email address has not been used for any other purpose. Thereby implying that the Chinese are not innocent victims of some larger scam behind the spam but infact are the primary perpetrators of the crime.

Chairman Mao must be happy in his grave for his nation is sticking it to the capitalists.... LOL. Good job China, you have mastered sending man to space and sending spam, all from one PC ;-)

Given how easily Google bent over and handed its arse to the Chinese, I wonder if Google will report my identity to them. After all I doubt Mao's croonies (even though its generations later) are liking what I am writing. But then again, I doubt anyone reads this blog....

And just in case anyone is reading this blog, I would like to reiterate, neither I nor my writing in this blog is pointed at the Chinese people. Its only the Chinese government that is pissing me off right now :-)

Here is the APNIC listing:

inetnum: 211.155.31.0 - 211.155.31.255
netname: Lantian
country: CN
descr: Airtraffic Control Bureau
admin-c: YK5-AP
tech-c: YK5-AP
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE
changed: liucheng@gzidc.com 20050225
mnt-by: MAINT-CN-XYD
source: APNIC
person: yongheng Kuang
nic-hdl: YK5-AP
e-mail: spam@gzidc.com
address: Baiyun Airport Guangzhou China
phone: +86-20-86122080
fax-no: +86-20-8612203
country: CN
changed: liucheng@gzidc.com 20050224
mnt-by: MAINT-CN-XYD
source: APNIC
inetnum: 211.155.31.0 - 211.155.31.255
netname: Lantian
country: CN
descr: Airtraffic Control Bureau
admin-c: YK5-CN
tech-c: YK5-CN
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE
changed: liucheng@gzidc.com 20050225
mnt-by: MAINT-CN-XYD
source: CNNIC
person: yongheng Kuang
nic-hdl: YK5-CN
e-mail: spam@gzidc.com
address: Baiyun Airport Guangzhou China
phone: +86-20-86122080
fax-no: +86-20-8612203
country: CN
changed: liucheng@gzidc.com 20050224
mnt-by: MAINT-CN-XYD
source: CNNIC

More on my experience with China spam

2006-02-01T18:44:00.000-08:00

First of all, I would like to say these posts are not about China the country as much as they are about spam. I get a lot of spam and off late I have decided to try and track down the source. As mentioned in my previous post, it doesn't matter where the email is coming from. What is important is where the email is trying to send me. The destination is the creator of the spam, not the source.

Keeping that strategy in mind I started doing a Domain name lookup for each web site that the spam emails try to send me to. White the site names change for each email, the IP numbers behind those sites remain the same. I use APNIC whois to determine who owns or manges these IP numbers. And the answer is alswyas one of about 3 networks in China.

I have sent various emails reporting the spam. Sometimes the spam stops, then starts again but with a new IP number, which of course again comes from these networks in China. I am not certain as to how the spammers are setup, but I intend to find out.

So for example today I received 14 spam emails asking me to visit various web sites. The table below is a sample of my investigation on 4 of those. I investigated all 14, just keeping this post short by listing a subset.

Date Spam ID IP Network Email Country
2/1/2006 1 221.4.152.197 China Network Communications Group Corporation abuse@cnc-oc.net China
2/1/2006 1 211.144.147.200 Beijing Xiao Xiang Commerce Co.,Ltd abuse@srit.com.cn China
2/1/2006 2 211.144.147.200 Beijing Xiao Xiang Commerce Co.,Ltd abuse@srit.com.cn China
2/1/2006 2 221.4.152.197 China Network Communications Group Corporation abuse@cnc-noc.net China
2/1/2006 3 211.144.147.200 Beijing Xiao Xiang Commerce Co.,Ltd abuse@srit.com.cn China
2/1/2006 3 221.4.152.197 China Network Communications Group Corporation abuse@cnc-noc.net China
2/1/2006 4 211.144.147.200 Beijing Xiao Xiang Commerce Co.,Ltd abuse@srit.com.cn China
2/1/2006 4 221.4.152.197 China Network Communications Group Corporation abuse@cnc-noc.net China

Interesting pattern ins't it? Well I intend to monitora report these for a while. Will post an update as and when I collect more information.

China, now the leading manufacturer of spam?

