TELECOM Digest Editor, commenting on the spam from Customer Service
wrote:
> ... that is the age and quality of the mailing lists these spammers
> often times use.
Not only spammers.
My father died many years. I occassionally today get junk mail
addressed to him -- at my present address. He never lived there and
at the time he died I was still living at home with him.
The databanks do a mix 'n match in hopes of making a connection.
The City of Phila Parking Authority got into hot water recently for
mailing dunning notices for unpaid parking tickets 15 years old. The
recipients were people who never were in Phila nor owned the car. The
collection agency did a match search on names nationally. Obviously a
lot of errors came up. This made the newspapers and didn't help the
poor reputation of the Parking Authority. Sure, one could fight the
dunning letter but at considerable cost in time and money. I know one
victim is just sending in a check.
This kind of database matching is scary.
Can anybody out there defend this sort of thing?
[public replies please]
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lisa, I am wondering if City of Phila
Parking Authority are as full of snot as the people who run the
various 'Authorities' (we used to call them 'Atocities' in Chicago;
i.e. the Chicago Transit Atrocity, the Chicago Housing Atrocity, etc.)?
I do know the people who handle the parking meters in Chicago (when
they are not busy ripping them off for the handful of loot inside
then they are hassling the people whose license numbers they purportedly
copied down [oftentimes incorrectly] to pay fines, etc) can be down-
right vicious in their ignorance. Letters from City of Chicago will
show up in the mail hundreds of miles away to people who have never
been in Chicago in their lives, telling them to pay a one hundred
dollar fine for a parking meter violation. The people insist they
have never been in Chicago, no one had permission to drive their
car in Chicago, and they do not know how they came to be associated
with a parking ticket from Chicago. The parking people sass at them,
warning them 'if you force us to take this to court the present
$100 fine will triple and if you do not show up in court on X day
at X hour, your car will be listed on a national registry to get
impounded.' 'Just make it easy on yourself [read as lazy us] and
send in your check and don't get any smart ideas about stopping
payment on the check.' Lisa, those people are truly vicious. What
about where you live? PAT]
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com