Stupidity Exposed!

YouTube (a.k.a. Google) makes reporting abuse (nearly) impossible!

May 3

Posted by admin in 800-Pound Gorillas, Internet Service Provders, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I am SO TIRED of large companies like Google who don’t want to provide support for their own products and would rather you check with the “community” support board for your answers! I attempted to send an email to YouTube’s abuse email address (abuse@youtube.com) to report a video that I believe was violating their terms of service, and I got back the following reply:

This is an automated response to let you know that your message has been
caught by our spam filter and won't be read. It appears that you have
reached us at an incorrect address. The best way to get a hold of us is by
visiting the Help Resources page at
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=start.cs&hl=en_US
or checking out our Contact Us page: http://youtube.com/t/contact_us

Please don't reply to this message -- we won't get your response.

By looking through our Help Center, you should be able to find a solution
to, or report your problem. You'll also be able to gather the information
we need to best assist you.

Anyone with half a brain knows that putting a spam filter on an abuse mailbox is a stupid idea. Of course what I’m sending you may look like spam BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO REPORT TO YOU!!! Google seems to do everything in their power to not have to read emails from their customers!

What driver do I need?

Apr 8

Posted by admin in General Rant, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I guess I just don’t get it. I want to update my notebook’s video drivers to see if it’ll make some issues I have go away. I go to the manufacturer’s support web site and type in my Service Tag, which is supposed to narrow down my selections to just the hardware I have, and I get this list of 5 different video drivers for my notebook:

Driver Selection

Yet the site provides no clues to tell me WHICH driver(s) my specific notebook needs?!? What is the difference between the “Discrete” driver and the “Switchable” driver?? How am I supposed to know which one I’m supposed to use???

The Do Not Call Registry is a joke!

Apr 7

Posted by admin in Government Stupidity, Pet Peeves | 1 Comment

Despite having all our phone numbers registered with the United States Government’s Do Not Call Registry, we are still getting plenty of calls from “Rachael at Credit Card Services” and the “Higher Impact” (the “Work At Home” people), among many others, including the bunch that use automated systems that don’t even respond when you answer the phone!

National Do Not Call Registry

Why can’t (won’t) the phone companies let you block calls on which the caller ID information is clearly bogus?!? (how many times do you get all zeros, or just zeros in the exchange?)

What good is this registry if the government isn’t willing to:

Enact laws that require the phone companies to provide ONLY valid caller ID information (or the word PRIVATE for people who want/need to disable their number from being viewed). No one should be allowed to place arbitrary caller ID information on the phone line when making calls.
Go after these companies that abuse the Do Not Call List?!? (of course, this would be easier if they implemented #1 above!!!)

I have to wonder how much money it’s costing the American taxpayers to maintain a registry that is BARELY (if at all) being enforced?!?

Don’t you just HATE ISPs that use automated mail screeners??

Apr 4

Posted by admin in Internet Service Provders | Comments off

I’ve been trying to report a phishing site to the ISP that owns the IP address of the hosting server:

http://97-88-142-32.dhcp.fdul.wi.charter.com:83/www.irs.gov/portal/0,,id=96596,00.html

Clearly, the server is on a Charter Communications IP address, yet when I send the link to the suggested email address (abuse@charter.net), I constantly get the following response:

This email address is for reporting incidents of abuse coming from IP addresses registered to Charter Communications.  Abuse from IP addresses not registered to Charter Communications should be directed to the registered owners of the IP address in question. 

The following link should be of assistance in locating the organization responsible for the IP address: 

    http://www.arin.net/whois 

Thank you, 

Charter High-Speed Internet Security Team

This has been happening (and the phishing site is STILL UP) for almost 2 days now. They are obviously employing a mail scanner to parse the complaint. I don’t know if they’re simply looking for email headers in the body of my email and rejecting all other complaints?! I tried using their “Chat Now” support service and chatted with someone for a while. They said to email the Abuse Department. I told them I had done that several times, only to get the same rejection response each time. Then they said they couldn’t help me, so I should call the toll free support number. I had to wonder what they were there for if they can’t help the customers who contact them?? What a joke!!