2006-01-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Nearly every product we buy, well let me rephrase that. Nearly every cheap product we buy nowadays is made in China. Nothing really wrong with that. Don't like it... don't buy it. Thats why we call it a free market.

But what happens when the Chinese pervasiveness crosses that boundary of freedom? Of late I have started tracking where my spam comes from. Tracking the source of spam is not always easy. Its easy to fudge email headers so amateurs like myself cannot determine who really sent the spam. But there is an easier way to track spam. Most spam email wants you to go to some web site to do some business. Who cares where the email came from. Clearly it was sent by those whose sites we are asked to visit.

So I started tracking these sites. Doing a whois seems to point me to random owners (apparently false information) in the United States. But strangely all the IP numbers for these web sites seem to come from China. They are all under APNIC and upong looking up the IP number at http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl I get the following information:

inetnum: 221.11.128.0 - 221.11.223.255
netname: CNCGROUP-HI
descr: CNC Group Hainan province network
descr: China Network Communications Group Corporation
descr: No.156,Fu-Xing-Men-Nei Street,
descr: Beijing 100031
country: CN
admin-c: CH455-AP
tech-c: CH455-AP
remarks: service provider
mnt-by: APNIC-HM
mnt-lower: MAINT-CNCGROUP-HI
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20030122
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
source: APNIC
role: CNCGroup Hostmaster
e-mail: abuse@cnc-noc.net
address: No.156,Fu-Xing-Men-Nei Street,
address: Beijing,100031,P.R.China
nic-hdl: CH455-AP
phone: +86-10-82993155
fax-no: +86-10-82993102
country: CN
admin-c: CH444-AP
tech-c: CH444-AP
changed: abuse@cnc-noc.net 20041119
mnt-by: MAINT-CNCGROUP
source: APNIC

Almost 100% of all email I get send me to web sites that are have an IP number that is in the range 221.11.128.0 - 221.11.223.255. So I created a new gmail account and used it to send emails to abuse@cnc-noc.net to report this issue. I sent them all teh emails I was receiving and explaining that they need to do something to stop these sites.

Since I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese or any other chineses language my emails were in English. So I was not necessarily surprised that I got no response.

What was also not much of surprise is that this brand new gmail address started receiving spam. And yes, all from these web sites that have their IP numbers coming from this network owned by China Network Communications Group Corporation.

So I wonder how is this possible. We are talking about a country where I thought people are tossed off into prison, tortured, and killed for little or no reason. So how could somone be so brave so as to be so corrupt? Or is it that the spam industry is now a favorite child of the Chinese government. I would like to investigate further, but then I do not wish to be arrested, tortured, and killed :-)

More on this later.....

Chase Credit Cards - Another Deceiver

2005-11-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

So I get this mail from Chase. Telling me all about how much they care about protecting my privacy related information. But by default they will share my information to the world. If I wish to stop them I must call or write. huh????? WTF?????? Have the morons at Chase not heard of the internet. Actually I apologize. Not morons. In fact they are very smart people. I should rephrase my statement. "Have the dishonest management at Chase not heard of the internet?."

They want you to stop recieving paper bills. Why? It costs them money. They want you to pay my bills online. Why? They get your money faster and cheaper and with fewer errors. And despite this push to use the internet, they do not wish to provide you with an easy way to protect your privacy. Why? Look at my rephrase above. Now you know why I call it the "dishonest management." They want it to be as difficult as possible for you to stop them from selling your information. Think about it. You make an online payment and they take the money from your bank account in a fraction of a second. You tell them to stop selling your information and it takes them 6 to 8 weeks.

Use your brains people. Find a company that will be honest. Chase is not one of them.

Dish Network/Echostar, the new corporate bastards

2005-11-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

The moment the do not call registry was created I went ahead and registered all my phones. The do not call list in the United States is a list that the government maintains that is to be used by all telemarketers to exclude numbers that they may call. Finally an inteligent decision by Washington. I always considered Washington be one big blob of stupidity, but every now and then do make a mistake, after all they are human (well more neanderthal).

Of late my peace at home is again being destroyed. The phone has once again started to ring. Almost 3 to 4 times a week. And guess who it is? The Dish Network, run by Echostar. Yep, the satellite TV folks. And in the most underhanded and corrupt manner, they are using some offshore company in India to make the calls. The callers have been brazen enough to tell me that the do not call list does not apply to them.

