Archive for the 'scams' Category

Seriously, how difficult would it have been for Facebook…

Cidu Bill on Aug 17th 2010

… to warn its members about this themselves.

Filed in Bill Bickel, Facebook, scams | 22 responses so far

Nobody wants to give you a free iPad

Cidu Bill on May 21st 2010

There’s an e-mail circulating about promising you a free iPad in return for testing it out for a couple of months. It will appear to have been forwarded to you by one of your e-mail contacts.

It’s a scam designed to get your e-mail password, and then use the password to send more copies of the same fake offer — as well as other shady spam — to everybody on your e-mail contacts list, appearing to have been sent by you.

Filed in Bill Bickel, iPad, scams, spam | 26 responses so far

Exactly how stupid does Sprint think we are?

Cidu Bill on Sep 19th 2009

(and by “Sprint” I could, of course, just as easily mean “Cablevision.” “Comcast,” “Verizon” or any of the other usual suspects)

Our cell phone contract came with a free data package. Sprint deleted it from my phone (though not my kids’ phones) by mistake. How they managed to do this is complicated, but suffice it to say they admitted their error and apologized for it. That being said, they now tell me I’ll have to pay to have it put back into place, plus pay a monthly fee, since once the free data package is removed — for any reason — it can’t be restored.

Umm.. no?

Clearly, this will get properly resolved; but are there enough people who’ll say “Duh… sounds reasonable to me” to make this BS even remotely cost-effective for them?

Filed in Bill Bickel, Cablevision, Comcast, Sprint, Verizon, cell phones, scams | 30 responses so far

The Hewlett-Packard Ink Scam

Cidu Bill on May 15th 2008

I got a message on my HP printer this morning telling me that my color ink is low. I know from past experience that if I don’t replace the color ink cartridge soon, the printer will stop working completely, even for black-and-white documents. That’s just how HP programs their printers.

Here’s the thing, though: This printer doesn’t print in color. It’s supposed to, but the color printing stopped working just over a year after I bought the thing, so I can only use it for black-and-white documents.

Which means I use no color ink. Ever.

Nonetheless, presumably because it’s programmed to do so, every nine months or so the printer decides that the color ink is low — because I guess nine months is long enough that most people would find the notice reasonable — and I have to replace a cartridge that’s never been used. In effect, a $30 extortion payment I have to pay every nine months so that my printer won’t have “an unfortunate accident.”

Filed in Bill Bickel, Hewlett-Packard, fraud, scams | 27 responses so far