Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Warranties
I brought my car in for some work last year that was covered under a recall. The manager of the garage was thrilled to tell me I still qualified for an extended warranty with the manufacturer. My last car lasted a very long time and a lot of miles. Like most cars, it needed more work as it got older so I figured I would spend the extra money and pick up the extended warranty.
Apparently the warranty I got wasn't enough. As soon as I gave out my information, I started getting phone calls from the factory to try to get me to upgrade this fabulous purchase everyone was congratulating me on. Salesmen were trying to get in on this. Not only were they happy that I decided to get a warranty but they also thought I should get a new car to go along with it. They seem to think "No" means, "We can sell a new car if we get someone else to call." They tried this four times in two hours since I drove the car off the lot.
You hear a lot of stories about people doing a lot of nasty things in order to make a buck. Those stories seem to get magnified during these economic struggles. I'm sure everyone has a story to tell about car salesmen.
I couldn't explain why I was suddenly getting all these calls. I just bought something and they are trying to sell me the same thing again? That didn't seem right. Then someone showed me a story about people who were running a scam. They were pretending to sell extended warranties but were really just getting credit card information so they could commit fraud. That would explain why the line would suddenly go dead when I asked to speak to their supervisor.
Aol.com is reporting on a story that involves robocalls and the nuisance they cause to the public. I can attest to this. Fortunately, I haven't had a meal interrupted by one of these "services" that seem to know just what I need and has something that's good for what ails you.
According to the article ("Annoying Car Warranty Robocalls Blocked by a Judge" can be found here), Transcontinental Warranty, Inc. was served with a temporary restraining order last week. I'm sure this news was met with the joy of many people who got to experience the sounds of silience for a couple of days.
If a human calls me, I am annoyed but I remind myself it's just someone who's trying to make an honest buck. There is no way I can justify a computer calling me. I still don't know how people get this information. I am inundated with courtesy calls and junk mail within weeks of moving to a new address. I politely ask the operator to remove my name from their list. They do and they get a new list with my name and phone number on it and we start over again.
I don't have any answers for this. I try being nice. I try laughing hysterically into the phone for a few seconds and then hanging up. I try talking to their supervisor. Nothing seems to get my point across.
I'm really not sure what to do about this. People love to hide behind technology and it can get aggravating. I'm open to any answers or solutions.
Apparently the warranty I got wasn't enough. As soon as I gave out my information, I started getting phone calls from the factory to try to get me to upgrade this fabulous purchase everyone was congratulating me on. Salesmen were trying to get in on this. Not only were they happy that I decided to get a warranty but they also thought I should get a new car to go along with it. They seem to think "No" means, "We can sell a new car if we get someone else to call." They tried this four times in two hours since I drove the car off the lot.
You hear a lot of stories about people doing a lot of nasty things in order to make a buck. Those stories seem to get magnified during these economic struggles. I'm sure everyone has a story to tell about car salesmen.
I couldn't explain why I was suddenly getting all these calls. I just bought something and they are trying to sell me the same thing again? That didn't seem right. Then someone showed me a story about people who were running a scam. They were pretending to sell extended warranties but were really just getting credit card information so they could commit fraud. That would explain why the line would suddenly go dead when I asked to speak to their supervisor.
Aol.com is reporting on a story that involves robocalls and the nuisance they cause to the public. I can attest to this. Fortunately, I haven't had a meal interrupted by one of these "services" that seem to know just what I need and has something that's good for what ails you.
According to the article ("Annoying Car Warranty Robocalls Blocked by a Judge" can be found here), Transcontinental Warranty, Inc. was served with a temporary restraining order last week. I'm sure this news was met with the joy of many people who got to experience the sounds of silience for a couple of days.
If a human calls me, I am annoyed but I remind myself it's just someone who's trying to make an honest buck. There is no way I can justify a computer calling me. I still don't know how people get this information. I am inundated with courtesy calls and junk mail within weeks of moving to a new address. I politely ask the operator to remove my name from their list. They do and they get a new list with my name and phone number on it and we start over again.
I don't have any answers for this. I try being nice. I try laughing hysterically into the phone for a few seconds and then hanging up. I try talking to their supervisor. Nothing seems to get my point across.
I'm really not sure what to do about this. People love to hide behind technology and it can get aggravating. I'm open to any answers or solutions.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Bands
Updates on a couple of bands I try to keep tabs on but life gets busy:
Catfish Lucy will be at Kitty O'Shea's in Beverly on Friday, May 22. (9:45)
Have at It is playing at the Cantab in Cambridge on Friday, May 22 (9:00) and the Grog in Newburyport on Thursday, May 28. (8:00)
Catfish Lucy will be at Kitty O'Shea's in Beverly on Friday, May 22. (9:45)
Have at It is playing at the Cantab in Cambridge on Friday, May 22 (9:00) and the Grog in Newburyport on Thursday, May 28. (8:00)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Who can you trust?
