Wachovia asks for Social Security # or Account # by phone recording???

Freak us all out about identity theft. Warn us that the security of our bank and credit card accounts is our own personal responsibility-
and then send me a phone message like this:

"Hello, this is Wachovia.
Please call 1-866-211-6980 between the hours of -------
Call the number-
I'm serious.

"Welcome to Wachovia Bank
You have reached the overdraft and recovery security department.
Please have your account number or social security number ready."

My account is not overdrawn. I have no unusual activity to note.
So I start enetering a bunch of bogus numbers figuring this must be a scam??
I finally get a real person.
"This is LaToya McKenzie, can I help you?
"How do I know this is really Wachovia, I ask?
"It is the recovery department."
"So if I check this number out with my local bank it is legitimate?
"You can call them" , she pleasantly answers.

I do. I call the 1800-516-4176 number.
"May I have your account number?" I am asked.
Maybe you can help me without it"- I reply.
I ask him if the number is legitimate.
He checks,
Yes it is, he states.
Why would I receive a recording, not identifying me by name-
and when I call it,, the first thing I am asked is to enter my social security number or account number?"
"Doesn't that seem like a breach of my security?" I ask.
"What if it wasn't you and I gave that information to some scam recordings phishing for my information?"
"Well, it isn't, he replies.

What do you think??

Mensa Activities for the Mensa challenged

Things to do in the dark:
1. Paint your fingernails
2. Sew
3. Shave
4. Put on your make up
5. color your hair
6. trim your nose hairs
7. hop backwards 20 steps

For Fun
1. Bake bread without a recipe.
2. Write the Pledge of Allegiance with your eyes closed on lined paper without going off them.
3. text your friends using numbers instead of letters.
4. Tweet using code your upper case numbers
5. check your mail at midnight

Ultra challenge
1. Attempt the sobriety test while sober.
2. Complete the Roschach test and look for results online
3.Compete with a friend- try to cry in thirty seconds or less
4. Write ten lists in 100 seconds. Start list one with the letter "A" and move on to "B"
5. Find twenty places to put a "?" in twenty sentences or less where they skew the intent

Are you really  doing these?
Send me the results, Mensa Challenged

Immersed in Time

this hour, this minute sometimes this second
time, I stand alone immersed in it,
time has control,
I do not.
whatever the moment pushed forward, resistant poof-
carried me.
My voice lost in the moving minutes,
yesterdays words,
tomorrows
now.
Words that flail, falling words,
 coursing through my brain,
pushing outward,
to the spans of  time.
Only my echo is heard
pushed away
this second,
this minute,
now.

More Opt Out Swindles-ATT&T

Your home phone is like a credit card. Unless you call your phone company, anyone who knows your phone number can call from your home phone and order services at social networks.
For example. IMVU and Gaia, social networks for kids will charge your home phone for any services purchased from them on the internet, with only the phone number!
No code, no password, no authorization code!!
Your kids, you may have already discovered, have free rein, with the permission of your phone company, to order additional services without your authorization!!
When I called AT&T they told me I had to order a block on additional services, even though I never gave permission in the first place!!
This scam of opting out of services you didn't order in the first place has got to stop!!
Just another way business screws the honest citizen, ordering services, just certain services, and gets screwed.

"Automatic Renewals-More "Opt Outs"

Did I ask to renew my Vanity Fair magazine?
No-But they are billing me for another year-because I didn't "opt out"
Did I sign a contract asking for additional years? No
But in the fine print it says I must cancel my subscription even though I paid them for only one year.
I didn't pay them for anything else but ONE YEAR.

TMobile pulls the same "opt out" trick.
If you do not call  the company and tell them you do not want incoming text messages-although you told them you do not want the texting feature-they  allow others to text you and charge you for it.

We have banks that require you opt out of overdraft when you didn't ask for it in the first place.
Satellite radio claims they have the right to bill you an additional month even if you have a contract for a specific amount of time-because you didn't cancel-I paid for a year of service, they claim I owe them an additional month.

This has to stop.
Sneaky, crummy business practices.
Make sure you ask each time you pay for something which you believe is for a certain amount of time-or for a specific service.
You may find yourself paying for something you never asked for.

Bizzarro America-Wall Street Bonus and Massive Unemployment

Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch are formally taking those last few bucks you have in those 401K's-the sham retirement funds lobbed off on American people a decade ago.
They call them bonuses-I call it theft.

