Total Motorcycle Community Forums

pinger05 wrote:

CNF2002 wrote:[
Same kind of folks are the ones who sign up for these stupid store credit cards so they can save 10%.

I do that and when the first bill arrives I cancel the card.

Did you know every time you sign up for a card it completely changes your debt to income ratio? Usually for the worse...having high balance open lines of credit can lower your score. You also often have to submit your cancellation in writing, several times - and always by certified mail, because often they will not comply. And then you have to get your credit report frequently to verify that its been cancelled, and make sure that they specified "cancelled by consumer" and not by the lender. That can be a real struggle sometimes. Plus, they want you to keep the card and will often keep you on the phone for 20 minutes with you screaming at them at the end just to cancel! I once had to threaten to report the CSR to his supervisor because he refused to give me the address of the department where I had to send my cancellation letter! Whether or not you cancel, those credit cards still show up on your credit report...showing that you often 'card hop', which also lowers your score and looks bad to lenders. And every time a hard hit is made to your credit (like when you sign up for the cards) it counts against you and lowers your score. So when you really need to finance something, like a car, you might end up paying a fraction or 1% higher because of all the store cards you signed up for and cancelled, costing you hundreds or thousands of dollars in the long-run.

Hows that 10% discount looking now?

I never owned a cell phone and don't plan to until they can actually carry calls. I swear around here about 50% of the calls get dropped.

One bad thing about the popularity of cell phones is that it's increasingly difficult to find pay phones now.

Yeah payphones suddenly disappeared. Shame too because if you're in an area with a power outage and no landline, you're out of luck.

Motorola Star-TAC...Best phone EVER. And the reason companies don't allow you to activate older phones is because they can't be 'tracked' or 'traced', so you can

pay phones went away here a long time before cell phones.the dopies tore all of them up to get the money out of them for some crack.

pay phones are a threat to national security.

Payphones are used by terrorists(tm)!!!!!!!

I dont know enough people to own a cell phone, and they dont work up here well anyways... you should see the coverage map for all the carriers..its stupid. the phoens work in town, then have a dead zone for about 3 hours in any direction. there is supposed to be a corridor along the highway, but it isnt there

dieziege wrote:pay phones are a threat to national security.

Explain that one to me!

Payphones were often used for damaging communications. For example, in 1991 Phil Zimmerman's PGP encryption software was distributed via payphone.

"The NSA’s worst nightmare:
Phil Zimmerman’s PGP software in 1991
Within 24 hours of release, people world-wide are using
PGP
Almost stifled by hidden legislation in Senate Bill 266
Which required that plaintext versions of any
communication be available to the feds
Eventually withdrawn (after PGP release) due to public
opposition
Uploaded to US web servers only
Actually done by Kelly Goen by driving from payphone to
payphone in the Bay Area."
Quoted from "History of US Export Laws" PDF http://www.sstorie.com/school/cs4821/ex ... tation.pdf

Note that this release was completely legal, but led to Phil Zimmerman's arrest (he was later released because no crime was comitted...the arrest was an attempt to cause fear and stifle future personal security software development).

Additionally, payphones were used by drug dealers to warn them about potential busts (dealers would deal near a payphone...if it rang, they'd leave). Payphones no longer accept incoming calls (which was a very handy feature) because of this.

In general they were too anonymous for Law Enforcement's comfort.