Caribbean Cruise scam
Tuesday January 3, 2012
At 11:30am, I get a call from an unknown number and am asked to complete an automated survey over the phone. I’m promised a free Caribbean Cruise as a prize. I didn’t have a mirror in front of me at the time, but when I heard that, I’d wager that my face lit up like fireworks on the fourth of July. Not because I love Caribbean Cruises, but because I love scams.
The survey proceeds. I’m asked to rate Congress’ handling of the debt crisis, from 1 to 5, on my keypad. Then, the same thing for the Republican Party, and then the President. Only three questions, the bar is set pretty low here. I’ve been asked twenty questions about the Time Warner service guy who connected our internet. My guess is that they don’t even record the numbers that people enter, the information seems too superficial to have any value. Also, I tried to give the President a 2 (because I’m a softie), instead of the 1’s I gave to Congress and the Republicans, but the survey wouldn’t let me, it just kept repeating the question till I pressed 1. The survey designers must have figured they knew the answers already and didn’t bother writing code to handle other responses.
The phone starts ringing on the other end and I’m connected. A few seconds of office noise and then a guy says, “Hello, how may I help you?” I love these call centers. It reminds me of infomercials that have a countdown timer, “Call in the next 30 seconds and we’ll throw in a FREE julienne fry slicer”. Like there’s some big, New Year’s Eve style countdown timer in their office and everyone is at their battle stations awaiting the massive influx of calls. Then when you call, an employee at a generic call fulfillment center answers despondently and can’t even find the original product you wanted to order in their system.
“I received a call that told me I was entitled to a free cruise. I’m very skeptical about getting a free cruise for pressing 1 three times, so mostly I’m staying on the line for the entertainment value” The guy doesn’t miss a beat. He introduces himself as Ernest and starts reading his speech.
“We’re running a promotion where we give away free cruises in exchange for people telling their friends and family about our cruise line. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Sure.”
“We’re going to send you on a 2 day, 2 night cruise to the Bahamas. All expenses paid. The only thing you have to pay for is a small, government-required, port tax and alcohol on the cruise […]” There’s the catch I was waiting for. He goes on for another few minutes talking about how great the cruise is and how beautiful Grand Bahama is. How if I win money on the ship’s casino to remember who set me up with the trip. Sure, Ernest. Finally, it’s revealed that the port tax is $59 per person, there’s a two person minimum, and that the tax has to be paid today. So, the free cruise now costs $118 dollars and I have to provide my own transportation to get to Palm Beach, Florida. When I say I don’t have the money, his supervisor, Raul, gets on the phone.
“Sir, I understand that you like our cruise, but there is a financial issue. We can put the fees on a credit card. Or we can call someone in your family to pay the fees for you.” Oh, that’s exactly what I want, to give out a phone number of someone I care about so grifters can call and ask for money. I’ve exhausted the enjoyment I can get from the call. I thank him for his time and I hang up.
I figure this scam is two pronged. The first part of it uses rebate economics. They plan on some portion of the people who pay the fees never actually going on the cruise. The same way that some (most?) people never send in the rebates on that “free” stack of CD-Rs from CompUSA. They make a tidy 100% profit in this case. The second part of the scam is that even if you do go on the cruise, and even if the port tax fee does goes directly to the government, you’ll probably wind up spending money on alcohol, so they’re still making money off of you. In this scenario, you may get a genuine discount on the cruise, and so it’s less of a scam, but then again, there may be other tricks up their sleeves to absorb your sucker money. Not to mention your phone number will forever be etched in their little black book of chumps.
Thank you, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. You made my day. I really love bearing witness to naked greed and deception. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but it just soothes my soul.
World ending tomorrow
Friday May 20, 2011
Tomorrow, May 21, 2011 is Judgement Day.
On this day, arrived at through a series of Bible-based calculations that assume the world will end exactly 7,000 years after Noah’s flood, believers are to be teleported up to heaven (a process known as the rapture) as a worldwide earthquake strikes. Nonbelievers will endure five months of plagues, quakes, wars, famine and general torment before the planet’s total destruction in October.
Harold Camping is sure of it. Camping, a civil engineer turned self-taught biblical scholar and owner of the Family Radio network, as worked for years to spread this message to as many as possible, so that they might be saved.
In 1992 Mr. Camping said the rapture would probably be in 1994, but he now says newer evidence makes the prophecy for this year certain.
Osama bin Laden killed by Dog
Wednesday May 18, 2011
In the raid on Osama bin Laden, 79 commandos and a dog were involved.
Those commandos might as well have stayed home, because it was the dog that did all the work. A dog with titanium teeth.
The dog that started it all has been identified — or so we think. The canine member of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 that took down Osama bin Laden — a Belgian Malinois who answers to the name of Cairo — reportedly met with President Barack Obama behind closed doors last week.
Cairo is the result of a program where elite U.S. Navy SEALS train heavily armoured bulletproof dogs equipped with infrared nightsight cameras and an ‘intruder communication system’ able to penetrate concrete walls. The most dramatic change the dogs undergo involves replacing their natural teeth with titanium implants, at a rumored cost of $2000 per tooth. This practice has come under scrutiny recently, with PETA calling to have the procedure banned. Alex Dunbar, director of the training program, defends it, saying, “Titanium teeth: 1, Terrorists: 0. The results speak for themselves.”
The training aims to hone “controlled aggressiveness” in which the dog is “taught to find a suspect or hostile person in a building or open area; to attack, without command, someone who is attacking its handler; to cease an attack upon command at any point after an attack command has been given…” Make no mistake, these animals can be lethal weapons: “The average German Shepherd’s bite exerts between 400 and 700 pounds of pressure.” 700 pounds of pressure that imploded Osama’s terrorist skull.
Ape eats woman's face
Friday November 13, 2009
This woman, Sandy Herold
was having sex with this chimp, named Travis.
Her friend, Charla Nash, came over and interrupted the coitus.
Travis doesn’t take any shit; he ate Charla’s face and hands off.
The police shot Travis dead, and now neither Sandy nor Charla have a reason to live.
Keyboard Cat owner is douchebag
Tuesday June 9, 2009
Recently, “Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat” by Brad O’Farrell, the video that made the Keyboard Cat famous, was REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE We, here at The Real Truth, have incontrovertible evidence that Charlie Schmidt, owner of the Keyboard Cat (and complete fucking asshole) is the man responsible.
PLAY HIM OFF, KEYBOARD CAT – Brad O’Farrell
Backstory: Charlie Schmidt (asshole) uploaded footage of his cat, Fatso, “playing” a piano, on youtube. Brad O’Farrell took his footage, edited it, and combined it with another video of a man falling down an escalator. Brad’s video was very successful, spawning thousands of copycat videos and generating hundreds of thousands of hits on youtube. Brad even had a site for Keyboard Cat where he has a prominent link to Charlie’s site and the original video of Fatso. Recently, Brad’s video was removed from YouTube due to terms of use violation
Here’s what happened. Charlie (fuck face) was pissed that he filmed the original footage, but he wasn’t the one getting all the attention. So he has YouTube remove Brad’s video so his video will be #1 when someone searches keyboard cat on youtube He doesn’t even need a legitimate case. It’s easy to get something removed from YouTube and essentially impossible to get it reversed.
This is total bullshit!
Just watch Charlie’s original video all the way through to get a sense of his personality. It starts good, but in the second half of the video, you just feel bad for Fatso and it kind of ruins everything.
CHARLIE SCHMIDTS "COOL CAT" – Charlie Schmidt
UPDATE Nov 2011: Charlie Schmidt has taken over Brad’s playhimoffkeyboardcat.com site. It keeps getting worse.