OT: Chest freezer cycle times and noises

privileges

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Greendot credit card in the US. A $3 a month fee for a prepaid credit card. They can't get a penny more than the card has on account. It's not linked to any other account, unless you are foolish enough to use direct deposit from a paycheck or pension.

WalMart is one place to get one, and they are are issued by GE Financial.

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If they think such "thinking" is going to fly in court they'd land in hot water soon. Counsel will ask them to furnish the signed paper where the client authorized this. At that point their counsel will likely advise to settle, and fast. I don't think a reputable bank would be this crazy.

Can you back this up with a reputable link? I can demand a scan of any check from my bank. It's no longer a free service but in a dispute I'd be willing to invest a few Dollars and they have to produce it. "Oh, your honor, ahm, well, it, how shall I say, well, we can't find it ...", I don't think that flies.

I agree with you, although note that up until the banking reform laws of last year, many a bank would automatically provide you the "service" of allowing an overdraft... just hitting you up with hefty fees for this "convenience" in the process.

Obviously this was seen primarily as a major profit center by the banks and had little to do with providing superior customer service.

These days one needs to specifically authorize (sign up for) such a program. Around the time those new laws were going into effect, we must have received at least 3 or 4 solicitations to sign up for their "helpful" program! Sheesh!

---Joel

We watch out that there will be no overdraft. Never had one so far. Occasionally our bank charges wire fees that I find a bit too steep. The level of such fees seems to be rather arbitrary. So, occasionally I complain and then they refund. Wire fees are one reason why our banking system is still so archaic, with mailed checks and all that.

Ah, gotcha. Hmm... any chance you could use something like an Ooma? Depending on where you are, they're only a couple bucks or so a month for the "basic" package, which includes caller ID. (For $10/month more, you get their "premier" service that has enhanced caller ID, multiple lines, on-line voicemail access, built-in call blocking [rather than needing a separate box], and lots of other goodies...)

---Joel

Until the Internet connection goes down ;-)

How is your call quality experience? Several of my clients have switched to VoIP lately and the results were not always so great. Dropped snippets in the conversation, odd delay fluctuations and sometimes I can hear everything ok but they complain about loud echoes. Hanging up and re-dialing often helps. Sometimes not and there have been cases where their engineer called me back on the cell. Somehow this never happens with POTS, except very occasionally on overseas calls to locations out in the boonies.

Then there is this deal to call Europe at 1-2c/min but that has only become possible a few years ago, used to be 10c and gradulally inching up until we told our telco to zip it.

True, although we have a DSL connection, and so far the two come and go together anyway!

It's been really good; my wife (the primary user) would never go back to a regular landline. The Ooma guys have many a leased link around the country, so while there's still some unknown variability in the quality of the Internet connection between your house to one of their hubs (there definitely are some people who have a problem with it), it's not as much of a potshot as some the systems that have few (or even just one) hub that connects to the PSTN.

I use a calling card from OneSuite.Com for that -- all of two cents a minute to my mother in New Zealand. :-) There one definitely does have to deal with the occasional call that doesn't go through or is dropped or whatever, but at that price it's worth it.

---Joel

That sounds pretty good. I have noticed the poor audio quality on some Skype calls. Also on an Internet meeting service where we then just used regular POTS to get around the audio issues.

Interesting. I just looked up US to Germany. 4c/min using a toll free number. Ok, but much more than we pay now. "Local" it's only 2c/min but I can't imagine them having a local dial-in node in this area. So I wonder how that works.

The landline still works when the power is out. I just finished rebooting and resetting things after yet another power outage. If I needed to call to report it, Ooma, Magic Jack or any other VOIP service wouldn't be available. I have Skype and Magic Jack, which are OK when they work.

My best guess is that 530-683-0002 might be local to you? They have a page here:

Neither Ooma nor our cell phones have long-distance charges, so I just dial the "local" number up in Portland.

---Joel

When we were first moving to the desert, we only had our vonage lines going over the cable modem. The quality was terrible, with dropouts and broken calls that we finally tracked to the cable companies local servers and network equipment. They had no QoS features at all, and frequently just quit responding to requests for a couple of seconds every so often. We went to DSL just to get rid of them, but also got a hardwire phoneline at the same time.

They said they were going to fix the problem when they started offering their own internet phones, but we couldn't wait that long!

Charlie

In my paranoia, I have all the network equipment on my UPS here in the office...

Charlie

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Sure, you can sue them. How much is it going to cost? *MAYBE* you'll win, but what are your damages? What's your time worth?

Sure they'll settle, for your actual damages. What, $25? ...that *they* charged you? Meanwhile, you're putting up with a major PITA.

The fact is the system makes it possible to do this and you really do have no recourse.

With a check? Sure. That's what they do. (It was a CU, BTW). The fact is that it wasn't the bank's fault. The draft was submitted twice. THAT'S MY WHOLE POINT. There is *nothing* that protects you from this. If it were fraud, I'd be looking for the culprit. *I* would be out the money until the bank decided to replace it. With a credit card, I'm out nothing.

Have you learned anything yet?

I KNEW THAT, DUMMY! You're the idiot who never figured that out, so turn your debit card numbers over to any Tom.

Good God, you're stupid! I take it back, you've sunk below Slowman. Didn't think that was possible.

Our Ooma, the Ethernet switch, the file server, etc. are on a UPS... but unfortunately the telco's DSlams aren't: When the lights go out, so does the Internet! :-(

Hey, you mentioned some days back that you're working on products to sell, given as how unemployment insurance doesn't last forever :-) -- is that the color reader widget, or do you have other goodies in development as well?

---Joel

ones

"Check 21"

Yes, they submit a digital copy of the "check". I doubt your bank looks at the bits to see if they're yours, though. The routing numbers do all the work. The entire banking system was based on trust between banks. Check

Sure, your bank is eventually responsible for any fraud. Eventually.

ones

Sorry, I got interrupted and forgot to finish...

Check-21 expands that trust to merchants (pretty much everyone else). As the dummy OP discovered, they can't always be trusted. It was always possible to get around the checking system but Check-21 makes fraud so much more efficient. ;-)

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privileges,

They're *ridiculously* expensive. It costs something like $5 +1% just to put money on the damned things. I used then a few years ago for Internet transactions where I didn't completely trust the company I was dealing with (eBay, anyone?).