So, now I need to figure out how to screw the Dish Network. Clearly a report to the FTC and FCC is a first step. A letter to the Dish Network executives will be a good second step. And if I am a true American, then perhaps a law suit will shake them fuckers.

Spam, why doesn't anyone retaliate?

2005-09-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Clearly we have all been victims of spam. And the only organization that I know that took the war against spam was lycos, by providing a tool (a screen saver) to attack the web sites of the spam senders. Thus rendering them useless. Strangely, there was a public out cry against Lycos saying what Lycos was doing is unethical. huh?????? and the billions of viagra and penis enlargement advertisements we get in our mail is ethical? WTF is wrong with people?

So here is one place I get spam from. Their URL keeps changing but the web site is the same. I will see if their IP number changes or is static. So lets start recording this. I will put a space in the URL so no one clicks it as a link.

museumjangmarque.info IP: 216.52.184.240
overnightincrement.com IP: 211.144.147.142

Equifax and Free Credit Reports

2005-09-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

We have all heard about identity theft and various other crimes that can occur as a result of someone getting your financial information. Three organizations, TransUnion, Experion, and Equifax are the main credit reporting agencies. What this means is that they have information on you. Everything about you is with them. Anything you can do it? Well thats another discussion. What this also means is that they are the most likely source from which thieves will steal your information. And that too is another discussion.

To make sure that your credit is OK and that these three agencies have correct information on you and that strangers are not inquiring about your credit and that no one else is opening accounts (bank, credit card etc) in your name, you should check your credit reports. These three agencies have made billions of dollars selling your information to absolutely anyone who pays for it (including scam artists), and now they make even more by making you pay to see your own information.

However, now you are elligible to get one copy of your credit report from each agency once a year for free. Just go to www.annualcreditreport.com and request it.

So as a part of getting my free reports from each of the three agencies, I am sent to Experion's web site. These bastards (Experion) would make Saddam Hussain's efforts to steal money from his people seem tame. They give you the ability to print you credit report but none to save it. I thought I would be able to see my report as a PDF but noooooo!!!! But I am smart. I can save the HTML using my browser. Hehehehehe, the fuckers at Experion are smarter. They even went to the extent to disable all menus on IE so that you cannot save the contents. Why? They give you the option to view the credit report anytime you want if you sign up for their service. Which means $$$$. I have nothing against them making money. But I know this much, I am going to sue their ass if a hacker steals my information from their systems.

In fact I wonder why hackers don't do the ethical hack of stealing and releasing all private information about Experion Employees and large share holders. Now wouldn't that be a joy.

Anyway, if you need to save the Experion credit report on your drive (which you should), just select the entire content of the web page by right clicking, select all, then Copy and then paste into Word or any other editor. Then save to your disk.

The police....

2005-09-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

The other night my friends and I are at a bar and one of the guys has a bit too much to drink. I actually had nothing to drink that night (weird but true). As we are leaving, my friend who had a lot to drink decided that he will sleep in his car rather than drive. A very wise decision. We walked him to his car and he promptly fell asleep.

The next day I called to check on him. Apparently 2 maybe 3 hours after we left, the cops see his car as the only one in the parking lot and come by to check. On seeing him asleep in the car they wake him up to ask how he is doing. He said he was ok, just a little drunk so decided to sleep in his car. The cops pointed out that his engine was running, to which he replied yes, because it was very hot and he had the AC on. Since the car was running they told him he was technically in violation of laws, i.e., driving intoxicated. huh??????

The cops asked him to step out of the car, did a breath test, determined he was above the legal limit. They then told him he could not go back into the car as he was under the influence. They nearly gave him a ticket, which makes absolutely no sense to me. So now people get penalized for doing the right thing? Does anyone train these cops in "common sense"?

They then go on to tell him that he cannot go back to his car and that he must take a taxi home. To which he replied that he had no cash to pay the taxi, but that his office was 2 blocks down the street and that he would go there and sleep. The cops responded with a "no you cannot do that". So they tell him where he can find an ATM (which was two blocks in the other direction...), then tell him that he must walk there, not run, as they were watching ... LOL ... this has to be a joke right? So he goes to the ATM, gets money, comes back to his car only to notice that the cops are gone. Of course he gets back into his car and goes off to sleep.