I am fascinated by how easy it is to research a term paper today. I wonder how many students bother to open a book nowadays. Everything is available online.
There is so much information out there that one needs to exercise caution when it comes to researching that dreaded assignment. When I was younger, one former teacher would not accept encyclopedias as a source because the information found there was so general. When I got older, another teacher told me to not use Wikipedia because the information could not be verified all the time.
The teacher who warned me of Wikipedia and its questionable reliability got some vindication today when Yahoo! News reported an Irish university student had posted phony information on Wikipedia ("Irish student hoaxes world media with fake quote" can be read at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Irish-student-hoaxes-worlds-apf-15201451.html?.v=1). Shane Fitzgerald, a 22-year-old sociology student, saw news of the passing of French composer Maurice Jarre. Jarre had passed away on March 28.
Fitzgerald said there was a discussion in one of his classes about how fast news tends to travel through all of the outlets today. This gave him an idea: Fitzgerald would fabricate a quote, attribute it to the late Jarre, and post it on Wikipedia. To their credit, people at the free web encyclopedia removed the quote twice but not before Web sites in three different countries included it in the composer's obituary. The only reason people knew of the mistake is because Fitzgerald finally stepped forward about the act. Since then, Yahoo! News has reported that just one media outlet, the Guardian of Britain, has admitted it erroneously included the quote.
It is easy today to find out the news. Around-the-clock coverage on radio, television, and the Internet gives the people access to information the want and need. Unfortunately, whether it's right can sometimes take a backseat to getting it first. Just ask the Guardian.
I have a blog but that does not make me a journalist. I will be the first to tell you that. However, I have been published before in news publications. Because of that, I consider myself to be a journalist. It's one thing to get something wrong. It's another thing altogether to run with something without verifying it. There is simply too much competition out there to report on something without verifying it first. Getting it right will give you much more credibility than simply trying to get a story first.
The Guardian has since admitted the folly and even contacted Fitzgerald since the error. Other outlets, according to Yahoo!, have attacked the man for posting the information in the first place.
This is not the first time such a thing has occurred. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, a quote attributed to Nostradamus surfaced and soon received notoriety. The quote mentioned "metal birds" crashing and tragedy striking. News of the quote spread but soon ceased when it was learned the quote came from a prankster and not from the renowned author.
Journalists have a responsibility to make sure the information the have is right. People have a responsibility to take information with a grain of salt. Giving people what is right will be doing them a better service no matter what they are reading.
There is so much information out there that one needs to exercise caution when it comes to researching that dreaded assignment. When I was younger, one former teacher would not accept encyclopedias as a source because the information found there was so general. When I got older, another teacher told me to not use Wikipedia because the information could not be verified all the time.
The teacher who warned me of Wikipedia and its questionable reliability got some vindication today when Yahoo! News reported an Irish university student had posted phony information on Wikipedia ("Irish student hoaxes world media with fake quote" can be read at http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Irish-student-hoaxes-worlds-apf-15201451.html?.v=1). Shane Fitzgerald, a 22-year-old sociology student, saw news of the passing of French composer Maurice Jarre. Jarre had passed away on March 28.
Fitzgerald said there was a discussion in one of his classes about how fast news tends to travel through all of the outlets today. This gave him an idea: Fitzgerald would fabricate a quote, attribute it to the late Jarre, and post it on Wikipedia. To their credit, people at the free web encyclopedia removed the quote twice but not before Web sites in three different countries included it in the composer's obituary. The only reason people knew of the mistake is because Fitzgerald finally stepped forward about the act. Since then, Yahoo! News has reported that just one media outlet, the Guardian of Britain, has admitted it erroneously included the quote.
It is easy today to find out the news. Around-the-clock coverage on radio, television, and the Internet gives the people access to information the want and need. Unfortunately, whether it's right can sometimes take a backseat to getting it first. Just ask the Guardian.
I have a blog but that does not make me a journalist. I will be the first to tell you that. However, I have been published before in news publications. Because of that, I consider myself to be a journalist. It's one thing to get something wrong. It's another thing altogether to run with something without verifying it. There is simply too much competition out there to report on something without verifying it first. Getting it right will give you much more credibility than simply trying to get a story first.
The Guardian has since admitted the folly and even contacted Fitzgerald since the error. Other outlets, according to Yahoo!, have attacked the man for posting the information in the first place.
This is not the first time such a thing has occurred. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, a quote attributed to Nostradamus surfaced and soon received notoriety. The quote mentioned "metal birds" crashing and tragedy striking. News of the quote spread but soon ceased when it was learned the quote came from a prankster and not from the renowned author.
Journalists have a responsibility to make sure the information the have is right. People have a responsibility to take information with a grain of salt. Giving people what is right will be doing them a better service no matter what they are reading.
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