So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

I put a sign on my door reading NO SOLICITORS, NO RELIGIOUS PROSELYTIZERS, NO POLITICAL CANVASSERS, NO POLL TAKERS, NO DOOR HANGERS.

It may have been effective on some in the above-mentioned categories, but, alas, not all.

One such violator was attempting to sell “financial products.” After chasing him off (we had words) I researched his industry and came to suspect that because we had recently refinanced (that’s a matter of public record) we were deemed likelier than most to buy what he was selling. My research further indicated that these solicitors pay 25 bucks or more for each lead. So the fellow was already invested in bothering me before he saw the sign, which goes some way toward explaining why he disregarded it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Got a robocall this morning, a woman’s voice identifying herself as an IRS agent and instructing me to call a phone number right away lest I get arrested and have my property seized.

Then I check my email and find an extortion attempt from some POS claiming to know my search history (I have my predilections, but none resembling his descriptions) and, further, he claims to have video of me engaging in acts of autoeroticism as well as all my email contacts to whom he will send this phantom video of his should I not deposit $2,000 in bitcoin in his account.

I’m left to assume that maybe one person in several thousand actually falls for such transparently phony scams, and, seeing how it costs next to nothing to place these calls and emails, I suppose it pays.

I once heard a comedian's routine where he said he like to write "hello Vincent" in soap on the mirror of hotel bathrooms. When the shower fogged up the room, the writing would appear on the mirror. Now chances are, the next guy to rent the room is not named "Vincent". But if he is...

 

[LizzieMaine]

The door-to-door scam here is "electricity providers," where people in orange vests and safety hats go thru neighborhoods on the pretense of an "efficiency study" trying to get you to switch to their company, which will charge you much more for your juice than boring old CMP. The costuming leads you to think they're actually *from* CMP, which has always used such "lineman" imagery in their advertising, but when you get your bill you learn otherwise. The state Public Utilities Commission is supposed to be cracking down on this nonsense, but that remains to be seen.

 

[GHT]

So much for the "Do Not Call" list. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing robots, and they don't get to complete a sentence before I hang up. It's the people behind them I'd like to see complete a sentence.

The UK had, maybe still has, a system known as ex-directory, meaning that your phone number never goes into a telephone directory. Ex-directory dates back to the time that our telephone system had just one provider. Nowadays we have multiple providers and online directories. We have been ex-directory for as long as I can remember and have never been canvassed, but there again, we only give our phone number to those that we trust with it.

The internet has become a huge trawling net for personal information. Just try an experiment, I bet you can't buy something online unless you fill in the fields marked with an asterisk. Inevitably you will be asked for your e-mail address and your phone number. Information that's not really necessary for a simple sale. And if you have opened a social media account, you can be sure that as eggs are eggs, anything that you post will be filed into your profile and sold on. Add that to your buying info and spending habits that you tell them if you use a debit or credit card and more still, all the information they can glean from your loyalty card(s.)

 

[tonyb]

Door-to-door solicitors in this jurisdiction are required by code to have a peddler’s permit, issued by the city.

I’d be surprised if as many as one in 10 solicitors actually has such a permit. The code is on the books (I looked it up), but enforcement is essentially nonexistent. And I really don’t fault code enforcement personnel for that. They have so much on their plates already that it’s understandable that they would make a low priority of what is rarely much more than just a nuisance.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've had an unlisted number for over 20 years, but the telemarketing crooks don't use directories -- they use automated number-dialers that can ring thru every possible combination in any given exchange in seconds. There's no escape.

 

[tonyb]

This scam has been going on for years. It often works because they have acquired usually older passwords which they reveal. I was hit with this last year - they had a password and my user name, the password was legit, from about four years ago, which is what put the shivers in me. ...

...
Their advice - If these dolts had what they say they did, they'd provide an image and ask for much more. Delete, block and change your password regularly!

Avoid logging into ANY personal accounts on a public WiFi network. That, according to those who know such things, is the likeliest way the pirates acquired the passwords.

 

[MisterCairo]

We received so many more calls after we put our number on the "Do Not Call" list that I'm convinced the only thing it did well was to provide companies a list of valid phone numbers to call.

The same thing happened in Canada when we introduced no call lists, and other regulations on cold calling (not during meal hours, after 9 pm, etc.). Many people got more calls than before, cell numbers started getting calls where there were none before.

We have a simple rule now, with call display - no name or do not recognize the number? DO NOT ANSWER. If it is legit and important, they'll leave a message we can choose to respond to, or not.

