Security
Verizon gets skittish if you call South Korea or Arabic countries, and if the "High Toll" department doesn't correctly report that they were able to get in contact with you to verify you intentionally made the call, you could find your service disconnected.
'This Line Has Been Restricted...' [TV Board] (Thanks to cactusbix!)
Consumer Alert
Check your credit card and debit card statement for unauthorized charges from STC SAWA RECHARGE RIYADH SA. The Saudi Arabian phone card company is fraudulently passing charges to consumer's cards, usually for sums of $80. If you find one of these unwanted charges, contact your card company to dispute the charges. This may not be enough, as consumers report being the charges hitting their cards multiple times, even after reporting them. In these cases, it may be better to cancel the account.
There's seems to be no correlation between vendors victims used their cards with, perhaps pointing to a breach at the credit card company level.
STC SAWA Credit Card Fraud [Reseller Ratings]
Executive Customer Service
Wow. Here's contact info for 100 cable company executives.
Someone emailed us the direct line for the office of Barry Rosenblum, executive Vice President of Time Warner Cable for NY and NJ, and when we Googled it, we found this treasure of trove of names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.
So, if you've got a complaint or concern with Comcast, Cablevision, Adelphia, Cox, Charter, Insight, or Toledo Buckeye CableSystem, the information in this list can help it reach the top of the heap.
Top 100 Cable Systems - Systems Directory [Multichannel]
Debt
"I have almost $100 in savings," said Ms. Truckey, who earns $9.50 an hour as a supermarket meat clerk. "I'm in a comfortable position for the first time in many years."
That's a lady who is finally digging herself out of a payday loan hole with the help of a "non-profit" payday loan. At one point, Truckey was paying $600 a month in finance charges alone. Now she has a new loan through GoodMoney, operated by local credit union. The new loan's APR is only 252%, about half what she was paying before.
That's still a pretty crappy number, and it begs the question, does it really cost that much to lend money? 12 states disagree and have usury laws that prohibit payday lending. There's also an important book would-be payday debtors should read, called, "Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford."
Nonprofit Payday Loans? Yes, to Mixed Reviews [NYT]
Blogs
There's not much amusing in the subprime meltdown and housing bubble burst, which is why we were gladdened to see a site called Burbed. Basically, they make fun of San Francisco Bay Area housing listings.
There's the "Detached Single Family Residence" that looks suspiciously like a converted Motel 6 unit, the Re/Max broker who is apparently a Canis lupus, as in, a wolf, at least judging from his For Sale sign, and the "fantastic" three bedroom that "won't last long" thanks mainly to its "views of the airport."
Sorta like gofugyourself, except for houses.
Money
Reader Lyn sent us a budget system he drafted that has worked well for his household, as well as friends and family.
His Excel sheet has two pay periods for each month and is pre-set up for two people. First, enter both paychecks into the column B. Then, put expenses in their respective categories. Make sure to change the tax formula (line 37) to reflect your income bracket.
The formulas then tabulate how much money you have left over. You can plug and play with the numbers to see the effect adjusting various expenses, like getting rid of cable, can have on your budget. By adding in additional items, you could even set budget goals for different discretionary categories, like movies, music, binge drinking, etc.
It's nothing fancy, but for a household trying to get a handle on their cash flow, Lyn's spreadsheet could be a great starting point for building a personal family budget system.
Download Lyn's budget here (XLS)
(Photo: Getty)
New And Exciting Products
We're all for comfortable footwear, but we really don't get the whole "Crocs" thing. They again, we've never tried them on, so perhaps we're not being fair. They look like good shoes for space pirates or RNs and we are neither (sadly).
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Gone Phishing
The new IRS email phishing scam involves a fake customer satisfaction survey that asks for sensitive personal information such as your SSN, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and even the security code from the back of the card.
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Complaints
I am writing this note today on behalf of my 80 year old parents who have been banking with Washington Mutual. My parents account has had 10 forged checks passed on their 3 of their bank accounts. The fraud department has reimbursed one of the accounts for 2 checks after faxing a copy of the police report. However, today, after 20 days now, the fraud department has not reimbursed the other accounts. I have called fraud department many times now in an effort to recapture these funds in the amount of $1,100.00. Quite frankly the department was very rude and has been giving my parents the run around!
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bad pr
According to Wired, Facebook users have hijacked Walmart's dorm decoration discussion page, choosing instead to discuss the way Walmart "destroys communities and prevents unionization." Oh, my!
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Corrections
On Friday, August 17th, we posted a Morning Deal for a free eye exam and Lasik laser corrective eye surgery consultation. Reader Andrew's boyfriend tried the deal out and was disappointed.
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Thank Goodness
Home Depot has finally rid itself of the commercial business supply division that was often blamed for the chain's miserable customer service and lagging stock price. The commercial supply division was accused of stealing resources from the stores, and was the pet project of disgraced former CEO "Big Bob" Nardelli. Home Depot had to chop $2 billion off the asking price, but they got the deal done.
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Leaks
Looks like we got our hands on a big ol' list of Comcast contacts for every single regional division. Names and numbers listed under "Sched Install," "Complete Install," "Reschedule Install," "Billing Adjustments," "Escalation Contact," and "Retention "save" disco's" would seem to be of particular interest to consumers trying to escalate issues through the notoriously unresponsive and uncaring cable company.
According to the datestamp embedded in the files' titles, these are up to date as of 8/27/07.
For those who don't know, Retentions refers to the group in the company tasked with throwing rebates, refunds and additional services at customers to prevent them from switching to another provider.
East Division (XLS)
MidWest Division (XLS)
North Division (XLS)
West Division (XLS)
Southern Division (XLS)
It's telling how bad things on when they have a whole department just for rescheduling installations.
(Photo: Getty)
Security
Researchers have figured out a way
to hack remote keyless car entry devices. The threat to the consumer is minimal, it takes several hours to crack the code, but it does give one pause, especially considering that if the Keeloq's manufacturer added a few simple measures they could render the exploit nearly useless.
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Consumerist
Here's a list of 
