Getting Off the Grid --- Phone muted, Facebook deleted

[mundame]

It's not really a privacy issue, is it?

It's continual harassment, predatory hunting of the customer.

Nearly all our calls are sales calls, three and four reminders about service calls, and trick calls from MedStar or Comcast that call us but no one is there to speak when we pick up.

I finally had a moment of truth and realized I don't have to let these predators into my home, and we shut off the ringers! Now if there is a light blinking on the phone, Himself picks it up and listens to the message. I'm out: and it's such an incredible relief.

Same with Facebook. During these hearings, they sent me a message that I should wish my husband happy birthday on Facebook, this after I have "opted out" of messges like that maybe four times already in 2018 and maybe 7 times last year, but they don't pay any attention to that.

When I logged in, they said it was a very strange password and from a different location and blocked me! It was the same table and same computer I originally joined Facebook from, lo, these many years ago, so that made no sense, and they had prompted me to log in anyway. The ways to confirm my identity were very hard --- too hard. I had to give them my cell phone number to text a code (I never use it and don't text anyway) OR call up or visit three of five friends they gave me photos of and get them to all put a code in for me. That wasn't going to happen. I got help and we got in finally after a few days and I immediately deactivated my account. I never use it anyway. I should have deleted it, but they made it incredibly hard so I thought I'd do that later. I suppose that lets Facebook still count me as a customer.......bad decision. But hopefully that will stop the predatory emails.

Next stop: my Twitter account, years old, I never go there.

It's not the identity theft that is the problem in this "privacy" crisis. It's the continual battle by scammers, sellers, and stealers to get our attention 24/7 and talk us into sending them money. It can eat up our whole life, all our attention, for their benefit.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

It's not really a privacy issue, is it?

It's continual harassment, predatory hunting of the customer.

Nearly all our calls are sales calls, three and four reminders about service calls, and trick calls from MedStar or Comcast that call us but no one is there to speak when we pick up.

I finally had a moment of truth and realized I don't have to let these predators into my home, and we shut off the ringers! Now if there is a light blinking on the phone, Himself picks it up and listens to the message. I'm out: and it's such an incredible relief.

Same with Facebook. During these hearings, they sent me a message that I should wish my husband happy birthday on Facebook, this after I have "opted out" of messges like that maybe four times already in 2018 and maybe 7 times last year, but they don't pay any attention to that.

When I logged in, they said it was a very strange password and from a different location and blocked me! It was the same table and same computer I originally joined Facebook from, lo, these many years ago, so that made no sense, and they had prompted me to log in anyway. The ways to confirm my identity were very hard --- too hard. I had to give them my cell phone number to text a code (I never use it and don't text anyway) OR call up or visit three of five friends they gave me photos of and get them to all put a code in for me. That wasn't going to happen. I got help and we got in finally after a few days and I immediately deactivated my account. I never use it anyway. I should have deleted it, but they made it incredibly hard so I thought I'd do that later. I suppose that lets Facebook still count me as a customer.......bad decision. But hopefully that will stop the predatory emails.

Next stop: my Twitter account, years old, I never go there.

It's not the identity theft that is the problem in this "privacy" crisis. It's the continual battle by scammers, sellers, and stealers to get our attention 24/7 and talk us into sending them money. It can eat up our whole life, all our attention, for their benefit.

I'm on facebook, and everything they REQUIRED me to fill out is a LIE, my birthday, my location, even my name. It's abbreviated. I put my birthday as APRIL FOOLS DAY, and the wrong year, and my location is Reno, and there's not a single picture of me on there. Same with twitter, I have a totally fake name on there and nothing else filled in, and I have a yahoo email account that I use for just such things that require one that I never check or use. Let them data mine that. Two can play this game. Even my IP address shows me in a town 45 miles away from where I am, and not by my doing, it's where my cable comes from.

[Elessar]

I hear you loud and clear, @mundame!

I get so may calls on the landline that I cannot get to, only to see a number
I do not recognize, no caller identified, and if I call it back - get nothing.

Most calls I do pick up are just as you said, someone wants money (donate) or me to 'upgrade'
what I have.

Messages left by someone I do not know that rarely make much sense anyway...

I told those important to me that my cell phone is discontinued and to use the landline.
I needed it when I could be recalled 24/7, but have no need of it any longer.
But where Mom lived the last years of her life, they kept calling the damn cell, even
though I told them 8 times to call the house.

Facebook...the only reason I use is it to reply to some news forums.
I get really annoyed at getting messages copied and sent to me all day.
My E-mail gets flooded up to 65 messages a day. Tried to stop the flow
but yet they still come.

Never had 'Twitter', Thank Gawd!