Door-to-door solicitors in this jurisdiction are required by code to have a peddler’s permit, issued by the city.

We have an issue with door to door barristers in our area...*


Canadian lawyers are formally "barristers and solicitors". I get stares up here too when I tell that joke to people with "No Solicitors" stickers on their doors or mailboxes.

 

[The Jackal]

With the technology they have these days, they can make a robocall look like it came from anywhere. I went to a funeral a few weeks ago and suddenly the robocalls started coming from numbers local to where the funeral was.

The most frustrating is when I actually received a telemarketer call from my own phone number. I immediately demanded the supervisor. I was not pleasant.

 

[GHT]

We have a simple rule now, with call display - no name or do not recognize the number? DO NOT ANSWER. If it is legit and important, they'll leave a message we can choose to respond to, or not.

Sound advice, but it does get frustrating at times. Being ex-directory, our number won't show, instead it will read, number withheld. We use the landline more because the cell signal where we are is pathetic at best. What we do is text whom we are calling to let them know.

 

[Zombie_61]

The door-to-door scam here is "electricity providers," where people in orange vests and safety hats go thru neighborhoods on the pretense of an "efficiency study" trying to get you to switch to their company, which will charge you much more for your juice than boring old CMP. The costuming leads you to think they're actually *from* CMP, which has always used such "lineman" imagery in their advertising, but when you get your bill you learn otherwise. The state Public Utilities Commission is supposed to be cracking down on this nonsense, but that remains to be seen.

Around here the most popular scam is "free solar energy". The "salesperson" wants to perform an inspection inside the home "just to see what we're working with", during which they're surely taking notes on which items in the house are a) of value, and b) could be easily stolen and sold without the homeowners knowledge until it's too late. If the homeowner agrees a crew will come in and install solar panels, but even if they don't steal anything their work is usually so shoddy that the panels won't work as advertised. Or, in the process of installing them the crew will damage the roof. Either way the company will refuse to accept responsibility for it, and while the homeowner is pursuing legal action the company vanishes like a black cat on a moonless night. One way or the other, those "free" solar panels suddenly become rather expensive.

...We have a simple rule now, with call display - no name or do not recognize the number? DO NOT ANSWER. If it is legit and important, they'll leave a message we can choose to respond to, or not...

This is what I've done ever since I got my first cell phone, and eventually convinced my wife to do the same. As you wrote, that's what voicemail is for.

 

[Touchofevil]

Bicycle riders who ride like there are no laws of the road for them. They are similar to the kids who blindly and slowly move through crosswalks like they have no sense of urgency. They are both clueless and dangerous to themselves and others.

 

[GHT]

Bicycle riders who ride like there are no laws of the road for them. They are similar to the kids who blindly and slowly move through crosswalks like they have no sense of urgency. They are both clueless and dangerous to themselves and others.

Did you know that a form of strict liability has been law in the Netherlands since the early 1990s for bicycle-motor vehicle accidents? In a nutshell this means that, in a collision between a car and a cyclist, the driver's insurer is deemed to be liable to pay damages (n.b. motor vehicle insurance is mandatory in the Netherlands, while cyclist insurance is not,) to the cyclist's property and their medical bills as long as: 1) the cyclist did not intentionally crash into the motor vehicle, and: 2) the cyclist was not in error in some way. If the cyclist was in error, as long as the collision was still unintentional, the motorist's insurance must still pay half of the damages — though this doesn't apply if the cyclist is under 14 years of age, in which case the motorist must pay full damages. If it can be proved that a cyclist intended to collide with the car, then the cyclist must pay the damages (or his/her parents in the case of a minor.)

When I see kids riding around at night, wearing dark clothing and their cycles unlit, it disturbs me. More so when a former politician name of Nick Clegg, wanted to introduce such a law in the UK. It would be a licence to print money for litigation lawyers. It would also see dashcam and personal camera sales outstrip all other gizmos.

By the way, Nick Clegg is now Stateside, he is currently Vice-President for Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
That’s chilling.

Motor vehicles and bicycles are a troublesome mix at best. Three thousand-plus pound vehicles traveling at 30, 40, 50 or more miles per hour pose a deadly threat to a person on a bike. Or a pedestrian. Or a bulletproof soul on one of those little battery-powered scooter things available for rent and littering the sidewalks in many cities.

True grade separation appears to be the only real fix, costly and therefore unlikely as that would be in most locales.

