Scammers

 

Although I've used craigslist before with no problems, I've now had two bad experiences, one as a buyer and one as a seller.

I previously wrote about the seller who was a fraud and cost me a large amount of money in 2024.

Now, a buyer has tried to cheat me. It was close, but I avoided this one:

Someone replied to a craigslist ad I posted, sent a large check so I could pay $2190 to the person who was going to pick up my item and transport it to another state. 

The buyer kept pushing to speed this all up, but fortunately, I waited long enough to see my bank reporting that the check was bad!

Where's the fiber optic line to my door? ('06)

(Click the image to enlarge it.)

Still infuriatingly true! The text below is from 2006, but the graphic above is from Feb. 2010.

Link: $200 Billion Broadband Scandal

From the free book Broadband Scandal:

The Bell Companies never delivered symmetrical fiber-optic connectivity to millions of Americans though they were paid more than $200 billion to do it.

During the buildup to the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the major U.S. telcos promised to deliver fiber to 86 million households by 2006 (we’re talking about fiber to the home, here). They asked for, and were given, some $200 billion in tax cuts and other incentives to pay for it. But the Bells didn’t spend that money on fiber upgrades — they spent it on long distance, wireless and inferior DSL services. Some headlines from Kushnick’s work:

• By 2006, 86 million households should have been rewired with a fiber optic wire, capable of 45 Mbps, in both directions.
  

• The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.
  

• The World is Laughing at US. Korea and Japan have 100 Mbps services as standard, and America could have been Number One had the phone companies actually delivered. Instead, we are 16th in broadband and falling in technology dominance.
  

Increase gas taxes ('08)

I sent this letter to the LATimes in April 2008 (not published):

What is with these once responsible Republicans? We have an enormous deficit, we're fighting costly wars, we're importing increasing amounts of increasingly costly foreign oil that's subsidizing our enemies, we're confronting global warming, and McCain wants a gas tax vacation? Could he be any more irresponsible? Talk about buying votes!

Plutocracy ('07)

I sent this letter to the LATimes in July 2007 (not published):

I'm not as optimistic as Brooks. She believes the Bush era
will "seem like a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude
in American history." I fear that this new, more brazen American
plutocracy will endure.

Corporations own both the politicians and the media. The amoral
politicians care only about getting re-elected, and their cagey
advisors excite voters over trivial issues. The profit-driven media
play along.

And finally, without any sustained outrage from their leaders or
their news, the populace stays just barely too fat, dumb,
entertained and distracted to care.

Buying votes ('04)

Draft letter (not sent) in March 2004:

Dubyah's and Ahnold's latest approval ratings leave me with one question. Why is it illegal to buy votes with cash, but not with tax cuts that make no fiscal sense?