Let the Buyer Beware

[elecplus]

Most everybody here is pretty geeky, and knows that internet companies can be sneaky.

Since I own a computer company, and most of the population of our town is elderly, we wind up explaining a lot of basic things to the old folks. Like information sharing!

PayPal now offers a debit MasterCard, which is free to use (except for ATM withdrawls, $1.50), and you can get up to 1% cash back every month. No fees, finance charges, or anything else. Hmmm...

So I read the agreement CAREFULLY, and I was kind of impressed. All cc companies have to share with law enforcement, if properly authorized. Fine. They need your SSN, DOB, etc. Fine. Sharing?

They don't share with non-affiliates, sell your info to 3rd parties, or otherwise set you up for gazillions of unwanted emails and phone calls from people wanting to sell you something.

The card is offered by Bancard, and this is their policy. The only thing unusual was that if you receive defective merchandise, you have to solve the problem yourself, they will not help arbitrate it. Loss from a stolen or mis-used card is limited to $0-500, depending on circumstances.

No, this is not a selling point for a PayPal debit card, although it is one of the best I have seen.

Back to our old people, we have a little old lady in her 80s, very sweet, who bought her grandson a hunting knife on Cabelas. Now she is receiving emails every day offering ammunition, guns, knives, camping gear, etc., and she wanted to know why. We explained it to her, and she said she never even knew there was a page that explains they will sell her info, her shopping history, the other things she looked at, etc. to other companies. Now these other companies can contact her, and she has to un-register with each one.

So please, if you don't already, read the fine print on the websites, and see who sells your info! Isn't it enough that they make money off the products? They need to make more, so we can be hassled more? I know about multiple streams of income, but this seems beyond ridiculous!

[woody]

Beautiful direction we're heading to, eh?

[fohat]

I just wish that "net neutrality" would work both ways, instead of downstream only.

[Muirium]

Sadly, I know a few old people (not my generation… yet!) who quite like the attention they get from cold callers on the phone or even at the door. They don't seem to value their wasted time. The calls they don't like are the silent ones (this happens so often on any land line in Britain now) where the drone in the call centre isn't even doing their job, but bopping buttons to make new calls without even speaking to you. No one to tell pointless stories to while they try to interrupt you with their sales script? How rude!

[andrewjoy]

if they try to sell you a pen run a mile

[ماء]

Sadly, I know a few old people (not my generation… yet!) who quite like the attention they get from cold callers on the phone or even at the door. They don't seem to value their wasted time. The calls they don't like are the silent ones (this happens so often on any land line in Britain now) where the drone in the call centre isn't even doing their job, but bopping buttons to make new calls without even speaking to you. No one to tell pointless stories to while they try to interrupt you with their sales script? How rude!

different intake

[Hak Foo]

I've turned cold-callers into entertainment for the office.

Put 'em on speakerphone, then come up with an outrageous explanation of why we have no interest in their services.

"Our records indicate you can massively lower your credit card processing fees by switching to Scamco services...."
"We no longer accept credit cards. We switched entirely to Dogecoin, the North Korean won, and shiny beads..."

Fun compounds when they don't get the hint that they're not going to close a sale.

"We don't want any of what you're selling."
"We're not selling anything, we just want to bla bla bla"
"Which in some way eventually results in someone transferring business or money to you. You're selling stuff, and we're not interested."

Usually after a few rounds, we just get to "Please do not call this number again." and even that doesn't always work.

[seebart]

So please, if you don't already, read the fine print on the websites, and see who sells your info! Isn't it enough that they make money off the products? They need to make more, so we can be hassled more? I know about multiple streams of income, but this seems beyond ridiculous!

Even here in Germany we have almost reached the same stage of dubious data collection methods channled through any possible way. We have a LOT of elderly people in Germany, most of them have NO clue, I mean zero grasp about how far this has progressed in the last five to ten years. Of course most of them do not even own or use any kind of computer. But a lot of "younger" people do not bother to read the customer agreements, called "AGB" here, which we know tends to be in tiny print and can be loooong. With the rise of mobile computing the data footprint of iOS and Android users has become THE marketing edge for many companies. And if things keep going the way they are now we are at the very outset of this. Online shopping is the key to much of this. But even regular surfing the internet will tell something about your profile. All the tedious marketing research done in the past is now readily available online, the key is getting it without the user knowing. I have caught myself flying over customer agreements and not reading them properly. But at least I know what´s going on and what modern "cross-marketing" means today. The selling and re-selling of user data is another good example. I keep geting phone calls here from a telemarketing company in France. Seems they specialise in the german market. I asked one of them once how they got my phone number etc. The caller said he did not know himself. So I told him if he could not answer me that our conversation would be over. They have not called me much recently. But you are making a good point elecplus. The internet and now mobile data have changed a lot for the worse in that perspective.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Sadly, I know a few old people (not my generation… yet!) who quite like the attention they get from cold callers on the phone or even at the door.

At work we get almost entirely robots — sadly you can't string those along and wind them up. Machines don't have a sense of humour even when they do listen.

[DosPordes02]

Who know what's the greatest lie told by mankind? "I agree"

[rofltheory]

Oh dear, that poor old lady!