AOL won’t shut down SPAMMER accounts

Mar 27

Posted by admin in Internet Service Provders | Comments off

AOL refuses to shut down user accounts that have been shown to send out spam time and time again. Here’s a spam I recently received:

Return-Path: <smurphygurl19@aol.com>
Received: from omr-m33.mx.aol.com (omr-m33.mx.aol.com [64.12.143.145])
by smtp.domain1.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p2R4T2hi001413
for <user@domain2.com>; Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:29:03 GMT
Received: from oms-mb03.r1000.mx.aol.com (oms-mb03.r1000.mx.aol.com [64.12.102.139])
by omr-m33.mx.aol.com (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id p2R4CE0A031002;
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:12:31 -0400
Received: from mtaomg-da01.r1000.mx.aol.com (mtaomg-da01.r1000.mx.aol.com [172.29.51.137])
by oms-mb03.r1000.mx.aol.com (AOL Outbound OMS Interface) with ESMTP id 325211C000083;
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:12:31 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from core-dac001b.r1000.mail.aol.com (core-dac001.r1000.mail.aol.com [172.29.14.141])
by mtaomg-da01.r1000.mx.aol.com (OMAG/Core Interface) with ESMTP id EA529E000085;
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:12:30 -0400 (EDT)
To: xxx@xxx.com
Subject: Hello
X-MB-Message-Source: WebUI
X-AOL-IP: 182.52.68.102
X-MB-Message-Type: User
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: smurphygurl19@aol.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”us-ascii”
X-Mailer: AOL Webmail 33456-STANDARD
Received: from 182.52.68.102 by webmail-m087.sysops.aol.com (64.12.224.201) with HTTP (WebMailUI); Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:12:30 -0400
Message-Id: <8CDBA4C5359314F-4C0-1365F@webmail-m087.sysops.aol.com>
X-Originating-IP: [182.52.68.102]
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:12:30 -0400 (EDT)
x-aol-global-disposition: S
X-SPAM-FLAG:YES
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 0:2:170288576:93952408
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 0
X-AOL-REROUTE: YES
x-aol-sid: 3039ac1d33894d8eb92e7742
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by smtp.domain1.com id p2R4T2hi001413

http://cronos.mireene.com/23i42.html

The account for ‘smurphygurl19’ has been used repeatedly to send spam (almost 30 to a single account since last October from my count), yet AOL will not take action against the account and shut it down. I noticed this in the header:

X-SPAM-FLAG:YES

Does that mean that AOL knows that the email is a spam and yet they’re still delivering it?!? It would appear that way to me.

Screw the customer – it’s the [Bank of] American way!

Mar 18

Posted by admin in Bank of America | Comments off

I just received my Bank of America statement for my checking/savings account, only to find a NEW monthly fee:

“Check Image Service Fee”

Really?!? $3.00 per month just to have the images of the checks included with my monthly statement?? Where the hell did this come from??? Here is another article on the new fee.

It’s bad enough that some 5 or so years ago, the banks stopped providing the return of the physical checks in the statements, only providing a crude scanned image of each check! Now they don’t even want to give us that?!?

What’s even worse are the BULLS**T lines they feed their employees to feed to us when we complain! (I know it’s not the local employees’ fault – they’re just trying to do what they’re told) They tried to tell me that I can always go online and print the images from the web site – HELL, I can print the entire statement from there, but I don’t want to! Considering the ridiculous interest rates they offer, the LEAST they can do is mail me a statement once a month! Then they said “it’s an extra page…”, so I pointed out that they waste an entire page every month with the “How To Balance Your Bank of America Account” page. They claimed a lot of their customers still use that to balance their checkbook. Well, A LOT OF THEIR CUSTOMER STILL WANT THE CHECK IMAGES, TOO!!

And if they’re going to make a change like this, the DEFAULT SHOULD NOT BE to charge everyone an extra $3.00 per month and force them to OPT-OUT – the DEFAULT should be to drop the images from the statement and tell people they need to OPT-IN if they are willing to PAY AN EXTRA FEE!!!

I’ll bet that pretty soon, they’re going to force everyone to go to “paperless” or pay a monthly statement fee! Then they’ll start charging us to use the ATM – ANY ATM! Then we’ll even have to pay for each transaction, regardless of where/how we did it (online, ATM, in person, …).

What is this country coming to that the huge companies have to continue to take advantage of and abuse their customers?? They are here for us, not the other way around!! And then they whine when their profits are down! I guess they need to screw us to be able to pay their top executives??

I can’t believe Verisign uses Dun & Bradstreet as a reliable source of information!?!

Mar 12

Posted by admin in 800-Pound Gorillas | Comments off

I almost fell out of my chair yesterday when I was talking to someone at Verisign. They were supposed to be authenticating my company’s identity for a Code Signing Certificate.

