You should just have forked out the extra amount for the business package. I just had Comcast out today, upgrading my 8/1 connection to 50/10. 5 static IPs, no port blocking, no throttling.
Right, twitter, to quote you, we "DESERVE UNIVERSAL ACCESS to ALL... ENTERTAINMENT". Excuse me, who the fuck are you? You deserve free access to a product that might have cost someone a hundred million dollars to produce?
You might have a better argument with knowledge. But no, you do not have a fundamental right to be entertained at someone else's expense. Sorry.
See how they spin
And you would know. You're fairly well traversed in the area of spin.
Exactly. I get sick of listening to Mac-heads laughing at the stupidity of Windows users installing Bonzi Buddy, because apparently Mac users have some genetic immunity to Bonzi Buddy for Mac (yes, I realize it doesn't exist, per se).
Because the merchant agreement specifically states that they are not to use the "Ask For ID" thing as a credit card processing mechanism. In fact they can have their merchant account revoked if sufficient complaints are received about requesting ID for CC transactions and not others (though I know in your case you're asking for it).
TECHNICALLY, under YOUR agreement with Mastercard, Visa, or Amex, NOT signing your card with your signature is a breach of your cardholder agreement. In fact (though granted, in practice rarely), Visa requires merchants who come across an unsigned / ASK FOR ID card are supposed to not finish the transaction until the card is signed. If you refuse to sign, at least up until recently, the last time I looked at a merchant contract, they're meant to retain your card (uh oh, you do remember the clause in your cardholder agreement that states that the card remains the property of the issuer, not you, right?).
Just make sure you do it as a "discount for cash", not a "fee for CCs". The former, your merchant account is fine, the latter, you can be severely slapped. And by slapped I mean a fine levied by your merchant provider / revocation of your merchant facility.
Yeah, that's an awkward one - on one hand if it was a mom and pop that relied on repeat business, you could play the "keeps our merchant fees down, we pass the savings on to you!" card, but that's dubious.
Not quite. The merchant agreement typically states that the merchant cannot use ID to validate the identity ONLY for card purchases. If they check ID for check purchases, too, they'd typically be free to do so. It's essentially "you cannot do anything that makes it more inconvenient to the customer to purchase via our card than via other methods".
The very same reason explains why a non-insured chiro visit by my wife costs $45, but an insured chiro visit for the same treatment costs $135, with a $30 co-pay.
Big hint: the insurance company isn't eating that $90 out of the goodness of its heart.
You highlight one of the big problems with healthcare in the US. We buy health INSURANCE, but we're not getting INSURANCE, we're getting some sort of hybrid, bastardized model. As you said, you insure against a risk, known or unknown. In the pure sense, the insurer has put its actuaries to work, looking at the statistics, the populations, so on and so forth, and offers you a price to insure against that risk. You then debate the value of that to you and accept or decline.
However, we don't have that. We have "insurance" which covers limitations on service, co-pays, scheduled/regular checkups (you're not insuring here, at all, you're amortizing known costs, and usually at a premium - if you think that the cost for said service is $x a year, you would be silly to believe that this constitutes $x/12 a month of your insurance bill - the insurer is providing you credit, and they ARE charging you for it. However, just try to remove that component...).
Say I have medical coverage for $500/month, that is materially identical in coverage to this new plan I'm considering, which is $480 a month (other than, obviously, the out of pocket expense). Say I'm being treated for an ongoing condition. Currently, if I change to this new provider, I get slapped with a waiting period. Why? Statistics and probability doesn't work like that. The insurer is having his cake and eating it too. The probability of my having that condition has not changed as a result of of my changing provider. Waiting periods should ONLY be applied where there is a DIFFERENCE in coverage, AND that condition is the specific condition being treated. (And even then, it's a gray area of 'known existing' conditions).
A lawyer is, first and foremost, an officer of the court. If the lawyer knows that his client committed an offense, and pleads not guilty, under most laws and bars, that would be grounds for sanctions, if not charges, "I swear under penalty of perjury that I believe the above to be true", and disbarrment - of course, you could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of lawyers who've been sanctioned for pleading not guilty for a client that they know to be guilty of the crimes as charged.
17 of the companies listed have offices in those countries despite doing no business there, so the "requirements of local government" go out the window.
For some of those other countries, the "local office" requirement was made at the behest of their banks, because they were scared that they'd lose the business of some of these companies when other countries introduced restrictions on the use of tax havens.
You'll notice that for many of these companies that supposedly do do business in those countries, the only address you'll find for them in the country will be, curiously enough, also the address for their lawyers in that country, or their accountants, and they'll only have one employee, who is actually "on part time secondment", curiously enough, from said lawyer or accountancy.
