Fraud, Scams and Oops! A Friday Morning in January

Fraud? Scam? or merely Oops?

Yesterday I received an email from Citizens One Personal Loans telling me that I had taken out a loan to purchase an iPhone X and my first payment of $49.91 was due on 1/8/18.

Yeah.

No, I haven’t purchased an iPhone X.

No, I had neither obtained nor attempted to obtain such a loan from Citizens Bank.

Bogus email: Rule #1 — Don’t click on any of the email links.

Okay, so how do figure out what’s up with this email?

Forward the email to Apple: reportphishing@apple.com — with appropriate comments.

Look up Citizens Bank on Google. Hmmmmm . . . looks like a legitimate business.

Call the number I get from the Google search.

Well, I spent some 40+ minutes speaking with three people (two of the seemingly competent and understanding of my situation) and being on hold before being told that: yes, there was a real loan with the account number and payment that was on my email; no, I was not the person who had obtained the loan and was not obligated to pay it (as though I was going to); no, it did not appear to be a matter of fraud but of an error in the email address; yes, Citizens Bank was going to contact the account owner by means other than email and (attempt to) clear up the situation.

Cleared up? Hope so — Oooo – Rah!


Other Thoughts

Barcelona is paying Liverpool $192,000,000 (£142,000,000) for Philippe Coutinho.

Raiders are paying Jon Gruden $100,000,000 over the span of a 10-year contract.

What is Nick Saban going to get on his next contract if Alabama wins on Monday?

Alabama state minimum wage/Federal minimum wage = $7.25 / hour


The Trump Administration and its supporters appear to be tearing themselves apart. It seems as though there is no loyalty to each other nor to President Trump himself. And, Mr. Trump appears to reciprocate this loyalty, or lack thereof.


I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Books

Amazon delivered my copy of Lee and Miller’s Neogenesis on Tuesday — finished it Friday — Thumbs Up.

Stopped by the Huntington Beach Public Library on Thursday and found a copy of Sue Grafton’s last novel: Y is for Yesterday. Read the first four chapters while on the exercise bike this morning. It’s a bittersweet reading experience — for the alphabet ends with Y.