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asjmcguire

@asjmcguire@kbin.social

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Have you ever gotten scammed, package stolen, or been a victim of fraud in any way?

I just got my package of new earphones from Best Buy, and the box was fucking empty. I mean there is the box and instruction manuals and charging cable, but the actual earphones aren’t there. They’ve used Shipt (which is like a doordash but for packages) but the box was inside another layer of packaging which was supposedly...

asjmcguire,
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Been the victim of fraud. Unfortunately - yes.
When I was younger and Chip 'n' PIN was becoming popular, many smaller shops had a Paypoint machine that would print the entire card number and CCV on the receipt. I was so paranoid about fraud, especially given that there was sufficient information printed on the receipt that anyone could do an Amazon order with those details. I used to get a black permanent marker and scribble the details out before putting the receipt in the bin.

Imagine my horror when a decade later, I learn that I have been the victim of fraud, and a type of fraud it was entirely impossible for me to prevent. In the UK fraudsters watch for new companies popping up on Companies House and then use the details to go on a shopping spree. The way it works is like this:

They see my name, address and date of birth on the website. They are looking for a name that matches their surname and first initial. So for me that could be Alexander Jones for example. They go to a retail park and pop into Argos. They order several thousand pounds of stuff. When they go to pay, the person at the counter helpfully asks "Do you have an Argos credit card? If you apply for one today, we'll transfer the balance of today's purchases to the card" and armed with my address, date of birth and name, and a card that already has the same surname and first initial as me - they are accepted for an Argos credit card. Post nothing for the goods they just bought and leave the store. They go next door to JJB sports, and then whole process repeats. "Do you have a JJB sports card? If you get one today...."

They visited 6 stores in an hour and repeated this process at all of them. And a week later I start receiving credit cards.....

It's a surprisingly common scam (or it was), brought on entirely by the shops bring pushed to get people to sign up for credit cards.....

I had to be on a register for several years, so if anyone tried to open an account or take out credit in my name, I would get a phone call to check if it was actually me.

asjmcguire,
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Which is exactly what Twitter did. Even with all notifications off, I still received several daily tweets about what Elon had tweeted. So I uninstalled it. Thankfully the PWA isn't quite as bad, but it still pesters me with tweets that it knows I'm more likely to engage with, because they are negative.

asjmcguire,
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I hated that. "X posted a photo that is getting attention" and? Good for them, why do they need me to look if it's already getting attention.... 🙄

asjmcguire,
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Huh.... because they are all describing a particularly shitty work environment, there is a good bet that there are other employees who feel that way. It might indeed not be the protests that kill Reddit - but Reddit itself that kills Reddit.....

asjmcguire,
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Making jokes is how people cope with tragic events.
This is why there is the on-going debate, that no topic should ever be unavailable to joke about.

I remember that the very same day that Princess Diana died, people were saying "Died in a nasty accident" and that was before the days of the internet being popular, that was a joke that spread around the country by text message.

asjmcguire,
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I think it would be awesome, but - my understanding is that AMA events tend to require quite a bit of moderation. Do we have good enough moderation on either platform yet - to be able to cope with an event like this?

asjmcguire,
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Excellent! I'm so glad I subbed. I wasn't terribly active outside a few subreddits that interested me over in the other place, so I missed like 99.98% of what communities it had. This though, brings a huge grin to my face.

asjmcguire,
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Oh for the love of god please do! The world is burning, we need something to smile about!

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