FTC Whacks "Rachel From Card Holder Services" 289
coondoggie writes "Just two weeks after it challenged the public to come up with a better technological way to stop incessant robocalling, the Federal Trade Commission pulled the plug on five mass calling companies it said were allegedly responsible for millions of illegal pre-recorded calls from 'Rachel' and others from 'Cardholder Services.' 'At the FTC, Rachel from Cardholder Services is public enemy number one,' said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz at the announcement of the cases."
I know that bitch! (Score:5, Funny)
How she got my number is beyond me.
Re:I know that bitch! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just hope they take the company owners, strap them to chairs, and force them to watch nothings adverts/infomercials, and while they sleep force them to hear robocall recordings. Do it 24/7/365, a' la A Clockwork Orange.
What they do with "Rachael" is not my concern. >:(
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No. (Score:3)
I'd call it a good start. Let them catch their breath, think their ordeal is over... then give them 10 hours of They're Taking The Hobbits To Isengard.
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Only one time through? Your prosecutor sucks.
Re:No. (Score:5, Funny)
Look, we can't afford genuine RIAA Nazgul, OK?
That kind of evil doesn't come cheap!
Re:No. (Score:5, Funny)
Just mention that Rachel might have stolen the recording from a copyrighted source and they will come.
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How about some Charlie the Unicorn and Salad Fingers while we're at it?
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Yes, not even the Nyan Cat video deserves that kind of treatment.
Re:I know that bitch! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at the complaints, many of them are single owner. This means that the LLCs have no money on purpose.
They will just close them down and open under new names.
Re:I know that bitch! (Score:5, Informative)
> This means that the LLCs have no money on purpose.
> They will just close them down and open under new names.
Look up "piercing the corporate veil". Not to mention that the FTC can refer the cases to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution (the FTC itself has no criminal authority).
Although... (Score:5, Informative)
According the the complaint, one of the companies was run by Christopher L Miano and Dana M Miano, and operated as A+ Financial, out of 10258 S US Highway 1, Port Saint Lucie, FL. The other companies were created and run by Willy Plancher and Valbona Toska, and was in the Longwood/Winter Park/Altamonte Springs, Florida area. Their last known address was 383 Emerson Plaza, Suite 416, Altamonte Springs, FL.
Re:24/7/365? (Score:5, Funny)
I assure you that there are far more than .01 hours in 7 years.
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Re:I know that bitch! (Score:5, Funny)
Obama needs to change his campaign slogan to "GM is Alive and Rachel is Dead". He'll win in a landslide.
Re:I know that bitch! (Score:5, Funny)
A vote for Obama continues to be a vote for plutocracy.
Yeah, we should cut out the middle-man, and elect an actual plutocrat instead!
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A vote for Obama continues to be a vote for plutocracy.
Yeah, we should cut out the middle-man, and elect an actual plutocrat instead!
We Canadians are following the elections with great interest. We see you with two options.
Another George Bush, or a second term with an intelligent leader who is, with the constraints and road blocks that congress put before him (sticks in the wheels), etc, trying hard to bring a country out of recession.
It is so funny to read how the owner of Bain Capital sent jobs offshore and then says he will create jobs. Do you need a minimum wage position?
In a recent survey, 21 of 22 countries believe Obama will do a
Re:I know that bitch! (Score:5, Funny)
Congratulations, FTC, and thanks! (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple as that. Glad to know someone was taking it seriously. And your next impossible mission, should you choose to accept it... "the chimney company."
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This is why we have government regulators.
If the crooks had just invested a little money on phony think tanks and PR, we'd be hearing about how "over-regulation" was discouraging "job creators".
At least one of the major "free market" political donors has a record of getting sued and prosecuted by neighbors and customers.
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How about they end caller ID spoofing? I'm paying for caller ID, why should the phone company allow callers to lie to me who they are?
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How can you spoof the caller ID anyway? I mean shouldn't the telephone company know the caller ID of whoever is initiating the call (to know where to send the invoice for the call)? Is this some sort of hack using ISDN since I don't think anything like this would be possible on analog lines. Even with ISDN, shouldn't the company filter out the malformed (spoofed) requests, just like most ISPs do with packets that have spoofed source IP?
Re:Congratulations, FTC, and thanks! (Score:5, Informative)
How can you spoof the caller ID anyway? I mean shouldn't the telephone company know the caller ID of whoever is initiating the call (to know where to send the invoice for the call)?