I dread the day I should ever have any part in a collision resulting in injury to any person. Still, it’s beyond outrageous to hold a motorist in any way responsible for those injuries when the injured party is a bicyclist who, through his own failure to follow the rules of the road, is the cause of the collision. Doing so essentially grants bicyclists immunity. And that fosters all sorts of socially undesirable habits.

 

[Hercule]

Bicycle riders who ride like there are no laws of the road for them. They are similar to the kids who blindly and slowly move through crosswalks like they have no sense of urgency. They are both clueless and dangerous to themselves and others.

Hear Hear!!! I have long been of the mind that pedestrians should have yield to vehicles if only for the fact that they are much more defensively maneuverable than a multi-thousand pound vehicle.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I ride a bike sometimes and I drive sometimes, so I can see both sides of the argument. But what I can't see is the idea of the bicyclist as not feeling obligated to follow the rules of the road -- we're overrun in my town with lanky, ropy thirty-something "cyclists" in spandex superhero suits, streamlined helmets, and space-age shoes who speed past stop signs and stop lights with their heads down, pretty much daring cars to hit them.

It's not kids or overweight middle-aged women on bikes who are the real problem. It's the "serious riders" who operate in their own personal bubble of "The Zone" who will end up spattered across windshields like June bugs.

When I was in the second grade we were required -- not invited, required -- to take a bicycle safety course run by the local police department, and bikes were required to carry a municipal permit sticker to operate on the roads. When I'm dictator, that's the very minimum that will be done. I see no valid reason why it isn't being done right now.

 

[Bamaboots]

One of my life's greatest pleasures was to stop and issue a citation to adult cyclists who just couldn't understand that the rules of the road applied to them as well as all the other vehicles sharing the road.

 

[tonyb]

One of my life's greatest pleasures was to stop and issue a citation to adult cyclists who just couldn't understand that the rules of the road applied to them as well as all the other vehicles sharing the road.

I get a chuckle out of those who suggest that enforcement doesn’t modify behavior. It would be just lovely if people always did the right because it’s the right thing to do. Maybe there’s a saint or two among us who don’t need such externally imposed restrictions on themselves, but I’m dead certain I’ve yet to meet such a person. (FWIW, I very rarely used seatbelts until the law required it. Now I always buckle up.)

In Seattle and environs, where I lived for 46 years, pedestrian right of way is much more actively enforced than it is in most other places I’ve ever been. A ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian where the pedestrian has the right of way carries a fine of several hundred dollars. Likewise, jaywalking and crossing against the light earns the pedestrian a hefty fine.

This results in greater safety and smoother traffic flow. Drivers know to stop where pedestrians have the right of way; pedestrians know to wait until they do.

Alas, I wish I could say the same for bicyclists. It’s been a few years since I lived there, so maybe it’s gotten better. But for a while a group of mostly male, mostly young, mostly white bicyclists calling themselves “Critical Mass” would ride in packs, the lead riders stopping at intersections and blocking traffic while the others went through. This was to make some sort of statement that bicyclists had the right to roads, too. What it likelier did is left motorists thinking that bicyclists are arrogant, entitled twerps whose mothers never taught them any manners.

 

[Zombie_61]

Our house is at the west end of a pedestrian/bicyclist trail that winds through our fair city for several miles (it was formerly a railroad line). As such, most of the bicyclists I see regularly (both casual and hardcore) are those who use this trail as intended, and the ones I've seen have all been very conscientious and cautious when riding past pedestrians (especially those walking their dogs). Mind you, this is a semi-controlled environment where they don't have to worry about cars/drivers until they come to one of the street crossings, so I think they appreciate the relatively safe environment this trail provides and are able to pay more attention to the fewer people (and their dogs) they encounter.

On the streets it's a different story. Most of the street bicyclists I've seen appear to be responsible and know the laws and their responsibilities for their own safety, but there is also a large percentage of nitwits who appear to be clueless about the world around them. Just yesterday we saw one such bicyclist riding on a main thoroughfare, paying far more attention to his stupid cell phone than to the potential dangers around him. He barely missed a few parked cars, and consistently wove in and out of the right lane forcing drivers to slow down so they wouldn't hit him. It's people like him who give bicyclists a bad reputation.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I once saw someone riding a bicycle up the street with a baby strapped to a carrier on the back of the bike -- and they were using a cellphone. Yes, the Darwin Effect is a thing, but the kid shouldn't have to pay for the stupidity of the parent.