Blackjack is played with the same deck(s), and is therefore in fact vulnerable to card counting. To resist this without pissing off customers who like the tradition, most casinos now play blackjack out of a 6, 8, or 12 deck 'shoe', and shuffle when they get 50 or 75% through.
Except it's not that great of a post. The entire basis of their conclusion is a false dilemma. Why would spammer use their own money to pay for the spam when they can just use someone else's money and identity to do so?
The dilemma is not false if the price of spam has risen to 1c per spam. At that price, spam is a net loser. So if you have the following two choices:
1: I have a dollar, and you steal it from me, you net $1. 2: I have a dollar, and you steal it from me, and pay for 100 spams (1 cent each), yielding 10 cents in sales. You net 10 cents.
It will work even when it won't. Their long term costs of customer acquisition and loss make it a big loser for them to let you go, even if they collect the ETF.
They can absolutely not put any sort of black mark on your credit history for leaving them, assuming you pay all contractual obligations in full. So you might have to pay the bill and the ETF, but you can then leave free and clear, with nothing to worry about on your credit report.
I have tmobile now as it happens, and my experience with their call center customer support is terrible (but not as terrible as verizon/att). I have paid my bill monthly for over a year and never noticed the suggestion to msg #min#.... but their bills are like 15 pages long and full of stuff I can't spare the time to read.
I didn't say hard, I said not easy. Choose the appropriate opposite you'd like.
It seems like there is little doubt among most of the commenters that it could be better, and the primary reason for NOT doing better is to rip off consumers who aren't careful enough.
I'm pretty sure they just had a mechanism to cancel the overage for the month. One might suspect based on the ease with which it happens that they do this pretty regularly to soothe irate customers who are risking sales.
Well, we'd kill it in short order if it cost the spammers a consequential amount of money. Imagine if they had to pay a penny per spam sent. Spam would be largely gone tomorrow at that price.
Yeah, a website definitely does not qualify as easy, particularly with my non-web-enabled phone. The #MIN thing is closer, though. I suppose I could remember that, or program it on one of my speed dials, then try to remember to check once a day or something. It sure would be nicer if I didn't have to be proactive on yet one more thing in life, though.
I've had to do this with each of verizon, at&t, and tmobile on one occasion.
Just say you don't want to pay. Say it in person, imply you are going to jump carriers if they do not fix it. Go by during lunch or on a weekend when their store is busiest, and complain loudly enough that the other customers are going to watch them deal with your issue.
They will fix it for you, and they will be very polite and apologetic about the situation to avoid losing potential customers. I have had friends use this technique as well, and so far our attempts have a 100% success rate.
How many of the religious nuts survived Waco again? And the proposed scenario involved lonely slashdot loser vs trained FBI, a marginally different scenario, I admit.
Yeah, because the FBI sucks at finding good times to do these things. Good luck with that. They'll shoot you dead before you make it out your front door with your gun. Unless you happen to be that one navy seal who posts on slashdot, you lose in this confrontation.
Slashdot Mirror
Blackjack is played with the same deck(s), and is therefore in fact vulnerable to card counting. To resist this without pissing off customers who like the tradition, most casinos now play blackjack out of a 6, 8, or 12 deck 'shoe', and shuffle when they get 50 or 75% through.
http://www.blackjackhero.com/blackjack/terms/#shoe-game
Feel free to enumerate another choice, but remember, the premise is that every spam sent must cost more than it brings in in revenue.
Except it's not that great of a post. The entire basis of their conclusion is a false dilemma. Why would spammer use their own money to pay for the spam when they can just use someone else's money and identity to do so?
The dilemma is not false if the price of spam has risen to 1c per spam. At that price, spam is a net loser. So if you have the following two choices:
1: I have a dollar, and you steal it from me, you net $1.
2: I have a dollar, and you steal it from me, and pay for 100 spams (1 cent each), yielding 10 cents in sales. You net 10 cents.
Which do you choose?
Good point ... that's such a small percentage of people, though. Most of the people with bill surprises are just going over their minutes.
And what percentage of the time have you detected coyotes who wandered onto your property?
It will work even when it won't. Their long term costs of customer acquisition and loss make it a big loser for them to let you go, even if they collect the ETF.
You don't think the users will suddenly educate themselves when the $1000 spam bill comes in?
Thank you, this might be the first valuable AC post i've seen in the last 6 months.
They can absolutely not put any sort of black mark on your credit history for leaving them, assuming you pay all contractual obligations in full. So you might have to pay the bill and the ETF, but you can then leave free and clear, with nothing to worry about on your credit report.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure their back-end operators have a convenient 'cancel overages' button on the ui to deal with this situation.
I have tmobile now as it happens, and my experience with their call center customer support is terrible (but not as terrible as verizon/att). I have paid my bill monthly for over a year and never noticed the suggestion to msg #min# .... but their bills are like 15 pages long and full of stuff I can't spare the time to read.
I didn't say hard, I said not easy. Choose the appropriate opposite you'd like.
It seems like there is little doubt among most of the commenters that it could be better, and the primary reason for NOT doing better is to rip off consumers who aren't careful enough.
I was really just making fun of the gp for his ridiculous 'I can bet the fbi' claim.
I'm pretty sure they just had a mechanism to cancel the overage for the month. One might suspect based on the ease with which it happens that they do this pretty regularly to soothe irate customers who are risking sales.
So that would be an unlimited plan, priced at $500, right?
Overpriced. Every carrier will sell you an unlimited plan for less.
Well, we'd kill it in short order if it cost the spammers a consequential amount of money. Imagine if they had to pay a penny per spam sent. Spam would be largely gone tomorrow at that price.
Yeah, a website definitely does not qualify as easy, particularly with my non-web-enabled phone. The #MIN thing is closer, though. I suppose I could remember that, or program it on one of my speed dials, then try to remember to check once a day or something. It sure would be nicer if I didn't have to be proactive on yet one more thing in life, though.
I've had all 3 of the major carriers over the years, and have yet to have easy access to a minutes check feature.
I've had to do this with each of verizon, at&t, and tmobile on one occasion.
Just say you don't want to pay. Say it in person, imply you are going to jump carriers if they do not fix it. Go by during lunch or on a weekend when their store is busiest, and complain loudly enough that the other customers are going to watch them deal with your issue.
They will fix it for you, and they will be very polite and apologetic about the situation to avoid losing potential customers. I have had friends use this technique as well, and so far our attempts have a 100% success rate.
Yeah, those are things that intimidate the FBI. LOL.
How many of the religious nuts survived Waco again? And the proposed scenario involved lonely slashdot loser vs trained FBI, a marginally different scenario, I admit.
FBI agents are required to requalify quarterly. How often do you think the typical citizen maintains their skills?
I'd recommend you go look at the pictures of the device that have been posted. It will not be hard to recognize. And this is not a thing they can easily disguise, the biggest part of it is a battery.
http://www.google.com/images?q=fbi+tracking+device&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1600&bih=1047
I'm sure he will, he can sell it for a lot on ebay.
Yeah, because the FBI sucks at finding good times to do these things. Good luck with that. They'll shoot you dead before you make it out your front door with your gun. Unless you happen to be that one navy seal who posts on slashdot, you lose in this confrontation.