For GM/Chrysler, that means building green/ethanol vehicles (even if nobody wants them anymore).
Which is, of course, why the waiting list for the Prius is currently at four months and growing, and yet there's no waiting list for a Chevy Silverado, etc?
Nothing in this report says the companies do no business in the "tax haven" countries.
So, in other words, you didn't actually read the report. Just skimmed through, and then immediately jumped on Slashdot to slap someone down. From said report:
The GAO found 17 companies with no business in tax-haven locales, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, United Parcel Service, Verizon, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman.
They don't like to type it in. They get uppity, or their POS system does, and start wanting to verify your ID in case its a fraudulent card. Then they'll ask you to pay with an alternate method, and then they'll type in your card number.
What I do care about is being friendly and helpful with logistics (delivery of the flat-screen TV) or returns / exchanges for defective parts. A few online companies are absolutely fantastic with this (Amazon, etc.)
Amazon have gone a little off the rails, to my mind... I used to feed them gluttonously. Purchases, Amazon Prime, spend hours honing my "recommendations".
Then my wife decided she'd buy me an Epson Stylus Photo R1800 for Christmas (great printer btw). What a travesty.
She signed up for an Amazon card. Approved with an initial limit of $400, or so. Fine. Pay the balance on a second card. Oh no, you can't do that. You'll have to buy a gift certificate. If we must, sure. All good, we think.
An hour later - "Your card has been declined". Uhh? You just issued me a card with a $400 limit, I charged $400 to it and it's declined?
On the phone to Amazon: sure enough, they put a $1 pre-auth on the card, so $399 is the balance. Are they able to do something about that in the interim, so I can get my Christmas present. "Oh no, you'll have to speak to the bank."
Uhh.
More screwing around on Chase's (Amazon Visa provider) part about doing something about it. End result, no can do. Fine.
Problem. Card charge still not going to be approved. We have to cancel order, on phone with Amazon support.
We then cannot re-order because the system has "forgotten" that we have an Amazon Visa card (you don't get access to the actual 16 digit number until you receive the physical card), but eventually someone works something out, is able to re-do things. We have to buy a SECOND gift card to cover this discrepancy, and in conjunction with the CSR , we re-order the printer. Yay.
Or not. An hour later, "Your card was declined." Manage to get through again, of course, another pre-auth. "Available balance: $398". Ye gods.
Back on the phone with Amazon (this was now the next day). We go to place the order with the CSR working through these issues on the phone. Problem. Item is coming from external merchant (seems like almost everything does these days, even books). When we placed the order? Shipping would be fine for Christmas. Now? Big warning: "Your product is unlikely to arrive until Dec 26 or later".
Gah.
Amazon CSR and CSR manager's helpful suggestion?
We, as the customer, not Amazon, email the merchant, and ask that they expedite shipping, at their expense, for an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with them, other than their choice of Amazon as an outlet for their products. Not that Amazon ask them, or cover the shipping upgrade themselves (they flat out refused that, though they acknowledged that the system in place a) did not account for the fact that someone might actually use their new account straight away, and b) that imperfections in the system caused us to spend two days trying to get this printer ordered through them).
So here I am, writing a humble email saying etc, etc, that it wasn't their fault, blah blah blah.
Of course, in the intervening time, the CSR has recreated the order, and I eventually get an email from the confused merchant who asks "I can't see your order in our system, why are you asking us to pay expedited shipping for a problem that isn't our fault, when you're not actually buying a printer from us?"
Amazon CSR had found another merchant who could deliver by Christmas and re-placed the order... but for the fact that that would be $40 more in shipping - not that they were intending to pay.
Long story short? I got the printer - and it is gorgeous - for Christmas, by Christms...
Google providing compensation for federal and state issues to only LGBT employees would last a good hour or so before someone raced, rightly, to a lawyer and sued them for sexual discrimination (even if such discrimination was done in the "spirit" of equality).
I think the problem is with the word "marriage". To me and many others, marriage is a religious thing. Since religion has no place in government, I think the government should get out of the business of marriage altogether! I would be perfectly happy getting married by my pastor and having the government recognize my marriage as a "civil union". Civil unions can be between any two people who are willing to share in the responsibility of what we now call marriage.
And that in itself is part of the problem. Marriage is a concept within most religions, it is not a concept, nor a word, created by religions. It has existed since well before the time of the (typically Christian) religions that rail against it being anything other than a ceremony in a church, before a pastor and God, between a male virgin and female virgin. (Apropos of homosexuality, many religious movements take inordinate offense to the concept of civil unions and similar.
