a.k.a. Shawn Honnick specializing in wonderful since 1968
*also Chipotle pictures, NYC adventures, and little known safety tactics like fake hand washing.
**If you're a disgruntled employee, do something about it (no, it's not a pyramid... THIS is the PYRAMID) or just sit around and grumble like everyone over at the disgruntled employee forums.
Posts tagged: scam
via Facebook status
Currently watching.
Great film. I have an interesting story (about myself) that goes along with this movie.
In late December of 20076, I had been working at retail for about six months, selling jewelry for Bailey Banks & Biddle at Tysons Corner Center. I took the job a few months after TA very suddenly changed their vision (and let me go) after four years of what I now call web 1.5 growth experience.
I learned a lot about jewelry. Even though jewelry is ultimately a scam, I sold a bunch of it and I won’t go into my reasons for not believing that diamonds are forever here, but I will proudly admit that I never told a someone that a piece of jewelry was beautiful when it did not compliment their looks (a primary jewelry selling tactic). I was a very quiet sales person!
Blood Diamond was out for a few weeks at the same time I had been on a couple of interviews with Sprint, neither of which seemed like it would work out for me. They had chosen another candidate for the first role because they thought I was overqualified. The second interview for a different position on another team led to me being a favorite of the manager but also to a committee decision to bring on a contractor instead of hiring a new person (me).
So, I seemed to be stuck in retail hell and one night, saw the movie after work with some close friends in the same mall where I was working. I was wearing my black jewelry sales professional suit (I do not like suits, ties or any of that). The holiday season’s sales were OK but nothing special, so the job was wearing very thin because a number of Tysosn Corner Center shoppers are just nuts and not very nice. I was more than done with the place but needed to pay rent! Working retail at the same mall where I had last worked retail in nearly 20 years earlier seemed like a gloomy but definite future at this point.
In the last action scene of the movie, I leaned over to my friend and told her that I didn’t want to sell jewelry anymore. I meant what I said from the bottom of my heart because the conflict diamond trade is pervasive and the value of diamonds are inflated anyway (scam). I’m the type of person that really feels bad in trying to sell a bad deal. It’s a curse, because I am good at selling and have had some success at different levels over the years. Ideally, I don’t want to sell things as a career. It’s just not my thing. Selling jewelry was very much over for me at that moment.
The next morning at work (I don’t quit without notice… or a new job), I got a call from the recruiter that had connected me with Sprint. She told me Sprint had an additional position to fill for the first job I had been “overqualified” for and wanted me to start the following week. This happened 12 hours after I told me friend I didn’t want to sell jewelry any longer.
Three months into that position at Sprint, I was training the contractor they hired instead of me for the second (much higher paying) position and I later worked for that same manager in another role. Of course, I was recently laid off along with a lot of other folks at Sprint.com and now, I’m looking to do something meaningful.
Maybe I need to go see a good movie!
Even though I already decided to cancel my free credit report (some might call them a scam), they seem to think I am still a customer. In a perfect world (or in a well run company), when a customer cancels their account, they should be removed from marketing databases!
It may be a survey asking why I chose to leave, but the messaging here does not indicated the nature of the survey - only that they would like me to participate. Poorly messaged or mismanaged customer list, I am not impressed and woulnd’t take either excuse anyway.
Oh, and the unsubscribe link is a mailto instead of a web page. I smell spam.
vb:
mfs:
yes, I know this is a little tedious, cheesy or whatnot but I figured what the hell. I’d really like to see the people I tagged do this too, pretty please?
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
I was tagged by vb
- I take a lot of pictures of vanity plates.
- I was expelled from every school I attended before 12th grade.
- I made the principal’s list in 12th grade because I had a really hot teachers for English and Science that year.
- I was once a plumber. I am still frequently tempted to fix leaks and unclog drains.
- I made a lot of money in Multi Level Marketing but quit because it was a scam.
- I sold high end jewelry for a short while. Diamonds are also a scam.
- My desk at work is not at all clean or tidy. My desk at home is much worse. The rest of my house is really clean, but this is primarily due to housemates.
- I work for a fortune 100 company.
- I went to a KISS concert at age 9. That’s where it all started.
- My Dad tried to get me into photography throughout my childhood and, after ignoring the idea for most of my life, I now carry a camera phone and constantly take pictures and and “moblog” them as I go about my day. There’s actually another reason for this, but it’s as if I’m making up for lost time. My Dad looks at them all. He probably laughed really loud reading this.
- My first skateboard was made of wood and had wheels that were definitely not synthetic. I don’t think they even had ball bearings.
- I can play the guitar like ringin’ a bell.
