Tag: Scams

Popular Culture 20101008: Telephone Billing Scams (Updated)

This covers a topic about which I wrote earlier this week, but is expanded and completely revised, and includes actions that you can take if you find yourself in this situation.  I know that this will not be as well received as the installment last week, but this is an important topic, (although not a popular one), and is part of our culture at present.  I am talking about telephone billing scams, often called cramming, and they are common.

This incident is from personal experience, and recent at that.  Cramming is the addition of charges on one’s residential or wireless telephone bills that were not authorized by the owner of the account, or the addition of charges that were unwittingly authorized by the owner of the account.  In my case, it was the former, twice.

Is glen beck “Grifting” in Using a Veterans Organization

The beck is having a get together with many of the grifters, a very patriotic? affair, on the so called right and those in this country easily feeding into their meme’s, as they offer nothing of real policy or idea’s but seem to really hate the country they and their’s before them especially grew up in. I say their’s before them because it was them who built the once middle class and helped everyone as well as the upper class and all investors etc. to prosper, up until some thirty years back when it all started changing and we’re now living in the wake of the destruction.

In this get together he’s blatantly stating that proceeds of will be donated to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which seems to be embracing this gathering of grifters, none I’ll bet are speaking for free, they just don’t, unlike real grassroots rallies, they charge handsomely for their few minutes of ‘talking points’ or ‘bumper sticker’ quotes. There’s a caveat as to this funding for the SOWF and is written out in the very small print well hidden at the bottom of the becks website page for the gathering of the patriotic? flag wavers.

Inside Job: Bet Against The American Dream!

This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 1.7 million listeners. Produced by Chicago Public Radio, it’s distributed by Public Radio International, has won all of the major broadcasting awards, and is often the most popular podcast in the country, with more than a half million downloaders each week. They’ve won three Emmys for a television version of This American Life on the Showtime network, and they co-produce with NPR News an economics podcast and the blog Planet Money.

On April 9, 2010 This American Life produced a one hour radio show/podcast titled “Inside Job”, to tell the story in an entertaining way of how scams like what Magnetar and Goldman Sachs did happen:

A hedge fund named Magnetar comes up with an elaborate plan  to make money. It sponsors the creation of complicated and ultimately toxic financial securities… while at the same time betting against the very securities it helped create. Planet Money‘s Alex Blumberg teams up with two investigative reporters from ProPublica, Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger, to tell the story. Jake and Jesse pored through thousands of  pages of documents and interviewed dozens of Wall Street Insiders. We bring you the result: a tale of intrigue and questionable behavior, which parallels quite closely the plot of a Mel Brooks musical.

Listen to podcast stream here (opens new window)

American Legion Scamming Veterans?

They want you Vets to believe they’re not, it’s All a Mistake!

Or so they , quickly? backtracked, only after one Retired Air Force Major, Robert Hanafin, sent the letter to ABC News, you’ll find that link, in PDF, below as well as they’re apology in PDF.

Bobby, is not one you want to piss off.

Oh and it seems the Veterans Charities, those given extremely low grades on actually helping Veterans, while doing more to help themselves, are still playing their game, more about that below.

Could this be why, the right leaning American Legion, has been virtually Quiet, along with the VFW, on all the reports coming to light about treatment, and shortchanging Again, of the returning Iraq and Afgan Veterans, to busy figuring ways, Illegally, to enhance their dwindling membership and coffers!