Ah, yes... another day, another unexpected annoyance. What makes this particular annoyance different from many others is that it includes a large bill and possible legal problems. Yes, you read that correctly: a large bill (many hundreds of dollars) and possible legal problems (threats of liens, lawsuits, et al.).
What makes this annoying is that it's all balderdash, baloney, bilge, bull, claptrap, flummery, garbage, hogwash, hooey, horsefeathers, poppycock, tommyrot... I think you get the idea. Unfortunately, it is a large steaming pile of something that is extremely difficult to fight against.
Many years ago (last century, in fact) before I had Caller ID on my phone line, I answered my home phone and found myself talking to a very pleasant young man who was selling magazines. Being (much) younger and (very much) more impressionable at the time, I decided his sales spiel sounded good enough to sign up for a few magazines through the service he represented.
Note to self: NEVER do that again.
That long-ago day turned out to be just the first in a nightmare that extended through the next two decades, a costly and unpleasant episode in my life that I thought I had finally brought to a close but which has recently come rushing unexpectedly out of the shadows beside the road and attempted to (once again) bite me in my nether regions.
This is what I was told would happen: The magazine subscription service charged X dollars per month for each subscription, but would charge me 2X dollars each month for the first half of the subscription period, and then I would be free and clear of any further fiscal responsibilities to them while the magazines would continue arriving in my mailbox for the full length of the purchased subscription.
This is what actually happened: Everything in the preceding paragraph -- with the notable exceptions of "free and clear" and "purchased subscription."
Beginning not too long after that first call, I began getting calls from the same company (a different man or woman every time) asking if I was satisfied, if all the magazines were arriving on time, etc. etc. etc. oh and by the way we were notified that subscription rates are going up so we extended your subscription for you free of charge youjusthavetopaytheadditionalfees please feel free to use us as a credit reference, here's my supervisor... Sometimes, just to keep me from being bored, they would call and tell me their computer had just chosen me at random for a free bonus youjusthavetopaytheadditionalfees here's my supervisor... I also began getting calls from what I later found out were other companies providing the same "service" and using the same scripts.
Note: More recent online research has shown that many of these companies are related, either owned by close relatives or all under a single parent company; a few are simply the same company that is re-named every once in a while; and some are the owner & employees of a company that was shut down for legal reasons operating under a new name as a "new" company. I also learned that many of those pleasant young men & women I was speaking with were incarcerated at the time they were speaking with me.
Even when I had finally learned how to cut off the callers before I was signed up for a new subscription -- I would wait until the "supervisor" to begin recording the conversation, then loudly tell them I did NOT want the deal being offered, hang up and avoid the ringing phone for the next hour -- at least one of the magazine subscription companies managed to bilk me with a script that fooled me into thinking I was paying off the remainder of my balance when I was actually signing up for new subscriptions.
Eventually, the costs reached into a four-digit number... and I could never get anything resolved on the phone, all business had to be transacted in writing but somehow, for reasons none of the callers could ever understand, the U.S. Postal Service always misdirected or lost anything I sent them. The callers were always friendly, polite, interested in my well-being, well-versed in the constantly increasing cost of independent magazine subscriptions, and happily desperate to have me accept more extensions and "free" bonuses. (One young woman who sounded like she was calling from the environs of Mumbai literally begged me to sign up for at least one more magazine.)
The tsunami of glossy paper pouring from my mailbox reached its peak the day I found a postcard from the publishers of U.S. News & World Report telling me I needed to stop renewing my subscription because it now extended beyond the range of dates their system currently handled. (No, I did not make that up.)
I finally learned to not agree to ANYTHING with any of these callers, and my outstanding balance finally began to decrease. It also became easier to avoid the calls once I added Caller ID to my home phone line, but there were times I either was not paying attention (or when my curiosity got the better of me) and I would answer the phone when I knew it was one of them calling. I even developed a script of my own; as soon as the niceties were over and the sales spiel began, I would simply keep repeating, "No changes, additions, extensions, renewals or bonuses. I want everything to expire" over and over and over until the caller gave up and ended the call. (It was actually kind of fun, when I had the time to kill.)
However, I had not counted on the malicious deviousness of these "businesses" when it came to taking money. I soon began receiving very different calls -- collection agencies telling me this, that or the other magazine subscription service had hired them to collect unpaid balances running into the hundreds of dollars. This unpleasant phase lasted a couple of years, and finally came to a close when I received a letter from the last one saying the $250 (approx.) they had received from me left me free and clear of any further debt to the last of the magazine subscription services.
