Damn those Scams

from gizmodo

If you’ve ever gotten a marketing call on your cellphone and wondered how the hell they could have gotten your number, you may have certain websites to thank. A local Florida TV station decided to do an investigation into this kind of thing and discovered that some websites will sell the last 100 phone numbers you may have dialed to anyone who has your phone number already. Sites like Locate Cell sells these private numbers for $100. These sites are, unfortunately, not illegal, but the TV station suggested calling the Attorney General’s office if you find this has happened to you. Nasty!

Hmmm, maybe this is why I’ve been getting spam/scam phone calls and I didn’t know how or why they got my phone number.

NPR finally covered what was floating around the net for a few months, how to stop waiting 20 minutes before talking to a live person when you call customer service for most large corporations. For example, you have a problem with your credit card and you call American Express, only to be prompted to type in your card number, press 1 for english, etc. Or your cellphone service has a billing mistake and you try to call Cingular only to be rerouted to their automated answering system. Its funny to hear Steve Inskeep from Morning Edition, a usually pretty muted guy, get so excited to learn how to skip all the annoyances when calling AppleCare.

Strangely enough, NPR doesn’t actually link the list on their website, so here it is in all its glory.