I called Verisign support to see why I hadn’t heard from them yet (they were supposed to call me days before). They said they called the day before, but the phone just rang and rang. I asked “What number did you call?”, and they gave me a phone number I haven’t had for over 10 years! When I asked them where they got that number, they said “Dun & Bradstreet”! I HAD TO LAUGH!! Here is Verisign trying to verify that I am who I say I am, and they’re relying on information from a known information fabricator?!? That’s just ridiculous!!!

Here is the disclaimer right from Dun & Bradstreet’s own site:

D&B does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of any of the data and/or programs (Information) available at this D&B Site. The Information is provided as is without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement.

I asked why they didn’t open up Google or Yahoo!, type in my company’s name, and go to the first entry’s web site and find a phone number? They said they don’t use Google; they only use “reliable online directories”!

It’s been a LONG TIME since I’ve heard someone seriously use the term “reliable” in the same sentence as “Dun & Bradstreet”!!

Intrust Domains (a.k.a Domain Match Makers) tries to sell domains it doesn’t own!

Dec 22

Posted by admin in Internet Service Provders, Spams and Scams | 3 Comments

I received a SPAM from Intrust Domains (apparently an ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar) today. It’s bad enough that they are using the WHOIS database for commercial purposes (a use which is explicitly prohibited by ICANN), they were trying to sell me a domain they don’t even own! Here’s the email:

The first thing you should notice is the use of a “throw away” domain (MASRECARGA.COM in this case) throughout the email – a CLASSIC SPAM TECHNIQUE. By using “throw-away” domains like this, they hope that anti-spam tools won’t label the email as spam since these domains are usually fairly new. Plus, it protects their primary domains (dnipremiumnames.com and intrustdomains.com) from complaints to their ISPs since the primary domains are not actually listed in the SPAM emails.

Secondly, the domain they are offering me happens to be in the “deletePending” state as reported by whois.internet.net. At this point, only moniker.com has any control over the domain if anyone! I don’t see any business link between Moniker and Intrust Domains.

Even the email headers show evidence of SPAM techniques, proving they know that their marketing practices are illegal:

Return-Path: <arthur@MASRECARGA.COM>
Received: from worldtaxpages.org (def.wtsuk.net [208.87.24.149])
	by xxxxx.xxx (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id oBLD2Fg7014437
	for <domainadmin@xxxxx.xxx>; Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:02:15 GMT
Received: from art.names.org (art.names.org [192.168.1.22])
  by def.wtsuk.net (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id 338
   for <domainadmin@xxxxx.xxx>;
  Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:46:59 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 04:46:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Arthur Simmons <arthur@MASRECARGA.COM>
To: "domainadmin@xxxxx.xxx" <domainadmin@xxxxx.xxx>
Message-ID: <20101221.1292935619499.67347241@def.wtsuk.net>
Subject: XXXXXXXXXXX.COM
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
	boundary="----=_Part_35689_32767277.1292935619497"
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090825)

They didn’t send the email from their own server/network (the ones associated with intrustdomains.com or dnipremiumnames.com, which are both apparently hosted in Panama?!?), again to avoid the complaints to their ISPs.
The domain ‘wtsuk.net’ is owned by Intrust Domains. Interesting to note that the several hosts I could find on that domain are on IP addresses all over the world (another good sign of a spammer).
The HELO name doesn’t match the reverse lookup of the host delivering the email. Typical spammer oversight.
The second Received line seems to implicate another domain owner from Portugal (whether it’s forged or not).

I also found it odd that if you do a WHOIS on ‘dnipremiumnames.com’, their WHOIS server (since they are the registrar for their own domains) seems to intentionally block the request, yet all other requests for domains registered thru them works fine.

When you click on the link in the email, you’re redirected to their main site:

You’d think they had self-confidence issues with all the “Trust Guard” badges they had to buy to attempt to make their web site look legitimate!?

Trust?!? I don’t think so!! Spammers?? DEFINITELY!!!

Print what I see!

Nov 24

Posted by admin in Consumer Products, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I hate it when I visit a web site, see something I like or some details I want to keep, then print the web page, only to find that the printed version of the web page looks nothing like the screen version! What’s up with that??? And why would someone write a browser (I use FireFox) that doesn’t just give you WYSIWYP (what you see is what you print)?!? Geez!

Isn’t it too early for snow-blowers?!?

Aug 22

Posted by admin in Pet Peeves | Comments off

I was walking through Lowes yesterday and noticed that the lawn equipment area was filled with SNOW BLOWERS! Really? August 21st is when people start breaking out the snow blowers??? I’m not in Alaska – I’m in southern New Hampshire! We won’t have snow for another 2 to 3 months! I guess it’s only fair since they put the riding mowers out in February when we have 18 inches of snow on the ground!!!