Nice one! Unable to refute my actual point, the dismissal of your laughable claim that his deferred salary was "a blind trust he had no idea about", you instead resort to accusing me of equating him to Darth Vader, being aware of the 9/11 plot, planning to invade Iraq.
Your powers of extrapolation are... astounding.
I'm fairly sure I didn't even claim that he had motivation or cause. Merely that he had financial ties that were still in place whilst he was holding press conferences stating that he had none.
Again, your powers of extrapolation.
As an aside, I love how you characterize the Office of the Vice President of the United States of America as merely a middling-salary public servant position. I guess the POTUS is merely a more highly paid public servant, too, right?
What was I trying to accomplish? I never mentioned anything excusing Obama. The parent tried to claim Cheney was being scapegoated, which is, I believe, a disingenuous position to take.
Slashdot Mirror
You should just have forked out the extra amount for the business package. I just had Comcast out today, upgrading my 8/1 connection to 50/10. 5 static IPs, no port blocking, no throttling.
You mean "the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"? Sorry, I couldn't resist.
You might have a better argument with knowledge. But no, you do not have a fundamental right to be entertained at someone else's expense. Sorry.
And you would know. You're fairly well traversed in the area of spin.
Exactly. I get sick of listening to Mac-heads laughing at the stupidity of Windows users installing Bonzi Buddy, because apparently Mac users have some genetic immunity to Bonzi Buddy for Mac (yes, I realize it doesn't exist, per se).
Hey, look, everyone, an Adobe employee shares his thoughts!
TECHNICALLY, under YOUR agreement with Mastercard, Visa, or Amex, NOT signing your card with your signature is a breach of your cardholder agreement. In fact (though granted, in practice rarely), Visa requires merchants who come across an unsigned / ASK FOR ID card are supposed to not finish the transaction until the card is signed. If you refuse to sign, at least up until recently, the last time I looked at a merchant contract, they're meant to retain your card (uh oh, you do remember the clause in your cardholder agreement that states that the card remains the property of the issuer, not you, right?).
Not good advice.
Just make sure you do it as a "discount for cash", not a "fee for CCs". The former, your merchant account is fine, the latter, you can be severely slapped. And by slapped I mean a fine levied by your merchant provider / revocation of your merchant facility.
But it is possible. :)
Not quite. The merchant agreement typically states that the merchant cannot use ID to validate the identity ONLY for card purchases. If they check ID for check purchases, too, they'd typically be free to do so. It's essentially "you cannot do anything that makes it more inconvenient to the customer to purchase via our card than via other methods".
Big hint: the insurance company isn't eating that $90 out of the goodness of its heart.
However, we don't have that. We have "insurance" which covers limitations on service, co-pays, scheduled/regular checkups (you're not insuring here, at all, you're amortizing known costs, and usually at a premium - if you think that the cost for said service is $x a year, you would be silly to believe that this constitutes $x/12 a month of your insurance bill - the insurer is providing you credit, and they ARE charging you for it. However, just try to remove that component...).
Say I have medical coverage for $500/month, that is materially identical in coverage to this new plan I'm considering, which is $480 a month (other than, obviously, the out of pocket expense). Say I'm being treated for an ongoing condition. Currently, if I change to this new provider, I get slapped with a waiting period. Why? Statistics and probability doesn't work like that. The insurer is having his cake and eating it too. The probability of my having that condition has not changed as a result of of my changing provider. Waiting periods should ONLY be applied where there is a DIFFERENCE in coverage, AND that condition is the specific condition being treated. (And even then, it's a gray area of 'known existing' conditions).
The whole thing is a farcical mess.
A lawyer is, first and foremost, an officer of the court. If the lawyer knows that his client committed an offense, and pleads not guilty, under most laws and bars, that would be grounds for sanctions, if not charges, "I swear under penalty of perjury that I believe the above to be true", and disbarrment - of course, you could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of lawyers who've been sanctioned for pleading not guilty for a client that they know to be guilty of the crimes as charged.
I've never met a baker, "a real baker", who didn't have a slicing machine, too.
For some of those other countries, the "local office" requirement was made at the behest of their banks, because they were scared that they'd lose the business of some of these companies when other countries introduced restrictions on the use of tax havens.
You'll notice that for many of these companies that supposedly do do business in those countries, the only address you'll find for them in the country will be, curiously enough, also the address for their lawyers in that country, or their accountants, and they'll only have one employee, who is actually "on part time secondment", curiously enough, from said lawyer or accountancy.