If someone came to your door with an Uzi, busted into your house, held your family hostage while others raped and pillaged, you bet you would scream and call the cops.
Yet when Wall Street, after playing one sleight of hand card trick on American citizens comes back with another, "Look!, Now You See it -Now you Don't", not a peep from all those unemployed, out of benefits, homeless, Americans. Those who are employed smugly watch neighbors lose their homes, and go to bed each night believing, for some grandiose reason, they are immune.
What is the difference between blatant rape and pillage and polite rape and pillage?
We are supposed to be grateful they are polite while taking our last dollars?

What will it take for Americans to start running their government again?
This isn't  about President Obama.
God forbid we get in the Limburger crowd. Crazy loonies are who believe in conspiratorial birth certificates and Islamic heehaws these are just plain crazy and nonsensical.
Those who have Tea Bags in their eyes and deeply embedded elsewhere have a right to be angry--too bad they are so far off base in their protests.
They all got some big tax breaks for the next few years and they worry about the national deficit?
Unemployment isn't about finding another job in two weeks anymore.

The National deficit pretty much reflects the state of the average American.
Over extended-and broke.
Conservative fiscal spending isn't going to help us a bit.
Government needs to spend our money to get us moving again.
Too bad the business world has found a way to rape and pillage the government stimulus money as well.

The Day My Daughter Almost Died

It isn't as if she was just a little girl that needed our protection so much. It is the question I ask myself-How old are kids supposed to be when they take responsibility and adults take none?
My daughter was 16 when she was playing cards with her dad's girlfriend and sister one night. They fed her alcohol all night long. Enough to create a dangerous level of alcohol in her system-she stopped breathing and went by ambulance to the Emergency room with a blood alcohol level of  250.
The ensuing fallout between her dad, his girlfriend and myself went something like this-
(Since he did not go to the emergency room with us, stayed at his front door in his bathrobe watching me help her out the door)-since no one woke when she screamed and she called me at 330 in the morning-
his girlfriend denied she ever gave drinks to my 16 year old daughter. Claimed she must have had them after they all passed out.
The police came and asked me if I wanted them to investigate-and I downplayed it-because I did not want to get her father (who is well known in the community) in trouble.

Her father immediately blamed her, eventually blaming me-accusing me of poisoning her mind against him.
I knew the trashing of me might happen, but after having known him for twenty years, and considering him my best friend, I hoped with some time he might think about the events and start questioning the events, rather than blaming her.
He and his girlfriend responded by claiming they would keep alcohol locked up around her-because of course she drank without their knowledge.
This response brought only disgust and disappointment from our daughter.
All the claims of love by him or my running interference with her, didn't budge her off the fact he never even asked her about the events of that night, believes his girlfriends story and now blames me.
I grieve for my friend (or what I thought was a friendship) and I am sad that they do not speak.
If his girlfriend told him the truth there might be a chance for their relationship, I would gladly stay out of the picture for the remainder of our lives, if it made a difference for my daughter and her dad.
It saddens me that he would think I would trash him to his daughter. Although I have raised her alone, I have always supported their relationship, making the effort to keep the communication lines open.
Now that I am aware of his feelings about me after all these years, I wonder, did he ever really see me as his friend?
Sometimes I think women(me) paint pictures in their heads of things that maybe really don't exist.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew, when I took a stand on this situation, and told him I felt it was dangerous and his girlfriend could not be trusted with our daughter, that would be the end of any communication we had.
It is up to my daughter now, two months later and now seventeern.
She wants nothing to do with him.
She feels betrayed. She is hurt that he would disparage me -after years of seeing us get along.
Or perhaps, maybe she and I both thought that but it wan't true?
She is alive, and I am thankful. I love my daughter. Her relationship with her dad is up to her, not me.
No more running interference. I would call him and give him a heads up about how she was feeling, and try to do the same for him during the rough patches. I see that was a mistake.
Now that it is up to her-she doesn't want to talk to him.
Perhaps time will heal this for them.
For me, I can't seem to get the picture out of my head of her face, cold, blue and white, and unmoving, not breathing, in my arms, in the back of the car at 3:30 in the morning.
I am so thankful she is ok, as I write this, I realize, nothing else is as important.