They do know, when the call originates in their network. When it passes off to another network, they only know which network it came from, and who *that network* says it is. The honour system is what keeps ATT and Verizon (and so forth) from passing deliberately bad information between each other (and the threat of pissed off customers). That's how spoofing caller ID works... when you pass off into another network, give them bad information about the identity. If the call originates from a VOIP phone, especially an international VOIP phone, then there isn't much control over what information gets passed to your local carrier. And you can't simply block all VOIP lines, because there are legitimate VOIP carriers in the market, too.
Obligatory disclaimer: I work for a phone company, though in a different LOB.
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Re:Congratulations, FTC, and thanks! (Score:5, Informative)
That only works within the local POTS network. If the call originates from a different exchange, they don't know the source number, only the exchange it came from.
E911 services are not intended to be used across exchanges. When you call 9-1-1, you get routed to the dispatch center local to your exchange.
Re:Congratulations, FTC, and thanks! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Congratulations, FTC, and thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. charge customers for caller ID on incoming calls.
2. charge customers for the ability to hide their ID on outgoing calls.
3. charge customers for the ability to "see" hidden ID's on incoming calls.
4. go to number 2. rinse and repeat.
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Some phone companies / telco exchange suppliers offer this as a service:
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing [fcc.gov]
Simple home method is to use a Fax Machine - by law you are supposed to have correct identification details configured onto the machine.
My parents had their old address and number on their combo fax/machine telephone. Caller-ID would show up their old details.
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Just like almost anything else in life, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for spoofing Caller-ID, but it's ruined by the people who abuse it for illegal purposes.
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Please, no - that will break Google Voice. And I'll lose my multiple lines of VoIP coming from the same number at home. Each line would have to have its own phone number.
Halleluja! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been receiving no less than 3 calls a week for the last 6 months from "Card Services" with this robocall. The numbers were always different, so blocking didn't help.
Often the calls came in as late as 9:00 p.m., which was seriously annoying.
Re:Halleluja! (Score:5, Informative)
There is a reason the numbers are always different.
Not many know that caller ID is in no way reliable or secure. If you have a PRI/BRI/digital phone circut/whatever (Pretty much anything but an analog POTS line) you can specify the calling party number however you like. It doesn't even need to be a valid phone number! (It's fun to call your friends with the caller ID number of '666' and speak in a creepy voice)
Legitimately, this is so you can treat your physical lines as an aggregate pool in a phone system so your user can have the correct caller ID from any outgoing line in the pool.
Technically, however, it's illegal to spoof your caller ID for the purposes of evading identification. The caller ID number should resolve to something you can call back on. Either that, or it should report as caller ID blocked. (You can request that the phone company block all caller-id blocked calls.)
Nowadays, the law (correctly, imo) pretty much makes running profitable robocall operations illegal. Since for-profit robocallers are now fly by night illegal operations anyway, they flaunt the caller ID spoofing laws.
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(It's fun to call your friends with the caller ID number of '666' and speak in a creepy voice)
But first, get some sulfur hexaflouride [wikipedia.org].
It sounds amazing [youtube.com].
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Not so fast with the joy of victory there Bubba Chill, I received one of these calls about half an hour ago. Plus TFA says that the FTC filed complaints in court - not that the companies were shut down. So as always, the summary may have embellished the truth a bit in order to make the front page.
Also, remember what's happening next week? It's an election. One major party (R) and one notable second string party (L) have vowed to reduce federal bureaucracy to that American business will be free to go about t
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The only call I've ever received other than Card Services on our new Comcast landline has been the collectors because of tweakers that got a pay-day loan on an out-of-date check they found whilst looting my place. No one but Rachel and Comcast know that number.
Won't someone think of the poor telemarketers? I presume if I didn't hang up then some zombie would've then tried to engage me in conversation.
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Re:Halleluja! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well that sounds unnecessarily complex. I have this setup at home via Asterisk: 1) Call comes in 2) Prompt whether they are calling for me (press 1) or my wife (press 2). 3) Caller ID on phones show who the call is for and I don't have to answer my wife's calls. And we get ZERO robo calls. Those calls get hung up on after 3 repeats of the prompt and no button press.
Really, the robocall blocking was just a bonus. This is how we survived when I was working from home and routed all calls to all phones in the apartment.
Re:Halleluja! (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't try talking to the operators of these calls. They're abusive or they just hang up fast. I once tried to play along, but they told me I wasn't eligible, so they called me again two days later.
If you're not busy, you can get some entertainment out of stringing them along for as long as you can. Not only does it totally piss them off when they find out that you're screwing with them, but every minute that they spend talking to you is a minute less that they have to potentially make money from scamming someone else.
