A Question About America.

[Paul]

If you were given a partial address of someone as "Broomstown CA" am I correct in assuming CA stands for California? And if not, what does it stand for?

I ask because some company is not only selling my details, but they are making up an entirely fake American identity for me (I am British) presumably because that makes me more saleable. I am trying to find out who and why they are doing this. (Well, I know why: For profit. But I am trying to work out how they make money from this as I am not actually American.)

[iolaire]

Yes that’s the state abbreviation.  How do you know they are selling your info? 

If it’s something via email you might have an idiot using your email instead of theirs. My wife gets all kinds of shopping receipts and African American dating site emails because she has a nice short email and others probably leave off the extra numbers they have on the same base words.

[Paul]

How do you know they are selling your info

I do surveys for pin money, signed up for several companies. Sometimes I get emails from other companies offering me money to do their survey. Most are American companies, and about 70% of the time the survey gets pulled during the initial vetting procedure, and I get a snippy message telling them that I claimed to be American, but my answers indicate British. The CA address I got from one of these when I sent a reply to the message, who said I signed up with that address. (The only address I ever signed up with, is my true British address, I want them to send me my money, so why would I use a fictitious one?).

[Paul]

And my email address is unique enough that no one could use it by accident (It is the name of one episode of a British TV show from 1963, and it is not a word, it is a collection of letters and numbers).

[iolaire]

The CA address I got from one of these when I sent a reply to the message, who said I signed up with that address. (The only address I ever signed up with, is my true British address, I want them to send me my money, so why would I use a fictitious one?).

Probably some affiliate that made up data to forward your lead to the survey company so they would get paid.  The affiliates market things and get paid for the leads.  Lots of fraud opportunities there.

[Riki]

I got an email the day before yesterday from Planet Fitness that said it held my membership agreement.  I thought that odd, as I don't have a Planet Fitness membership, and there isn't one in the province.  I'm not even sure they're in Canada.  I opened it, just to see what it was.  I was thinking that maybe someone had set something up in my name and was trying to scam me somehow.  The email was from a specific Planet Fitness location in Manhattan and it had all the contact information for some 18 year old kid, and it somehow has my email address attached to it.  I had everything I needed to cause that kid some trouble, his full name, his address, his date of birth, his phone number.  I told my friend who lives in NYC about the email and since she's a member at that location as well, she called them.  I was able to give her the membership number on the account, and she tried to tell them that the email address on the account was incorrect.  She said that the fellow she talked to was a bit on the dumb side.  Hopefully they will contact the kid and get the correct email address.  I deleted the email.  What was weird about it to me, his address in NY was incredibly close to the address of the house I grew up in here on PEI.  I'm hoping that's just coincidence.

[Charlie B53]

Mailing lists, be it street address or email, are money, regularly being sold all around the world.  Much the same is also happening with phone lists.  Telemarketers are not only using the phone, but stuffing email boxes and snail mail boxes.

Missouri Congreelady is trying to put some bite back into the Do Not Call laws but I seriously doubt she will get very far.  Once upon a time the Do Not Call law had teeth but loobyists wined and dined legislators, paid for junkets, and ammended the law so to allows calls IF the call included an Opt-Out option, usually included near the very end of the call.  Who's going to sit through one of these calls waiting to push the right button to get them to stop?

I say for everyone to Vote OUT all career Politicians.

[lulu836]

There is a bit of wisdom on the net that says: "Don't mess with senior citizens.........they have nothing to lose!".  In the spirit of that and because I agree wholeheartedly with the premise I try to do my part every time I get someone else's email.  I ANSWER IT!  Merchandise receipts and membership confirmations are the most fun of any.  On the purchase receipts I normally cancel the purchase and request my money back.  On the memberships it's fun to cancel the membership and ask for a cancellation confirmation.  The fall out from both activities and the confusion can keep me entertained for at least a week.

[iolaire]

There is a bit of wisdom on the net that says: "Don't mess with senior citizens.........they have nothing to lose!".  In the spirit of that and because I agree wholeheartedly with the premise I try to do my part every time I get someone else's email.  I ANSWER IT!  Merchandise receipts and membership confirmations are the most fun of any.  On the purchase receipts I normally cancel the purchase and request my money back.  On the memberships it's fun to cancel the membership and ask for a cancellation confirmation.  The fall out from both activities and the confusion can keep me entertained for at least a week.

My wife gets lots of email confirmations for shopping and dating sites on her Gmail account.  She got a nice six character email address including the word girl in it plus a two letter state abbreviation so its used by others often. 

She is nice enough to no cancel (or redirect) the orders from Coach or QVC but she does unsubscribe from the various Black dating sites that people sign up for with her email. (She is of German and Porto Rican decent and still married to me after 17+ years so I don't think she signs up for those accounts herself.)

But I completely understand why someone might enjoy messing with people who don't know their own email address...

[Riki]

There is a bit of wisdom on the net that says: "Don't mess with senior citizens.........they have nothing to lose!".  In the spirit of that and because I agree wholeheartedly with the premise I try to do my part every time I get someone else's email.  I ANSWER IT!  Merchandise receipts and membership confirmations are the most fun of any.  On the purchase receipts I normally cancel the purchase and request my money back.  On the memberships it's fun to cancel the membership and ask for a cancellation confirmation.  The fall out from both activities and the confusion can keep me entertained for at least a week.

Years ago, my grandfather got one of those cards in the mail that said you won a million dollars and to call the number to claim your winnings.  He called, and they told him that he needed to pay $1000 to send the money.  He told them to take it out of his winnings and send him the rest. 

My grandmother, not to be outdone by her husband, got a call from one of the scammers who tell you that they are from Windows tech support and they said that there was a virus on her computer.  She didn't have a computer.  My grandfather had had one, but after he died, she gave it to one of my cousins and turned the internet off.  They kept saying that she needed to get in front of her computer.  She kept telling them that she didn't have a computer.  They said, "you must have one.  What about a laptop?"  She said, "well, I have a TV."  They hung up.

My grandparents were awesome

[Michael Murphy]

With trump and his republican lackeys ending net neutrality American Internet Service Providers can and are selling all kinds of data they harvest from your home network connection.  I avoid this by paying for a vpn service which provides a encrypted link to the vpn server so my information is hidden from Verizon and Spectrum my two ISP vendors.

[Rerun]

Paul, Please post anything that MAY go political in the Politics Subject.  Some people just can't keep their Beak Shut!

Thank you,

Rerun, Admin.

[Paul]

Exactly how was I supposed to guess that asking if CA stands for California would get political???

[Rerun]

     I guess your right!