Which is, of course, why the waiting list for the Prius is currently at four months and growing, and yet there's no waiting list for a Chevy Silverado, etc?
So, in other words, you didn't actually read the report. Just skimmed through, and then immediately jumped on Slashdot to slap someone down. From said report:
They don't like to type it in. They get uppity, or their POS system does, and start wanting to verify your ID in case its a fraudulent card. Then they'll ask you to pay with an alternate method, and then they'll type in your card number.
Amazon have gone a little off the rails, to my mind... I used to feed them gluttonously. Purchases, Amazon Prime, spend hours honing my "recommendations".
Then my wife decided she'd buy me an Epson Stylus Photo R1800 for Christmas (great printer btw). What a travesty.
She signed up for an Amazon card. Approved with an initial limit of $400, or so. Fine. Pay the balance on a second card. Oh no, you can't do that. You'll have to buy a gift certificate. If we must, sure. All good, we think.
An hour later - "Your card has been declined". Uhh? You just issued me a card with a $400 limit, I charged $400 to it and it's declined?
On the phone to Amazon: sure enough, they put a $1 pre-auth on the card, so $399 is the balance. Are they able to do something about that in the interim, so I can get my Christmas present. "Oh no, you'll have to speak to the bank."
Uhh.
More screwing around on Chase's (Amazon Visa provider) part about doing something about it. End result, no can do. Fine.
Problem. Card charge still not going to be approved. We have to cancel order, on phone with Amazon support.
We then cannot re-order because the system has "forgotten" that we have an Amazon Visa card (you don't get access to the actual 16 digit number until you receive the physical card), but eventually someone works something out, is able to re-do things. We have to buy a SECOND gift card to cover this discrepancy, and in conjunction with the CSR , we re-order the printer. Yay.
Or not. An hour later, "Your card was declined." Manage to get through again, of course, another pre-auth. "Available balance: $398". Ye gods.
Back on the phone with Amazon (this was now the next day). We go to place the order with the CSR working through these issues on the phone. Problem. Item is coming from external merchant (seems like almost everything does these days, even books). When we placed the order? Shipping would be fine for Christmas. Now? Big warning: "Your product is unlikely to arrive until Dec 26 or later".
Gah.
Amazon CSR and CSR manager's helpful suggestion?
We, as the customer, not Amazon, email the merchant, and ask that they expedite shipping, at their expense, for an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with them, other than their choice of Amazon as an outlet for their products. Not that Amazon ask them, or cover the shipping upgrade themselves (they flat out refused that, though they acknowledged that the system in place a) did not account for the fact that someone might actually use their new account straight away, and b) that imperfections in the system caused us to spend two days trying to get this printer ordered through them).
So here I am, writing a humble email saying etc, etc, that it wasn't their fault, blah blah blah.
Of course, in the intervening time, the CSR has recreated the order, and I eventually get an email from the confused merchant who asks "I can't see your order in our system, why are you asking us to pay expedited shipping for a problem that isn't our fault, when you're not actually buying a printer from us?"
Amazon CSR had found another merchant who could deliver by Christmas and re-placed the order... but for the fact that that would be $40 more in shipping - not that they were intending to pay.
Long story short? I got the printer - and it is gorgeous - for Christmas, by Christms...
No thanks to Amazon, though.
Not if it intends to selectively offer benefits to people on the grounds of sexual orientation... they have a phrase for that...
Google providing compensation for federal and state issues to only LGBT employees would last a good hour or so before someone raced, rightly, to a lawyer and sued them for sexual discrimination (even if such discrimination was done in the "spirit" of equality).
And that in itself is part of the problem. Marriage is a concept within most religions, it is not a concept, nor a word, created by religions. It has existed since well before the time of the (typically Christian) religions that rail against it being anything other than a ceremony in a church, before a pastor and God, between a male virgin and female virgin. (Apropos of homosexuality, many religious movements take inordinate offense to the concept of civil unions and similar.
So it should for $200 extra. All that dye didn't come cheap, y'know.
Amongst many others, CBS News.
Your powers of extrapolation are... astounding.
I'm fairly sure I didn't even claim that he had motivation or cause. Merely that he had financial ties that were still in place whilst he was holding press conferences stating that he had none.
Again, your powers of extrapolation.
As an aside, I love how you characterize the Office of the Vice President of the United States of America as merely a middling-salary public servant position. I guess the POTUS is merely a more highly paid public servant, too, right?
Ye gods.
What was I trying to accomplish? I never mentioned anything excusing Obama. The parent tried to claim Cheney was being scapegoated, which is, I believe, a disingenuous position to take.