If everyone who got these calls would just answer and talk to them for a single minute without giving them any usable information, it would become so unprofitable that they would have to shut down.
YES! Kill the sluts (Score:2, Interesting)
Rachel has been calling me for years and the ho needed to be taken down. Nothing works to stop the bitch. Screaming into the phone, swearing at them, putting the phone down and not talking, pretending to be a mindless fool who can't find their cards and keeping them on the line for long periods of time. This outfit is just so lame. I had recently recorded the tones that are played when the call was transferred by pressing "1" so I could dial them directly and start bothering them.
Re:YES! Kill the sluts (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know how they actually get any "business" -- the last 3 times they've called me, I've tried playing along to see how the scam works. Somewhere along the line, as I'm telling them what my current interest rate is, they always hang up on me. It blows my mind.
One time, though, I had fun -- my other routine is to try to explain to the poor schmuck on the line (who is probably an underpaid normal person who can't find a better job) that they are working for scammers and probably should find a different job. One lady from "Card Services" started yelling at me about how they weren't scammers, they were a organization that wants to help people and that they never break the law, and that my phone number must not actually be on the do-not-call list if they called me, because they follow the rules. It was hilarious, she carried on for 5 or 10 minutes shouting at me, and she sounded like she actually believed it.
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It seems the FTC has identified the miscreants. How about a couple million people converge on these places and the government just looks the other way for about... oh 10 hours. Problem solved with extreme prejudice!
My new top issue in the 2012 election (Score:5, Funny)
foghorn? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope the pre-recorded foghorn caller is included. I think it's offering some travel package, but since the first thing you hear is a loud lighthouse foghorn sound, I haven't listened to the pitch for the last several years. They've been attacking my office line about 3 times a year for the past decade, from different caller ID numbers.
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I've gotten those. After the foghorn someone says "This is your Captain speaking" so I assume it probably is indeed a cruise ship package of some sort. I didn't get any further than the first voice clip before hanging up.
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My wife gets this daily, somewhere between 3:30pm and 4pm ... "Unknown Caller" all the time, same bullshit recorded message.
As I said when the article about how to stop this ... stop allowing companies to spoof caller ids. The marketers will scream bloody murder, but if you need to put in false information of any sort, that's bordering on fraud.
I'd like to set my phone to say "don't receive calls from anything with a fake caller id, or a blocked caller id".
I've pretty much reached the point that my startin
Re:foghorn? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hacked a quick script together to invoke 'mrnumber' (.com) or equiv service when my modem (yes, real modem on real landline) says the callerid (network CID, actually, so I just connect to a tcp port to get broadcasts of the CID).
the mrnumber crowdsourced website seems to have decent enough go/noGo score so that I can just let the phone ring (let them think there's nothing connected, no person or machine there) or I can answer it if I want.
its getting to be like email, where you want whitelists and anything not in that list gets a 2nd thought if you even want to let them pass-thru to the voicemail/ans mach.
I have no solution for cellphones, but I'm not a big cellphone user anyway, so that solves that, for me. landline abuse is not technically hard to solve if you simply let them 'age you out' due to the line never ever being answered when they call. and if they don't give up, well, you still never get bothered. (my scheme will eventually have a hardware relay that passes thru the 2 phone wires or not, so that your phone chain, below, won't even ring or bother you).
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I got that a few times on my company cell. Usually about once every couple of months.
If I had the time and inclination, I'd patch through the line, then claim that I'd have to send them a check to pay for it. They give me the address, then I'd try to do unto them what Slashdot once did to that fuckhead Ralsky [wikipedia.org]. The USPS could use the boost anyway.
(Speaking of which, I wonder if Ralsky still gets mail... *snicker*)
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I havent listened to that pitch ever. If I meet someone that has lasted past the first annoying blast I will hurt them. This piece of crap call should garner exactly ZERO sales, as it is instantly annoying, and everyone should know to just hang up.
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I've heard beyond the horn, but only because I was too stunned by disbelief to hang up.
Please pierce the corporate veil (Score:5, Informative)
Now, assuming we bust all 5 companies and take everything they have, is there any way to go after the owners personally for the frauds they've committed? Or is this going to be yet another instance of the all-too-common business plan:
1. Set up a scam company.
2. Scam people.
3. Government busts the company, forces it into bankruptcy.
4. Personally, you avoided punishment because it's limited liability.
5. Profit!
6. Repeat as many times as you like.
Re:Please pierce the corporate veil (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually one of the reasons the corporate veil can be pierced is that it is just being used as a front for illegal behavior. If you have over a certain number it's actually worse because you are subject to additional charged under RICO.