- I love black olives on pizza. Bonus if they’re real Greek olives.
- I lived in the West Village for a while. Then Brooklyn, then UWS.
- I was a Mac hater until I got one. Now I only use a PC at work.
- I’ve never been tagged on one of these things and, not suprisingly, told myself they were dumb and I would never want to do it anyway… :-)
now it’s your turn, i am tagging:
johana, sethweisfeld, ariah, emilayyp, nixsantos, capriquarius, kenezra, bluddyellmiss, williac, EL*7, pandaface, crystallinelullaby, ginamon, beartist, lemonwater, marychrist
GPG Evian water. Dumb.are you in urban fare or capers? gimme all the kashi stuff on the cart behind this one!
Oh I saw this the other day too. It’s double the price of regular Evian. Unless someone is planning on collecting the bottles (which is stupid because someone will probably drink it accidentally) you they probably just buy Evian in the plastic bottle like the poors.
If you really want the “Collector’s Edition” bottles, I’ll let you know when the recycling day is in my neighbourhood and we can go on a dumpster diving date.
God. MARYLAND, right?This is about 3 blocks from my old house. weird. And might I had that North Bethesda is NOT A REAL PLACE. It’s just freaking Bethesda. I hate that.
I used to live there and it’s actually not even Bethesda… it’s Rockville! My address was “Rockville, MD” and the rental office where I lived, which was less than 100 steps from my apartment door had a “North Bethesda, MD” address. It’s a Dumb Doctor scam. People will pay more to live in “North Potomac” (where I also once lived even though it had been Gaithersburg for all my life before) and “North Bethesda” (which had also always been Rockville since I was a little hell raiser) than they will for the slummier areas (as if anything in MoCo is slummy… well, maybe a few blocks here and there).
</rant>
Thank God.: Gas is finally cheap-ish! Via iPhone.
I called this back in 2002-3, when gas prices first started to go nuts and approach $3 (in San Diego anyway). I remember telling people out there that it would swing wildly for a long time and finally settle somewhere around where it was then ($2.89ish) and the masses would be glad that it was “finally cheap” again.
Of course, this is just the “vote” scam/ploy that happens every year.
$3.50 will be the new “cheap” in 2009.
No offense to Floridians, but whenever I hear “Florida” in any kind of money situation, I automatically think SCAM. Of course, when somoene seems extremely eager to buy without even asking a single question, I’m suddenly and strangely happy for my long in the tooth status.
Can you imagine overnighting a nice item to someone only to have the Paypal payment reversed?
That’s gotta suck!
I don’t even know why I engaged “her” in a discussion. When I saw no Paypal account associated with “her” email address, I was already done.
Hopefully I’ll find an actual buyer. I haven’t turned my PC on since I got my MBP.
:-)
CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT POLITICAL PROPOSAL
Dear Sir
First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and “top secret”.
We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family’s political careers since our country has been frustrating us.
We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.
If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a “GAS TAX HOLIDAY”. You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money. Please supply your bank account, social security number, address and your vote in DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION.
But bear in mind that this transaction requires absolute confidentiality. Do not visit WWW.GASTAXSCAM.COM where there is information about dangers of our proposal and a petition to stop us from this diversion of funds.
PLEASE NOTIFY US URGENTLY OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PROPOSAL
Awaiting your rapid response
Yours truly
SENATORS HILLARY CLINTON AND JOHN MCCAIN
Wow, talk about a water scam! (waterscam.com link is down because Media Temple is down right now)
From The Lede, NYT Blog:
So how are all these drugs getting in the water in the first place? Some fraction of every dose a person takes passes through unmetabolized and is evacuated by the body and flushed into sewage systems. Sewage treatment plants are meant to remove the more familiar kinds of pollutants, and typically do not remove pharmaceuticals from waste water as it is cleaned up and released back into the environment, eventually to find its way into other water supply systems. In some places, treated sewage water is reused directly for drinking water after several filtration processes to make it safe, although none of the systems in wide use effectively remove pharmaceuticals.
That Brita filter in your kitchen is not likely to do the trick, either. As for bottled water, it, too, may come from a tap, rather than some remote mountain spring. And the trade group representing bottled-water sellers told The A.P. that they aren’t testing for the presence of trace drugs anyway.
Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonalds are the news of the day (since last night here in podunk, PA). The “news” is reporting on Walmart’s huge disounts on TV’s and the low priced menu at Mickey D’s. Oh and The Buck now has coffee… for a buck.
In other news, we may or may not already be in a recession.
But go buy a TV at Walmart, eat what they’re calling food ant McDonalds and stand in line at Starbucks for your morning fix.
