Author: Ultra Slacker

UPDATED

I received a phone call purporting from Barclaycard Fraud Department. The pre-recorded message was telling me that there was a suspicious transaction on my account. It then asked me to enter the full account number of my Barclaycard. There are no other options to talk to a person without entering the full 16-digit card number. It is really suspicious.

I knew immediately that it is a scam because I do not have a Barclaycard account.

I contacted Barclays and the representative confirmed that it is a known scam.

 

Updated on August 22, 2014

Important Phone Scam Alert

Recently, scammers claiming to be representatives of banks including Barclays and Barclaycard have been randomly calling people requesting personal information such as social security numbers and account numbers.

Some search results on 8556088509:

• Scam Phone Number 8556088509, Fake Barclays Card Fraud Dept. about a possible fraud on my card.
• www.whycall.me/855-608-8509.html
• 800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-855-608-8509

I managed to get a recording of the call.

Update:

The scammer had used different phone numbers in the past and will definitely use different phone numbers in the future. According to the representative from Barclays, customer had reported several different phone numbers in the past used for the scam.

Apple seeds OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 7 build 14A343f on Tuesday, September 2, 2014.

Based on the number of outstanding bugs in this build, OS X Yosemite is unlikely to be released before October 2014.

Monday, September 1, 2014 in Labor Day in The United States. It had been quite a long weekend but there’s no shortage of news.

Image courtesy of U.S. Department of Labor.

The most talked about news from this Labor Day Weekend is:

• Nude photos of celebrities were leaked on the Internet

As expected, speculations abound on how these photos were obtained. We should not jump to conclusion and spread misinformation.

I was at Los Cerritos Shopping Center on Sunday, August 31, 2014. My colleague told me that Microsoft is opening a store in that shopping center. After a quick investigation, I found the probable location for the upcoming Microsoft Store.

This store is located just a few hundreds yard from Apple Store which opened on June 24th, 2010 coinciding with the release of iPhone 4.

I stopped by Apple Store and asked some of the employees if they would jumped to Microsoft’s ship. They laughed.

I often judge an article by the way its headline was written. Compare the following headlines:

• Research shows that if you remove anonymity, you won’t hear from most of your readers

• SURVEY CONFIRMS: MOST TROLLS WOULD SHUT UP IF FORCED TO USE THEIR REAL IDENTITIES

The first headline sounds intelligent and interesting.
The second headline sounds sensationalistic and negative. The ALL CAPS on headline does not look appealing either.

The first headline is from a post at GigaOM and the second is from Fast Company.

From my observations, sites like Fast Company, VentureBeat, RedWrite, The Next Web and Mashable are in the same league; with link-baity headlines, logic-impaired and often non-factual.

Another examples of headlines:

• Apple finds some iPhone 5 units have battery problems, opens replacement program (9to5Mac)
• Apple is Replacing Some iPhone 5 Batteries for Free (The Next Web)
• Apple’s new replacement program will fix the bad battery in your iPhone 5 (Cult of Mac)

One of these headlines is unlike the other.

From Time’s article:

The bill will head next to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. If enacted, it would make colleges adopt a student conduct policy requiring “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity,” as a condition for state funding. The bill defines consent to sex as the presence of a “yes” rather than the absence of a “no,” a cultural shift that victim’s groups have long advocated.

How do you proof the presence of a “yes” when it could easily become “his words against her words” case.

I guess we need a notarized love contract.