Re:Please pierce the corporate veil (Score:5, Informative)
Limited liability only protects you from torts (some private person suing you personally for something your company does.) It doesn't shield you from criminal liability. If your company breaks the law, you are personally responsible, if it was your decision. This is why Bernie Madoff is in jail - his company was defrauding it's investors, but it was his decision to do so.
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Bernie Madoff is a chump. The pros are too big to punish.
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So I wonder what the prison term is for 2,000,000,000 acts of fraud, illegal phone use and misrepresentation? Please let the sentences be served consecutively!
Re:Please pierce the corporate veil (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at the 5 cases, they are linked to in the article. I like this one:
Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff v. ELH Consulting, LLC, also d/b/a Proactive Planning Solutions; Purchase Power Solutions, LLC; Allied Corporate Connection, LLC; Complete Financial Strategies, LLC; 3Point14 Consulting, LLC, also d/b/a Elite Planning Group; Key Tech Software Solutions, LLC, also d/b/a Key One Solutions; Emory L. Holley IV a/k/a Jack Holley, individually and as the sole member of ELH Consulting, LLC; Lisa Miller, individually and as the sole member of Allied Corporate Connection, LLC, Complete Financial Strategies, LLC, and Purchase Power Solutions, LLC; Rares Stelea, individually and as the sole member of 3Point14 Consulting, LLC; and Justin Journay, individually and as the sole member of Key Tech Software Solutions, LLC, Defendants.
Over the 5 cases, in addition to the various corporate entities they name 12 individuals.
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4. Personally, you avoided punishment because it's limited liability.
There is no limited liability for running a criminal enterprise. Limited liability only applies to owners of companies engaged in legal activities.
But Why FTC??? (Score:5, Funny)
Forever Alone...
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WHO'S THERE? ARE YOU A SEX CRIMINAL? /. and it's stupid caps lock filters... is this enough lower case yet? what if we want to yell?
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damn
But when, and how, did they "pull the plog"? (Score:4, Interesting)
No information on when they did this, but I got a call from the outfit just two days ago, so they were still operational on Tuesday.
Or, is this like so many other things done at the administrative level nowadays? "We shut them down, by sending a strongly worded letter to the post office box listed somewhere!"
Re:But when, and how, did they "pull the plog"? (Score:5, Informative)
All 5 cases are linked in the article. As to "when", the cases are dated today, the 1st. As to "how", the cases include things like temporary restraining orders, permanent injunctions, and asset freezes that the FTC is requesting from the court.
the best thing to do (Score:3)
"Mr. Morden: What do YOU want?
Ambassador Vir Cotto: I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.
[waves]
Ambassador Vir Cotto: Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden? "
the guys running these Call Centers can be Mr Morden.
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(I do love that quote though. And that wave.)
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Don't forget the pixieish smile with the finger wave... it made the scene. Especially later when he actually does it with Morden's head on a pike... poetic justice doesn't come often, but when it does, is there anything sweeter?
I was driving home from Arizona, on the 10, just outside Palm Springs on a Sunday afternoon. A gold Cadillac came flying around me going over 90 mph, almost taking my front end off, then proceeds to weave through traffic like an escapee from Mad Max. I turn to my passenger and say "W
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Yes! (Score:5, Informative)
I am so fed up of these calls as well as the collection companies trying to collect on debts from 20 years ago.
I did find a way to get them to pull you from the list.
1) Set up asterisks phone system.
2) Record the three tone sound and message that is played when you call a number than no longer exists.
3) Set the message played to a blocked caller in asterisks to be the recording of the tones with the message that the number no longer exists.
4) Blacklist every one of those F***ERS
When the system detects the tone it will remove your number from the list, Even if they have someone check the number it will play the "Has been disconnected or is no longer in service" message.
It cut my calls down to maybe one a month getting through and I just hit *32 after they get through and add the new number to the black list.
Re:Yes! (Score:4, Interesting)
We have something similar with Google Voice. We moved our landline to it ($20 one time fee and another $20 one time fee to keep our old Google Voice number) and have it redirect calls to our cell phones. With Google Voice, you can mark a number as "spam" which means that, if they call again, they'll get a "This number is no longer in service" message.
We've have a series of calls that wind up showing up in Google Voice but not ringing our phones. We were puzzled until we realized that there were probably robocalls from either scammers or politicians. (Cue joke about them being one and the same.) Other people probably marked them as spam so Google decided to mark all instances of calls from those numbers as spam. We can see the number that calls, but we don't get bothered with the actual call.