Imagine my surprise (and annoyance) when, after a recent spate of "out of area" or "unavailable" notices in Caller ID, I finally became curious enough to answer one of the calls only to find myself speaking with a gentleman telling me he was calling from a collection agency hired by one of the magazine subscription services, and his task was to collect an outstanding debt of several hundred dollars.
I have to admit I was a good deal less polite than might have been absolutely necessary when I ended the call. Once I calmed down, I realized the caller had never given me any information about what agency he worked for, only the name of a magazine subscription service -- one of those I had managed to "close out" my account with a long time ago. I thought that perhaps I could contact the service and find out why there was a misunderstanding -- after all, they had told me my account was paid in full, and none of the magazines I had ordered through them is being delivered any longer -- but I have not yet been able to find the paperwork I had put away "to file later on."
Why not do an online search, you ask... Well, I did. They are based in Utah. Or maybe Florida. Oh, no, it looks like California. Unless it's Washington... or perhaps... Utah...
ANNOYING.
(More, I'm sure, to follow...)
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Annoying Electrons
You may have noticed that the gap between this posting and the last is a tad on the longish side. This is not due to my taking a vacation, or getting lazy, or forgetting to post. This is due to something inanimate that came crawling out of my email, a set of carefully-crafted electrons that slipped past my laptop's defenses and caused some major inconveniences for its owner (me).
My professional background includes jobs that have left me fairly sensitive to issues of cyber security; the result is that I have better-than-average protections (of various kinds) installed on my laptop, and take better-than-average precautions when adding files to its already-crowded hard drive. However, I was always aware that the law of averages dictated I would eventually discover a chink in my laptop's armor "the hard way" unless I was supernaturally lucky -- which I am not. The frosting on the cupcake (so to speak) was that the longer I avoided a security problem, the more likely I was to experience one.
Well, perhaps I am a bit luckier than average, because when I finally got bitten it was by a common Garter Snake and not a Pit Viper... but I was bitten nonetheless. It happened thusly: I help edit a small neighborhood newspaper, and the latest deadline was looming... and as usual, the articles were trickling in at the last moment. I would normally check each one quickly and individually before opening the file or trying to work on it -- even attachments from friends can accidentally carry a virus or other malware -- but I was in a rush, and wanted to get everything done, so I broke several of my own rules and opened several of the files simultaneously without any advance checks.
Imagine my surprise when I suddenly lost the ability to modify any of the formatting in one of the files. Imagine my annoyance when I subsequently lost the ability to save any of the files in Microsoft Word. Imagine my language when I discovered the problem had spread to include every Word and Excel file I tried opening, regardless of source, size or age.
The individuals waiting for me to finish were sympathetic, but I'm not entirely sure they fully understood what I meant when I described the problem because one of the suggested courses of action was for me to just forward the files to them "as is" via email, or have the original senders send everything to them -- a sure way to guarantee further spread of whatever evil thing crawled out of those files in the first place. To make a long story short, I ran several different scans, deleted a number of files, reinstalled Microsoft Office (twice!), and downloaded a couple of patches for the operating system... and voila, all was once again copacetic after two and a half days of work. In the meantime, the deadline came and went, so I had to re-edit all the articles to ensure there were no mentions of "mark your calendars" or "come join us" for events that had already passed... and I also had to set several important personal projects aside, or delay fulfilling several online requests, until I could once again use the Office applications properly and knew I would not be spreading any malware myself. (The culprit seemed to be a macro routine that somehow slipped through the cracks.)
So now I am waiting to hear if this issue of the newsletter will be published at all... and am pushing to catch up on everything from resume updates to sending out phone lists that are now a week overdue... and looking at a higher credit card balance due to some new software I had to purchase and install. If anything good came out of the situation, it's my renewed awareness of the need to stay vigilant even with "safe" files from "safe" sources, and the presence of new & updated security software on my laptop.
The worst part of the entire situation is that I know the risk counter did not necessarily reset to zero, leaving me safe from malware & other cyber demons for a while; even though the chances of my having a problem steadily increase as time passes, it is just as likely that something evil will try crawling out of my email later today as it is to try several years in the future.
And that, dear reader, is damned annoying.
My professional background includes jobs that have left me fairly sensitive to issues of cyber security; the result is that I have better-than-average protections (of various kinds) installed on my laptop, and take better-than-average precautions when adding files to its already-crowded hard drive. However, I was always aware that the law of averages dictated I would eventually discover a chink in my laptop's armor "the hard way" unless I was supernaturally lucky -- which I am not. The frosting on the cupcake (so to speak) was that the longer I avoided a security problem, the more likely I was to experience one.
