The Vent and Rant Thread

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Although I'm pretty careful about monitoring transactions and balances and have credit bureau fraud alerts activated, I've started to seriously consider one of the identity protection services...

I signed up with one a couple of years back. It ended up being a pain in the butt and I could never get most of their features such as credit score to allow me access(*). During the year I signed up for, I had one attempt to make a purchase on a credit card. That time, it was the credit card company that contacted me to ask if I had intended to use my card to make an on-line purchase not ordered from or being shipped to my address of record (I'm in Canada, the purchase was being shipped to New Mexico, USA.)

*: Attempt to access feature, "your credentials are invalid". Reset password, log back into site, try to access feature, "your credentials are invalid". Sat on hold for about an hour on one occasion and then enjoyed the approximate following conversation:

Yes, I have reset my password, by my count, 5 times now.

Yes, I think I am typing it correctly since it lets me into the main site.

Yes, I am using a supported browser and have tried this in 4 supported browsers.

Could we skip the rest of your checklist and talk to someone in the next level of tech support?

Please hold and I will see what can be done.
<wait 20 minutes and thinking thank ghod for hands free>

What may I help you with?

Not only haven't I gotten to the next level of tech support, I'm talking to a new 1st level person who has no information from the earlier portion of this call.

Politely hung up, logged in, cancelled the service and then contacted the credit card company to ensure that any attempt for the service to charge would be rejected.

[cc_in_oh]

So getting back to the theme of the thread, why do financial institutions require a full-access logon just to check balances? It seems to me that accounts would be much more secure if you could check balances without using the same credentials that let you drain the account. I'd be happy with an email report every day like I get with my checking accounts. I'd also like an email every time a logon occurs or is attempted. Several institutions I have accounts with don't even provide last logon info. That's such a simple and basic security feature that I can't see any excuse for not doing it.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I've had exactly this happen. I have a personal email account that is woefully neglected, as 99.99% of my email comes in to my business. And yup, my bank sent me an alert (to my smartphone, which I've told them umpteen times does not work inside my home, due to a cell reception dead spot and) to my email. Did I see either? Noooooooooooo, I did not.

And what happened? A whole boatload of issues when they locked the account. RIGHTLY, as it happens, mind you. It was an identity thief testing the account to see if smaller transactions went undetected--which was, inconveniently, followed by my own transactions at unfamiliar-to-the-bank vendors. (sigh).

It's inconvenient and infuriating when it happens, (3x for me), but they saved my ass.

Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day, for those who celebrate same.

Hitch

A few years ago a number of items I would never buy (women's clothing and cosmetics) were charged to one of my cards at a store and location that I would never go to - IIRC it was over $3,000.

The bank's fraud system picked them up, stopped payment, and blocked my account etc - I can't recall if they sent an SMS or an email - anyway it was sorted out very effectively. It might have been when I had a shirt pocketable mobile phone

What surprised me on this occasion was that the teller had to wait for an hour to have her call answered. I would have thought the tellers would have a priority queue to service their calls. Apparently not, their calls to the fraud team are placed in the same queue as Joe Public calls.

In a previous life I project managed call centre system integration projects for a couple of global financial institutions, so I know what an ACD system can do. Maybe the VOIP script-kiddies skipped those lessons

I just remembered my shirt pocket phone had a removable battery, I kept a couple of fully charged batteries on the shelf <sigh>

BR

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by CRussel

FWIW, Hitch, I'm in a dead spot at home, too. But Rogers lets me enable WiFi in such a way that I get texts and phone calls even when I'm in a dead zone, as long as I have a solid WiFi connection. This _might_ be limited to iPhones, not sure, or only a Rogers thing. But worth investigating.

Whether or not you can get wifi calling depends on your provider and your phone. My old phone didn't have it but my current one does (both Android phones with Verizon prepaid service). There's one place I occasionally go that is a dead spot and the wifi calling has come in handy there.

Howard Forums is where I got some of my questions answered about cell phones and service. It's primarily US oriented but they also have a Canadian section. As with most forums, there are a fair amount of idiots there but there are also some knowledgeable folks.

https://www.howardforums.com/forums.php?