Between looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and cops who have nothing better to do I am convinced that my taxes are a colossal waste. Can we file for a refund based on the government's inability to do anythng right?

Wired and Money, is this honest?

2005-08-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

I have a subscription to both Wired and money magazine. I believe they are from different publishing houses. Both subscriptions started around December 2004. In late June I started receiving mail from both magazines making these fantastic offers to me, using terms such as "professional subscription" etc. They were supposedly offering great rates which I could get if I applied in the next 15 days.

But wait, its only June, I have another 6 months to go with my current subscription. Why should I pay now? Oh! look, if you pick up one of the magazines and shake em, little subscription cards fall out. The one you can give to others etc. Hey!!!!! the rate offered there is the same as the "special" letter sent to me. So it turns out that the media is very much part of the lies and cheating that we see everyday, everywhere. So much so that they will go to every extent to lie and deceive their very own customers.

Great job Wired and Money. Great!!!!!!!! Right there with MCI Worldcom and Enron.

Wireless Networks, the Media, and Paranoia

2005-08-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Being paranoid is a good thing. A friend of mine keeps repeating a quote from some movie that goes something like "it isn't about whether you are paranoid or not, its about how paranoid are you". Clearly I am not expert at quotes, but I think the message is clear.

So what is all the noise about wireless networks and lack of safety with regards to your privacy. To a large extent the issue is true. Specially if you do not take some basic steps twoards securing your personal data and home network.

Just yesterday I read yet another artcile on this subject on CNN Money.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/08/technology/personaltech/internet_piracy/index.htm

Before that I read

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/06/21/hotspot.hacking/index.html

What bothers me is the fact that they talk about this issue without providing what I feel is a solution. So here is my lame attempt at providing some basic guidelines.

Buy a wireless router or wireless access point that supports 802.11g. So now you may ask what is a router, what is an access point and what on earth is 802.11g? Use Google and look it up :-)
Make sure that the router/Access Point supports 128-bit WEP encryption, and MAC filtering.

128-bit WEP encryption will encrpyt all your data travelling through the air. Even if someone picks it up, they cannot read the contents.
Every network card (the card on your computer that connect you to your network wireless or wired) has a unique identity called the MAC address. MAC filtering lets you configure your router/Access Point such that only your card can connect to your network. So enter teh MAC address of each card that you have in your house. This way no neighbor can ever connect to your wireless network.

In addition, you can tell your wirelss router/Access point not to broadcast its existence. So now no one even knows you have a wireless network. Well, maybe there are some devices that will let a pro hacker find out, but not much they can do if you have MAC filtering setup and if you changed the default password to your router.

Also, each wireless router/access point comes with a default admin password and SSID. Please, please, please change these. Most intrusions occur because people buy this equipment and do not take the time to change this default information. So then comes a hacker uses your default password, logs onto your router, changes the password, i.e., removing your ability to control your own network. And now they can snoop around and do anything else they want. But you can prevent it all by taking these very simple steps.

An example of such a device is the Linksys WAP54G Wireless Access Point. I am by no means endorsing Linksys products. This is merely an example. It has MAC filtering, supports 802.11g, provides WPA (not so good), and WEP (very good encryption).

I guess the point I am trying to make is that by spending $40, reading a little, and taking about 20 minutes to configure your router/wireless access point, you can make your wireless network safe.

So by all means be paranoid, but not because the media tells you to be so.

McAfee and Losing Internet Access

2005-06-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

This is the second time I am having this problem. So I am convinced that it is McAfee that is at fault. This happened to me on two different machines each running Windows XP.

I was uninstalling McAfee because I was moving to another anti-virus software and it appears our friends at McAfee just do not like that. In both cases, upon uninstalling, my computer lost network access. The first time this happened, I called everyone (except McAfee) including the manufacturer of my ethernet card, router, and of course my ISP. At the end it was Microsoft, yes that big evil giant that we all love to hate, that came to my rescue. The MS tech support staff was courteous, polite, knowledgable and they got the problem fixed.

A year later on another computer I faced the same problem. Uninstalling McAfee antivirus from the PC and it screwed the LAN connection. Basically the TCP/IP stack gets corrupted and needs to be rebuilt.