Well, perhaps I am a bit luckier than average, because when I finally got bitten it was by a common Garter Snake and not a Pit Viper... but I was bitten nonetheless. It happened thusly: I help edit a small neighborhood newspaper, and the latest deadline was looming... and as usual, the articles were trickling in at the last moment. I would normally check each one quickly and individually before opening the file or trying to work on it -- even attachments from friends can accidentally carry a virus or other malware -- but I was in a rush, and wanted to get everything done, so I broke several of my own rules and opened several of the files simultaneously without any advance checks.
Imagine my surprise when I suddenly lost the ability to modify any of the formatting in one of the files. Imagine my annoyance when I subsequently lost the ability to save any of the files in Microsoft Word. Imagine my language when I discovered the problem had spread to include every Word and Excel file I tried opening, regardless of source, size or age.
The individuals waiting for me to finish were sympathetic, but I'm not entirely sure they fully understood what I meant when I described the problem because one of the suggested courses of action was for me to just forward the files to them "as is" via email, or have the original senders send everything to them -- a sure way to guarantee further spread of whatever evil thing crawled out of those files in the first place. To make a long story short, I ran several different scans, deleted a number of files, reinstalled Microsoft Office (twice!), and downloaded a couple of patches for the operating system... and voila, all was once again copacetic after two and a half days of work. In the meantime, the deadline came and went, so I had to re-edit all the articles to ensure there were no mentions of "mark your calendars" or "come join us" for events that had already passed... and I also had to set several important personal projects aside, or delay fulfilling several online requests, until I could once again use the Office applications properly and knew I would not be spreading any malware myself. (The culprit seemed to be a macro routine that somehow slipped through the cracks.)
So now I am waiting to hear if this issue of the newsletter will be published at all... and am pushing to catch up on everything from resume updates to sending out phone lists that are now a week overdue... and looking at a higher credit card balance due to some new software I had to purchase and install. If anything good came out of the situation, it's my renewed awareness of the need to stay vigilant even with "safe" files from "safe" sources, and the presence of new & updated security software on my laptop.
The worst part of the entire situation is that I know the risk counter did not necessarily reset to zero, leaving me safe from malware & other cyber demons for a while; even though the chances of my having a problem steadily increase as time passes, it is just as likely that something evil will try crawling out of my email later today as it is to try several years in the future.
And that, dear reader, is damned annoying.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
ibid.
This is not the post I had planned to make... (Not to worry; you will have a chance to read that particular rant in the near future.) Events since my last post about Service Y insisting that I needed to be "social" and share what I thought was a semi-private matter with the entire online world have instilled a need to further discuss the issue.
Once upon a time (two or three lifetimes ago, it seems) one of my colleagues at an IT firm referred to Microsoft as "the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room" when we were discussing some of their business tactics. Fast-forward to the current time, just days after my above-referenced complaint, and we suddenly find another online entity acting in an excruciatingly annoying manner. The difference is that this entity is so much larger than "Service Y" and many of their competitors that their role is that of an 800 TON gorilla in the corner of the room.
You see, dear reader, this company -- I will call them "Service G" -- actually runs/owns/controls many online services that once were independent companies. The services offered by these other, smaller entities under their own names overlap only slightly, so there was very little internecine conflict (at least in the public eye). There was, however, one complication: having once been separate, independent companies, each of these services had its own separate, independent privacy policy.
For the management of a large company, maintaining & enforcing separate privacy policies for every service offered by the company is akin to tap dancing in a minefield; no matter how well one dances, there will eventually be an explosion. In an effort to avoid such problems, Service G's management developed a single comprehensive privacy policy for all the entities under their umbrella. Even better, they decided to take advantage of all these different entities being tied together and have changed the way they share user data to provide a more uniform, personally tailored experience for their users.
Unfortunately, they have defined the latter entirely in their (and their advertisers') favor... and have done so in a way that places important limits on how anyone can use any of Service G's offered services & products. Yes, it is indeed convenient to be able to access multiple blogs, view videos online, go shopping, do online searches, read email, find addresses on a map, have foreign language documents translated, and do many (many!) other things online with just a single login while one's preferences are remembered from site to site. However, if someone has been using different logins on purpose -- for example, to separate personal activities from business activities, or to have a more restrictive access for one's underage children than for one's adult self -- this universal approach of linking everything to a single email address and/or login identity essentially makes it impossible to continue doing so.