[ownedbycats]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_yo...eresting_times

I would really like to know who the asshole was that wished this upon all of humanity.

[Elektron]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_yo...eresting_times

I would really like to know who the asshole was that wished this upon all of humanity.

Seconded.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_yo...eresting_times

I would really like to know who the asshole was that wished this upon all of humanity.

Originally Posted by Elektron

Seconded.

I have finished my seven day trial period. I would like to cancel my subscription to 2021.

[binaryhermit]

Unfortunately 2021 is much like Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Or AOL where you literally can't cancel your subscription.

[Rumpelteazer]

A couple of years back Amazon launched their Dutch website, initially for ebooks only, but now also for all other products. I still kept buying my ebooks from Amazon.com because the Dutch website didn't offer a wishlist, and my ebook wishlist is very long on Amazon.com.

I recently saw that there now is a wishlist on the Dutch website and I wanted to put in my wishlist from the US website to the NL website. But the wishlist doesn't work for ebooks. Why?!

It's especially annoying because the company I have my pre-paid credit card with is changing their system and you can't easily put money on the card at the moment. And I want to buy books! On the Dutch website you can only buy ebooks with a credit card, too, but you can buy a gift card with your debit card (and use the gift card for ebooks).

The only plus side is that it forces me to read books I already have, and I have many.

[CRussel]

ARRGGHHH!

A wasted day completely rebuilding my Microsoft Surface Book 2 because the latest build blew up the wireless. Sigh. That's it, I'm going to back to 20H2 and not running this with Dev builds. Sheesh, you'd think they could make their own products work with their own hardware!!!!

(Normally, I love this Surface Book 2. But it has had nothing but problems with builds off and on this last few months. )

[ownedbycats]

For whatever reason, my region didn't put people with underlying medical conditions on the priority list for the COVID-19 vaccine, so it'll be at least summer or even fall before I can leave my apartment.

At this point, I'm not even sure if there's anything outside of this place. At least I have plenty of time for reading.

[Rumpelteazer]

I have a fun week ahead of me. Tomorrow I'm going to see a specialist at the hospital about my throat. The antacids helped a lot, the cycle has gone from one/one a half week to four/five weeks and at the worst point of the cycle it's a lot less then it was before, but it's still there.

And on Thursday I have a check-up at the dentist.

But at least on Friday I can look forward to going to my sister, watch movies, have dinner and stay the night. She currently has a lot of homework for the course she's doing for her work so I'm going home on Saturday morning instead of staying longer.

[Hitch]

Blankety-blanking Amazon has nuked all comments, on reviews!

Damnit, I had some great ones! One of my favorites was the vile woman who sneered about a product she'd received that was meant to be jade, when she announced, in no uncertain terms that any fool could tell that it wasn't real jade...because it was WHITE not Green!

Yup, I had a doozy comment on that one. And some others and now...they're all gone. Boo-hoo.

Bummer. No more review-and-comment flame wars, no watching authors self-destruct...dang.

Hitch

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Blankety-blanking Amazon has nuked all comments, on reviews!

Damnit, I had some great ones! One of my favorites was the vile woman who sneered about a product she'd received that was meant to be jade, when she announced, in no uncertain terms that any fool could tell that it wasn't real jade...because it was WHITE not Green!

Yup, I had a doozy comment on that one. And some others and now...they're all gone. Boo-hoo.

Bummer. No more review-and-comment flame wars, no watching authors self-destruct...dang.

Hitch

Hm. Talk about mixed feelings. Can we at least still use the customer Q&A feature to point out when other answerers demonstrate themselves to be among the stupidest people on the planet? Maybe they'll nuke only the answers that just say "I don't know." Or my favorite: "I don't know, I don't have this product." Which appears to be about 50% of them.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ApK

Hm. Talk about mixed feelings. Can we at least still use the customer Q&A feature to point out when other answerers demonstrate themselves to be among the stupidest people on the planet? Maybe they'll nuke only the answers that just say "I don't know." Or my favorite: "I don't know, I don't have this product." Which appears to be about 50% of them.

Oooh, dang, I forgot to check that part. Yes, for some reason, people will receive "can you answer this question" prompts from Amazon and even not knowing anything, will respond. It's boggling.

Hitch