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The made a land-line phone that did the same thing automatically. The Telezapper [wikipedia.org]. You put one on your line and when you or your answering machine picked up, the Telezapper would play those tones (SIT Tones) before your message played. I had one and it worked well. Sadly, today's call center software is wily and has figured out that particular exploit.
Now I just don't pick up calls from number I don't recognize. If it's valid and important, they'll leave a message.
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If your debt is past the statute of limitations (after 20 years I can guarantee it is) then you can file suit against the collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. (you can get a $1000 judgement per debt for the cost of the filing fee... pretty good ROI) Debt collectors are pure scum and most of them are borderline criminal organizations. I give them as much respect as I give pedop
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I need more info on this!
Ill sue them if I can, Hell I sent out cease and desist letters and they just sold it off to another company.
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IANAL, but here is what I know:
Technically, you can sue them for any violation of the FDCPA. You file suit in your local jurisdiction. When they don't show up for the hearing (they almost never do, especially if the collector is out-of-state) you get a default judgement. Even if the debt is valid, an out of state collector can't do shit to you unless they are actually licensed to do business in your state. (they must display proof of license a
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The black list can grow pretty large. Why not make a white list of people who can get through instead and just log the rest?
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( X) Whitelists suck
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she owes billions in Do Not Call fines (Score:2)
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Please please ... (Score:3)
Tell me someone was 'whacked' in the mafia sense of the word? Otherwise it's just a temporary shut down which will be back soon.
Because I get a tremendous amount of calls from these automated things claiming they can lower my interest rates.
This one is most common of these scam calls after the free cruise my wife wins every day at 3pm on her cell phone, and the morons who claim to be from "The Windows Service Provider".
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Sorry, but even if someone was truly "whacked", it's only temporary. "Rachel" will be replaced by "Sally", and the scam will continue.
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Yeah, but the asshats who own the business should be fair game for a little old school hanging or something.
You know, hang the cadavers in cages at the mouth of the harbor with a sign that says "Pirates, Ye be warned" or something.
Unfortunately, the rules which the so-called "legitimate" telemarketers insisted be in place for the do-not call mostly just serve to shield the fraudulent ones.
The downside of google voice (Score:4, Interesting)
I have noticed most of these calls come disguised via google voice numbers. They change their numbers nonstop, and the majority of the time when you press one to talk to an operator the system is overloaded and just hangs up on you. I knew they were making crazy money when I saw that. If they can't even handle the amount of traffic the robodialer is generating for them, they are obviously being very successful.
It's a start (Score:2)
But I'm disappointed they wouldn't implement my suggestion: to make all robo-calls add an option to their menu.
Here's how it would work:
"This is Rachel from Cardholder Services. There is no problem with your account.
Please press "1" to protect your account,
Press "2" to hear about our other exciting offers,
Press "9" to have 10,000 volts applied to the owner of this company's genitals."
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 ...
I suppose they were right to reject my suggestion, though
Hmmmm -- timing coincidental? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Round up the usual suspects."
Now how will people get listed on Google? (Score:2)
Next on the chopping block (Score:2)
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Poke the button to get a real person, talk very quietly so they bump up the volume, then blow a boat horn in their ear. $11.56 on Amazon.
The most annoying thing (Score:5, Interesting)
The most annoying thing about Cardholder Services is that I know the bank I used to work for actually branded themselves as "Cardmember Services" for customer service, because they had so many cobrands and partners (airlines, hotels, etc - each with their own card branding). Which means that the legitimate bank using that name lent credence to the frauds who followed after.
I raised a concern about it back when they first started doing it (years ago), but was just a lowly programmer who clearly couldn't understand the intricacies and nuances of branding.
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Not actually associated with my bank (Score:2)
Thank god. I talked to one of these idiots a long time ago.... I ask "what bank does this card belong to?" They say "It's your card ending in 9999" I say, that's not what I asked and hang up.
I hope they get the death penalty. Nothing less is warranted - same goes for spammers and virus authors.
Now get "Tom" from "Home Protection" (Score:3)
As a geek, I was intrigued at the programming behind his response tree, but he is clearly a robot, albeit a very well-programmed one.
Oh darn... (Score:2)
I was going to ask her out.
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Did you buy her lots of drinks and leave with nothing? Yeah. that was me.
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Isn't that their daughter?
Lesbian daughter.
"just following orders" didn't fly in Nuremburg (Score:3)
Probably not. It was probably just a good voice acting gig to her, that help paid the bills.
OOOOHHHHHHHHH she had BILLS to PAY!
Probably mouths to feed, and a mortgage, too!
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That she later got called on.
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