Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 12/17/07

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Monday, December 17, 2007

Something Phishy

The government's do-not-call list is a great accomplishment, virtually wiping out telemarketing calls in our house. We still get the occasional guilt-inducing charity calls -- tickets to the policemen's ball and such. But for the most part silence.

Lately, however, we've been plagued by robocalls that have either skirted the do-not-call list or are in outright violation of it. The ones that claim to be from "your credit card company" offering a way of lowering your rates. Since these don't identify themselves as any bank or credit union with which I have a card, I'm pretty sure they're phishing scams. But I don't know how to make them stop. They usually offer an option -- "press 9" -- to remove your number from their list. I've pressed nine or two or whatever number they ask for a few times, but to no avail. Instead, I'm now getting calls that offer to extend my "vehicle's warranty" which they tell me with some urgency is about to expire. (The warranty on my "vehicle" expired a long time ago.)

So now I'm beginning to wonder if the opt-out number is a scam, too -- as on e-mail spam, which often asks you to reply if you want to be removed from their mailing list. I learned a long time ago not to do that.

Anyone know of a way to report these guys?