So if you ever unsinstall McAfee antivirus from your computer and lose network access, try the following:

Open a command prompt and type: ipconfig /release
then type: ipconfig /renew

If you get the following message:

Windows IP Configuration

An error occurred while renewing interface Network Bridge : An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection : An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

McAfee screwed you :-)

Go to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817571 follow the steps and hope you can get it fixed.

SprintPCS

2005-06-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Adding to the list of just bad service and corporate deception. A few weeks ago one of my cell phones was having a problem. So I called the SprintPCS support line. The support person said I had to take the phone to their store to have it checked. As a result of the inconvenience I was apparently facing (which I was not) he said he was offering me the SprintPCS voice dial service for free. I found that odd because my phone already has voice dial, but I didnt pay much attention to the issue.

A few days ago I get my SprintPCS bill and I notice that the so called free service offered to me is free only for 2 months. WTF? Is SprintpCS that desperate that it has to resort to cheating its customers? Why doesn't sprint just give its employees a gun each and send them out on the streets to mug people?

Infiniti/Nissan - Cheats?

2005-05-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

So I bought a car a while ago. An Infiniti G35. I must admit I enjoy driving it. But there is this one thing that irks the hell out of me. I bought the car along with its premium package which among various other features also provides the "driver entry/exit assist". Apparently the seat automatically moves back making it easier for the driver to enter or exit the vehicle. I didnt care for this feature, but it was listed on the list of options you get when you pay for the premium package.

Even that sticker on the car which all new cars at a dealer have (the one which gives all the options included and price etc) lists this easy entry/exit assist option. So one day as I am reading the manual for the car, I decide to try this option out. I just could not get it to work. I call the dealer, they said bring the car in. They could not get it to work, and could not figure out why it would not work. Then they finally came to the realization that this feature is available only if you have the automatic transmission version of the car. I had bought the car with manual transmission.

Isn't there something very wrong with this scenario? I don't really care for this option, but clearly I was charged for it and there is no documentation anywhere which says this feature is not available on cars with manual transmission.

If I ever get a chance to call Infiniti/Nissan Motors to discuss this, I will post the results here :-)

Comcast Comcast Comcast

2005-05-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

So the other day I notice that my cable modem is down as a result of which (of course) I could not connect to the web. So I call the customer service number for my ISP (Comcast). After making several choices on their menus I get put on hold before I can speak to the next available customer service agent. After about 30 minutes of being on hold a message comes saying that the wait is very long and that they are unable to service my call. The message goes on to say that I should go to their web site for help.

Just what are these morons thinking of? Press 2 if you cannot connect. Followed by a "we are unable to respond at this moment. Please check our web site at www.comcast.net".

How rdiculous can Comcast possibly get? I know that is a stupid question. I am certain they can exhibit a lot more stupidity than what I experienced. Too bad no DSL where I live. YET!!!! I love competition :-)

The Next Step

2005-04-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

I am certain I am not the only one who finds certain interactions extremely irritating. These interactions could be with coworkers, family, or with institutions such as corporations (phone, cable coompanies, etc), government agencies, doctors, lawyers, and the list goes on. You may say that doctors and lawyers are individuals not institutions. Technically you may be correct. However, have you seen the way they behave? (even though no one is reading this, I am certain there is a lawyer somewhere preparing to sue me for what I am writing and about to write). Its all about attitude and hence I have started classifying doctors and lawyers as institutions. Plus, do you really think they are human?...LOL

The other day a friend goes to see his doctor. The appointment is at 3, he gets there at 2:45. At 5 pm a nurse comes to see him. When questioned about the doctor the nurse very casually says, "oh! the doctor has left for the day". To bad my friend is not a lawyer. Am sure thats why when you go to see a doctor the first question in the form they give you to fill out is what is your profession and not what is your illness. The next question is about insurance, then comes a section where you say the doctor owns your soul if your insurance company does not pay.

Oh! well. Sometimes I wonder if I should just write this and not post or should I actually post these rants. Honestly I see no value in this post outside of the fact that I enjoyed writing it.

Coming soon, more about doctors and insurance companies. Wonder if I can get sued if I actually name the doctor and insurance company. Any lawyers to answer that?

This is the Beginning

2005-04-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

After all these years of reading a few blogs and pondering whether I should write any, I decided I should at minimum at least open an account here. What I end up writing and whether I write anything is a different issue.