[mundame]

I'm on facebook, and everything they REQUIRED me to fill out is a LIE, my birthday, my location, even my name. It's abbreviated. I put my birthday as APRIL FOOLS DAY, and the wrong year, and my location is Reno, and there's not a single picture of me on there. Same with twitter, I have a totally fake name on there and nothing else filled in, and I have a yahoo email account that I use for just such things that require one that I never check or use. Let them data mine that. Two can play this game. Even my IP address shows me in a town 45 miles away from where I am, and not by my doing, it's where my cable comes from.

Yeah, my husband does a lot of that. His Facebook user photo is an abstract line design. His name is in another language. I played by the rules, more fool me, except for the phone number (I only use an antique work number from an Army base years ago). I am perfectly sure that if I ever give out my real number, gazillions of MORE spam calls will start.

I was doing some of that give photo-all vital statistics- for awhile when they all started to demand it: they wanted it for their evil spamming business plans. They said it was for accountability, terrorism and so on, fooled me, but I've got it now. It's to build huge databases on each of us. You know those quizzes Google puts on country newpapers before you can read the article? Each one seems innocuous, but after you fill in a hundred or more, I realized, Google knows a whole lot about you to sell. I delete every such paper from my Google News feed. I don't shop where they demand my phone number, birthdate, etc. Radio Shack started that, but were before their time. I don't shop where they harass me ever time I go in to fill out a long, long, long database form for a "loyalty card," and then tell me how stupid I am because I won't do it --- I have had cashier clerks say, "Don't you realize you'll miss the sales if you don't have our card?" I'll miss the sales because I won't go in there if they harass me --- hey, that's a pretty good line, I may say that next time it happens.

The point of the huge databases is so they can better do continual, nonstop harassment. Buy, buy, buy, contribute, support, buy, buy. I think older people grew up when other people had a sort of right to their attention, if someone knocked on the door or called on the phone, we were SUPPOSED to answer. My big moment of truth was when I realized, I don't have to open my door or answer that phone! They don't deserve that from me! They have no right to come into my home and prey on me.

[Elessar]

One thing I hate is the 'Pre-Approved" Credit cards! I ended up shredding the mail and
sending it back that way, telling them to knock it off.

If the original is intercepted, someone can easily use the darn thing in YOUR name, i.e.,
Identity Theft. AARP got their membership card cut in half and mailed back to them
because they would not stop sending that garbage.

Capital One was sending me 'pre-approved' offers upwards of 4 times a month. I wrote to them to
stop. It kept coming. Then I called them and after a 20 minute wait was told it would take a few
weeks to cease when the database caught up! WTF? That is horse-pockey! I was given the option
to go on-line and request...so I did!

First screen was "Enter Your Social Security Number" Bullshit! That is illegal!

So I called them again and advised them requesting an SSAN is ILLEGAL and I would
get legal and Law Enforcement (FEDS) involved. I stopped getting the offers from
them after that!

[LongTermGuy]

Only Twitter for me....Many Patriots there...and need info.


`Personal info` is only an Illusion and not real....even IP floats / Masks...Good software is worth the money...

[Taco Junkie]

My landline is where I send anyone that I see as a possible bother in the future. Then I never answer it. The caller ID comes up on my tv screen so I'll know if anyone worthwhile ever calls. Anyone that doesn't leave a message I block the caller. Same for repeat nuisance callers.

My whole family is on Fuckbook so that and it's socialist politics makes it an easy decision to not have an account there. I convinced the wife we'd get computer viruses if we're on that.

Twitter is too much crappola too. I really don't care about the last time Mark Cuban dropped a deuce or what some halfwit athlete or lesser brained Bollywood type thinks about anything. They confuse fame with intelligence.

[mundame]

My husband just told me his daughter posted this (okay, on Facebook...) ---

You know those quizzes about what Star Trek character you are, or are you more liberal or more conservative? Turns out they of course don't care about your score: they store all the answers on your personal database file, which they have of everyone they can catch. So they have a LOT of info on anyone who takes those quizzes, and I have taken a few.

Those Google quizzes before you can read a news item are the same: data collection. You take 50 of those and they know all about you and store it forever and sell it. I suppose Google pays the newspapers for this forced access to their readers' data. I never cooperate with that -- that one I did figure out, but I was surprised about the "joke" Star Trek quizzes and such.

If you think about all the quizzes we have taken, they totally know how everyone is going to vote. You'd think the polls would be better. Pollsters must not buy the data; they should. Sampling clearly (!) doesn't work.

[pizza_pablo]

I used to be concerned with this, then the office of personnel management, gave their data base security to the lowest bidder and my whole life history, background checks and info on friends and relatives was compromised. Probably to the Chinese or dark web...or worse.
What's the point in caring, now?