There is nothing stopping users from re-establishing separate online identities... except the need to find a way to create yet another email account... which is then linked to one's original identity... which Service G then references and links back to one's original online identity, thus negating the action. They insist they are not collecting any user data that was not already being collected, and I freely admit they have made it easier to see (most of) that data than most of their competitors -- but now the data being shared with advertisers is ALL of it, from EVERY service, and there is no way to opt out of sharing the data. (As an aside, there is nothing intrinsically illegal about this universal practice; data about your activities online is property of the providers of the services you are using, it is NOT your property. I will reserve related comments for another post, I just present it as a pertinent fact.)
If Service G was a smaller company, the problem would be somewhat less annoying and the practice a lot less dangerous to users' privacy... but Service G is a massive multi-headed chimera whose ubiquitous services are almost unavoidable, and there is nary a pegasus in sight. The result is that I -- and you! -- now have to decide between trying to find a company not affiliated with Service G for each of the services they provide (remember, with one exception all these services became well-known as independent companies that were later acquired by Service G after making a name for themselves) or allow a massive and growing library of information about where I go both online and in the real world to be sold to advertisers and (separately but simultaneously) be used to shape how these many services present themselves to me according to Service G's interpretation regardless of what I may actually want.
Annoying, isn't it?
Stay tuned...
Once upon a time (two or three lifetimes ago, it seems) one of my colleagues at an IT firm referred to Microsoft as "the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room" when we were discussing some of their business tactics. Fast-forward to the current time, just days after my above-referenced complaint, and we suddenly find another online entity acting in an excruciatingly annoying manner. The difference is that this entity is so much larger than "Service Y" and many of their competitors that their role is that of an 800 TON gorilla in the corner of the room.
You see, dear reader, this company -- I will call them "Service G" -- actually runs/owns/controls many online services that once were independent companies. The services offered by these other, smaller entities under their own names overlap only slightly, so there was very little internecine conflict (at least in the public eye). There was, however, one complication: having once been separate, independent companies, each of these services had its own separate, independent privacy policy.
For the management of a large company, maintaining & enforcing separate privacy policies for every service offered by the company is akin to tap dancing in a minefield; no matter how well one dances, there will eventually be an explosion. In an effort to avoid such problems, Service G's management developed a single comprehensive privacy policy for all the entities under their umbrella. Even better, they decided to take advantage of all these different entities being tied together and have changed the way they share user data to provide a more uniform, personally tailored experience for their users.
Unfortunately, they have defined the latter entirely in their (and their advertisers') favor... and have done so in a way that places important limits on how anyone can use any of Service G's offered services & products. Yes, it is indeed convenient to be able to access multiple blogs, view videos online, go shopping, do online searches, read email, find addresses on a map, have foreign language documents translated, and do many (many!) other things online with just a single login while one's preferences are remembered from site to site. However, if someone has been using different logins on purpose -- for example, to separate personal activities from business activities, or to have a more restrictive access for one's underage children than for one's adult self -- this universal approach of linking everything to a single email address and/or login identity essentially makes it impossible to continue doing so.
There is nothing stopping users from re-establishing separate online identities... except the need to find a way to create yet another email account... which is then linked to one's original identity... which Service G then references and links back to one's original online identity, thus negating the action. They insist they are not collecting any user data that was not already being collected, and I freely admit they have made it easier to see (most of) that data than most of their competitors -- but now the data being shared with advertisers is ALL of it, from EVERY service, and there is no way to opt out of sharing the data. (As an aside, there is nothing intrinsically illegal about this universal practice; data about your activities online is property of the providers of the services you are using, it is NOT your property. I will reserve related comments for another post, I just present it as a pertinent fact.)
If Service G was a smaller company, the problem would be somewhat less annoying and the practice a lot less dangerous to users' privacy... but Service G is a massive multi-headed chimera whose ubiquitous services are almost unavoidable, and there is nary a pegasus in sight. The result is that I -- and you! -- now have to decide between trying to find a company not affiliated with Service G for each of the services they provide (remember, with one exception all these services became well-known as independent companies that were later acquired by Service G after making a name for themselves) or allow a massive and growing library of information about where I go both online and in the real world to be sold to advertisers and (separately but simultaneously) be used to shape how these many services present themselves to me according to Service G's interpretation regardless of what I may actually want.
Annoying, isn't it?
Stay tuned...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)